Kennedy Martin speaks on time at Chapman, advice, future endeavors

Photo by Matt Kalish

When Kennedy Martin graduated, it wasn’t exactly the experience she expected. 

The class of 2020 screen acting alum graduated in the midst of the pandemic, and, as such, didn’t exactly find the “showcase” she’d been expecting. She took to producing her own work for her demo reel, additionally working on projects for her friends and enjoying the work. After working on short films and building up a good rapport and demeanor across her work ethic, she made the jump to producing her first feature. 

Perhaps her work ethic was indicative of her advice to Chapman students. Martin advised students to “make their own work,” and her work ethic reflects the second half of her advice: “make your own opportunities.” 

“I would just say make your own opportunities,” she said. “Especially having graduated during the pandemic, and then there was the writer’s strike and the actor’s strike, that’s really all you could do. There’s just not a lot happening, especially when you are an actor who didn’t grow up in LA and doesn’t have a lot of credits, so I would say make your own opportunities.” 

The Panther sat down with Martin to discuss her career, her time at Chapman and her latest projects. She started acting at age seven in community theater, following time taking dance classes and working as a child model with her mom. She participated in her first Equity theater production at age nine, and her community theater involvement spanned throughout her adolescence. Martin took on roles in “Once Upon a Shoe,” “The Sound of Music” and “Peter Pan,” portraying Wendy in what she named as one of her favorite roles. 

Her interests in film and television developed around her time in high school. 

“...I had started to drive to Chicago to do student films at Columbia College… and had done a couple of small, low-budget features in the Midwest,” Martin told The Panther. “When I got that experience of getting to be on a film set, I loved how much you get to play, how you get to do multiple takes and get to try things many different ways, whereas in theater, you do each scene once.” 

Initially, her chosen industry wasn’t one she’d imagined embarking down.  

“I think growing up in Indiana, there were not a lot of opportunities in the film industry there. Our closest market was Chicago, and that market has really boomed much more so probably in the last five or six years,” she said. “There just weren’t a lot of opportunities and I didn’t even really know or think of that as an option at that point.” 

When it came to choosing a college, Chapman came onto the actor’s radar as one in a group of Southern California colleges being toured by herself and others in a college tour group. She was enamored with our university, including its sound stages and screen acting program. 

“I think the great thing about the screen acting program is you’re taking classes in the theater department and you’re getting this really solid, amazing foundation doing work from great plays, learning different methodologies, but then you’re also really getting to collaborate with other students who are making films and you’re getting all these opportunities to be on set,” Martin said. 

She continued: “I think just that experience of getting to have that really strong foundation and then also getting to apply it on set, and then the screen acting classes really bridge that gap, especially because acting for film and TV is very technical at times and you really have to understand what the camera is seeing and the directions that the director’s giving you.” 

One of Martin’s latest projects is the Lifetime film “Who’s Stalking My Family?” shot in approximately 14 days in Atlanta.

“I grew up watching Lifetime movies, so whenever I get an audition for one I was always excited about the possibility of working on something like that,” Martin said. “I think it’s a great stepping stone towards hopefully doing more network TV and maybe box office pictures.” 

“Who’s Stalking My Family?” served as the precursor to the aforementioned upcoming feature project Martin produced as its sole producer. Currently titled “Blood Yolk,” the upcoming film is a thriller focusing on a woman investigating the disappearance of her mother. 

Martin is learning the trade of producing with each project. 

“I think it also helps that at Chapman you take the writing classes and you take the editing classes and the visual storytelling classes,” she said. “There are all these classes that even though I didn’t take any producing classes, I at least can speak about the different areas of filmmaking to some degree. I think that as a producer… you don’t have to be master of all areas but you definitely need to be able to have a good understanding of each area.”