Devin Kelley in 'Resurrection'. Photo by Guy D'Alema.

She is currently starring as Dr. Maggie Langston in the new ABC drama series 'Resurrection' and as Maddy in 'different words for the same thing' at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

Savannah L. Barker, Neon Tommy: What is it like being part of a world premier show and originating the part of Maddy in “different words for the same thing?”

Devin Kelley: It was really exciting. It’s a bit scary, especially since Maddy is a part that’s a bit elusive as it is, but Kimber and Neel and I were coming up with rules for Maddy as we went along. Can she touch things? Can she not? How involved is she in the real world? Can Maddy have feelings? Where are we and what is this person? It was just so great to have a collaboration with Neel and Kimber, we all just threw our ideas in the pot and things shifted as time moved on. We were like, "Oh great! Maybe she can feel but she can’t do this or that…” so it was great to know that we were all building something together as a whole. I remember when we did our first table read and we started reading through it for the first time, it was just like “Oh my gosh, that person is this character.” Every person was just cast so perfectly because Kimber wrote such specific, detailed, real words. They feel like real humans talking, like people you would know. I grew up in the mid-west, and I was like "I know these people, I know how this works". And I think we all really bound together and felt like we’re creating this for the first time together, there’s no precedent, and we get to build whatever we want this to be and the best part is having Kimber, the playwright, with us.  

NT: How involved was Kimber Lee in the rehearsal process, and how much did the play evolve from your first table read to opening night, depending on how the actors were approaching their characters, how much collaboration was there?

DK: She [Kimber] first off, she’s just a lovely human being. She’s such a wonderful person to be around, and then in terms of working with her, it’s just a dream. Her and Neel have such a wonderful, beautiful working relationship. They really bounce off of each other very well, there is no ego, there’s no power struggle, it was really one hundred percent a collaboration. And they are always open to ideas, always open to new thoughts, and even if one of us came up with something that was totally off base and not what Kimber imagined, we’d play it out and it’d be like “alright, we got that out of our system, we tried something different, but let’s get back to here”. Kimber was very specific with the way that she wrote, it’s so detailed and if you’ve seen the script, every pause, every beat, every “uh” “ooh” “ah” is written in the script, so she was just there as a gentle reminder, like “remember if you use the words, you won’t need to do much” which was really freeing. Freeing to have her there and be supportive and also be like “these are my words, that’s all you need to do”. They reaffirmed that we were all cast because there’s something in each of us that really resonated with the character and what she wrote, what she was imaging when she wrote the characters. It was like, “You already have it in you, and now you can just say the words and it’s there”.

NT: What is it about this project, “different words” specifically, that caught your interest and made you say “I want to be a part of this”.

DK: Well I’ve wanted to do a play for a really long time, first of all, and I’m on hiatus right now, so my manager, my agent, knew that I wanted to do a play and this just plopped into my manager’s lap and it’s almost cosmic how everything worked out so perfectly. The timeline, that there is a play at a theater that I respect and love and have wanted to work with since I moved out here to go to USC, and the fact that there’s even a part in it for me. I mean, there really isn’t a ton for 20-something girls in theater, so all of those pieces fell into place, and it was just too… there was something about it that felt predetermined from the beginning, that this is meant to be, and I read it and I just couldn’t believe it because there’s nothing worse than getting so excited, like “Ooh, there’s this play, and the time would work out, and there’s a part for me in it, it’s so great!” and then reading it and being like “Oh man, I don’t want to do it.” It’s so much better to be like “I hope they want me” and that’s exactly what it was, I read it and I just thought, “I have to have this”, there’s something about Maddy that I understood, that I got, and this play is just so felt and it tugs at your heartstrings without being emotionally manipulative. It’s just subtle and so profound in a very realistic, everyday American way… I just wanted to sink my teeth into it and luckily they grasped onto whatever I threw against the wall during my audition.

NT: So “different words” has a huge cast of 12 people, and it felt like this huge cast really helped to establish the kind of community that Kimber was trying to create. What kind of community did you and the actors form offstage that you think might have helped build that sense of community onstage. It was easy to pick up on the sense that all of the actors really cared about each other which ultimately showed through the work.

DK: Our cast kind of became a microcosm of the town that Kimber wrote about in a weird way, like we all love each other so much, we’re all very very different as are the characters in the play, but we all exists together and function together and there’s a deep, deep appreciation for what every single person brings to the table. Everyone loves the play so much and everyone is so good in the play that we have a common goal, a common thread between us, and we’re all working towards the same goal, so we’re a unit, we’re a collective unit. Plus everyone just makes me laugh so hard, we just have the best time, like during tech when, you know, we’re sitting in the theater for 12 hours a day for 2 weeks, you can go into crazy town, and we all did, we all went a little bananas, but we had each other, it was like were were brothers in arms, like we’re all getting through this together. Like Monica Horan, who plays Dottie, makes me laugh no matter what she does. Half the time she’s just sitting and staring, and I laugh because she’s just so funny. Everyone is so open and loving and proud about the work and excited about the work and we’re all happy to be there, so we’re all happy to be around each other. It makes a difference, there isn’t that bad apple, it’s just positivity across the board and I think that’s a trickle down from Neel and Kimber. They really set the tone, they’re the captains of our ship, and they’re the easiest, most lovely people to work with, so there’s never really been a feeling of anxiety or competition or stress or anything, this whole process, which could be very stressful, I mean there’s 12 people to navigate, a lot of set pieces, and it’s a very unique vision, and that could have been really stressful, but there’s never been one irk, nothing, everything has just been cake.

NT: It seemed like food played a really huge role in “different words”, between the donuts, the green Jell-O, and Alice cooking her birthday dinner in the end, did Kimber and Neel ever talk about the significance of food with the cast?

DK: Absolutely. Kind of going back to your previous question, after our first rehearsal and our first table read, Neel took all of us out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant similar to El Charro, so we all had our first meal together as a family, all these tables pushed together, a lot like the final scene in the play. I think Kimber incorporated food and smells and all those things because so much of family is centered around food and events are centered around food, and at the funeral, she, Maddy, talks about how at funerals people always talk about food because it’s a comfort, it’s something that people can turn to when times are great, when times are bad, and it brings people together. And the food in the play is also very specific to this part of America, you know donuts and Jell-O, it’s all very Americana. I love that a huge part of the set is the donut shop, and it’s not something that’s trendy and cool, just good old American sprinkle donuts. Nothing, there’s nothing really… Nampa is really no frills, it’s very grounded and these people just like to have their green bean salad or whatever. I love that Alice ties her ethnicity into the food, which is the big point of contention, or it’s just foreign to Marta and Henry and Dottie who grew up there… there’s Korean food and there’s Mexican food and it’s tying all these cultures together. Food ties cultures together and there are clearly at least three or four different cultures that are being represented in the play.

NT: Yes I thought the use of food in “different words” was very interesting and the fact that the audience could actually smell the food in the theater had such a surprisingly profound effect. It’s something that’s not done a lot, you don’t usually see people cooking real food on stage.

DK: Exactly! And Kimber and I talked a lot about smell because Maddy has this thing with smells, and when they were cooking they’re talking about the smells and making the audience feel like they’re a part of it. Smell is such a powerful sense, it can trigger you back to a place in a second, and it’s involuntary, you can’t control what you smell and what you don’t smell, so there’s something really powerful in how smell can take you over, and that was what they were going for in the end scene, the smell of the noodles and everything should take over. It’s the big payoff in the end, that everyone is coming together and they want you to feel like you’re right there with the characters and the community.

NT: So between your recurring role on 'Resurrection', doing 8 shows a week for “different words”, and any other projects that you may have going on, how do you juggle it all and stay sane and healthy? What is the busy life of a working actor like?

DK: First of all, it’s fantastic, I couldn’t be happier. I haven’t done a play since I went to the Williamstown Theatre Festival after college, so it’s been a while, but I’m just so happy to be working. I would never sleep again if it meant that I could just keep going, because I’ve wanted to do this my whole life and there’s always that little part of me that’s like “Oh god, what if I don’t get to become an actor, what if I don’t get to do this?” and so now that it’s happening, and I get to do it all the time, I’m just so thankful and I’ll keep taking whatever comes my way like “Thank you, thank you, thank you, more please!” Really it just worked out perfectly because 'Resurrection' ended and then pretty soon thereafter this play came along, I rehearsed this play and then this is going to end and I’m going to have a little bit of time before I go back to Atlanta to film 'Resurrection'. So I’ve had a lot of time to travel, I’ve been to Mexico a couple times, and I do yoga everyday, that’s the thing that keeps me going. No matter what, like if we have 12 hours of tech, if we have 2 shows a day, I have to get a class in because it just makes everything easier for me, body and mind. If I have that hour, hour and a half, on my mat with just some quite time, I’m good and I can do however many shows a day and I’m happy. There’s some days, a day or two, where class got missed and those rehearsals were a bit more challenging. I get a little antsy, like a little five year old like, “Can we run around outside?” I’m anxious.

NT: You have obviously had a lot of success since graduating from USC, what advice would you give to the USC seniors who just graduated in terms of getting their acting careers started?

DK: Oh gosh I have so many thoughts. You do have to play the game, you know, you have to get an agent, you have to go on commercial auditions or auditions that you maybe don’t want to go on, that is an inevitability. But take that and also just do what makes you happy, do what you love, if there’s a funny sketch that you want to film with your friends, go do it, or if you like taking improv classes, go do it, write, read, whatever fills your tank, do that, because it’s just going to make all the other stuff more bearable... the hoops that you have to jump through in terms of the business. You’re going to be better at what you ultimately want to pursue if you are personally fulfilled. So filming things or writing things or whatever, putting up plays on your own, it’s so easy to do. The best thing about graduating from USC is that it’s a built-in community. You graduate, and if you stay here you have a world around you where you have the film school, the theater school, you have that Trojan community to call upon. And another thing, in terms of auditioning, something that I wish I would’ve embraced right off the bat: walk in like you already have the job. I always acted like they had all the power, they being the casting directors or the producers, like “Oh god, I hope I’m good enough for them, oh please like me!” when really it’s the opposite. If you go in there like “this is how I would do it, this is who I am, take it or leave it” there’s something that’s really powerful about that and no one wants a needy person, so just go in and just do what you think is right and then leave and go spend your day the way you actually want to spend it, that’s all you can do.

NT: Absolutely! Well on to my next question, after graduating, a lot of acting students struggle with choosing between going to New York or staying in Los Angeles. Why did you choose to stay in Los Angeles?

DK: That’s a good question, and I struggled with the New York versus Los Angeles situation as well. But ultimately, I decided to stay in L.A. because I spent 4 years building a community here, and you build a second family. I moved out here from Minnesota so my friends at USC became my second family, and it just felt counterproductive to spend all this time and energy building that here and then graduating and jetting across the country and doing it all over again. On the flip side, I have friends who were in my class in school who moved to New York, and they’re doing great and it’s because I think ultimately New York fit them better personality-wise, so they’re just overall happier. But I was happy in L.A., so why change just for the sake of change? And luckily I’ve been able to work in New York a bit, so I’ve kind of gotten the best of both worlds, but really L.A. is my home. There’s something so great about knowing you have a collection of people that have known you from pretty much square one, and we’ve all grown up together. I like having that security blanket.

NT: Alright, now this question is more personal to me, but I am a huge fan of horror films and I saw you in 'Chernobyl Diaries'. What was it like filming a scary movie?   

DK: (Laughs) Horrifying! I don’t like horror films, that is not my thing, I generally just avoid them because I’m scared of being scared, I’m that person. But you know, I finished a show and this movie came along and I was like "alright!", and I got the part, and I really didn’t put that much thought into what filming a horror movie would actually be like. We filmed in Serbia and Hungary, and a teeny tiny bit in London, but mostly Serbia and Hungary. I mean, I really didn’t have to act that much, I was pretty much just scared the whole time, and I felt like I became a vampire because we were filming at night so we’d wrap at six o’clock in the morning and I’d go back to my hotel room just like covered in blood and just horrified. I mean, I slept with the bathroom light on, like I regressed to a five year old. It was really scary. And I was so out of my comfort zone, and alone and in a foreign country and not many people spoke English, so that alone is very isolating, on top of running in caves and tunnels. Everything about it was just disorienting. I was just totally thrown off, and you know how you feel when you’re watching a horror movie for two hours? Well I lived that for a month or two or however long it was. When I got back to L.A. there was like something, something died inside of me, like the light went out of my eyes, I was just kind of paranoid! I was just used to being on guard for a month or so and getting back here I was like, "I just need to curl up in a ball and just sleep until I get my old self back. It’ll grow back right?"

NT: Wow, that sounds like quite the experience!

DK: Yea, like post-traumatic stress disorder!

NT: Alright, so you’ve worked in film, television, and theater. Do you have any preference between the different mediums, or do they all satisfy a different passion of yours?

DK: Yea, they all fill a different love, a different space. Like I said earlier, I’m just so happy to be working in general and whatever the medium is, if the material is good, I’m on board and I’m happy and I’m excited to do it. I will say that it has been really challenging to be in theater again. I’ve never done a professional play, so this is the first 8 shows a week and rehearsing all day every day sort of thing for me. It’s really been a big lesson in stamina and focus. In TV everything moves so much slower and when you're done, you get to go back to your trailer and hang out and have a snack and chat and have another coffee, so the rehearsal process of theater is a lot more grueling in a wonderful way. Then doing the play every night, you only get one shot and so if you screw it up there’s —I mean this is being captain obvious— but there’s such an immediacy to theater. You know right off the bat if the audience is on the road with you or if they’re not, and both are very very apparent. In TV and film they’re more isolated, you’re kind of working within your bubble and it might not come out until year later or whatever, but there’s something so tangible and exciting and scary about theater that it provides a different rush than film and TV do because you’re basically walking out there naked and going “Alright! I hope you dig it!” I, without fail, every time before I walk on stage I am certain that I don’t know a single line. I just go, "Oh well, I don’t know anything, it’s all gone out of my brain" and then when I turn to speak, all the sudden it floods out. There’s just, there are a lot more nerves and adrenaline associated with theater which is great and really really scary and some nights feel really good and some nights feel really terrible, but the best part is you get to, if something didn’t work, you get to do it again tomorrow. TV and film are so fragmented, you know, you’re doing a scene from page 94 today and then tomorrow you’re going to do a scene from page 20. It’s all very disconnected and it’s so great to be able to have one cohesive story every single night. It’s really fulfilling, you get the beginning, the middle, the catharsis, the end, all of it, and you feel a sense of completion at the end. Where as sometimes in TV you’re like “Wait, what? What just happened? Who am I right now? I’m wearing the wrong pants aren’t I?”

NT: How well do you feel the USC BFA Acting program prepared you for the realities of being a working actor and this business, because I know that is something that a lot of students are always asking themselves. As in, is what I’m learning applicable to what really goes on our there?

DK: I have a lot of very specific thoughts about that, and I think the program has changed a lot since I graduated. I think the dean and a lot of the teachers and alum coming back made a really big effort to prepare the students because I think a lot of us didn’t feel prepared. So rather than just moving on from USC, I think a lot of people have tried to give back, and go “Okay, here is what I felt was lacking and how can I pay it forward?” My friend Patrick Adams started something called Stage Door, it’s a Facebook group, and it’s a place for alums to post their experiences, stories, whatever we can. We answer questions, do talk backs, that kind of thing. I just felt like USC is...Hollywood, it’s like 15 minutes away, and it felt like worlds away. I think it’s very important to learn technique, all of that stuff is so valuable, obviously I’m using it right now, but I think there are really basic business things that I didn’t know when I graduated, and it sort of seemed like the school should have been responsible for that. I think more time should that been devoted to doing audition classes, like what you’re actually going to be doing when you graduate. It’s great to have, you know, a Sam Shepherd monologue in your back pocket, that’s valuable in some way, shape, or form, but really, you should probably know how to read audition sides for “The Good Wife” or “Big Bang Theory” or something like that. I didn’t know how to audition for a sitcom, which is a very specific type of acting, and USC didn’t prepare that so that was a bit unfortunate. But the whole experience of USC as a whole, and just being able to act all day everyday and creating a community of actors, that’s invaluable. You can learn how to do an audition scene, that’s easy, it’s the whole four year experience that USC provided, of being in a place that nurtured artists, was more important than, you know, what kind of headshot you're using. But I also believe you can only go so far in a classroom and the majority of what you need to know, you’ll just figure out at work. I mean, how is a teacher going to help you practice really hitting your mark for this specific camera... they’re all isolated, specific incidents. You can’t be prepared for every single contingency. So really it’s just about getting out there, on set and working. I’m an advocate for doing background work or being a stand in or being a PA, just doing anything you possibly can do to be on set and to get familiar with that world. My first time on set I had no idea what I was doing, I was like “Whats a mark? Where’s the camera? What’s that? Who’s that? Why is he putting a microphone on the back of my pants? What’s going on?” So USC can’t really teach you that, you just have to work and figure it out. And the great thing is, everyone has been there before, and so everyone, normally, or the experiences that I had at least, the people who had worked before on my first job were so sweet, like “This is your first time? Here, let me show you the ropes.” They were always happy to nurture a young artist who is, you know, looking like they’re going to throw up because they’re so nervous on their first day.

NT: If you could go back and tell your USC freshman self one thing, what would it be?

DK: Don’t eat marshmallows by the bag, first of all! I used to sit in my dorm, and I would eat entire bags of marshmallows! I was just like pouring chemicals into my system, so don’t do that, that’s just not helping anyone, I know you’re sad and you’re homesick, but put the marshmallows down. But seriously, I'd just say “You’re going to be fine, it’s going to be fine” and “just because you care, doesn’t mean you have to worry about it.” I just worried about so many things. You’re in college, this is great, mom and dad will support you and bail you out of jail no matter what, so enjoy it! We have the rest of our lives to work or audition or do whatever it is you want to do, and you only get four years in college, so why muddy it up with “if this happens, then that, and what if? and oh no!” worrying about petty things. I kind of wish I would’ve just been like, alright I have four years to do everything that I absolutely want to do here, eat it up! And I did eat it up, I had a great time, but if I took a little bit of the worry out, it could have been even better.

NT: So what is next for you, what projects do you have coming up?

DK: Next I go back to filming season 2 of 'Ressurection', so the play ends and I have about a month. I’m going to travel a little bit, and then I move back to Atlanta and I shoot the second season, and that’s that!

NT: And lastly, Trojan to Trojan, can I get a “Fight On!”

DK: Fight On!

"different words for the same thing" is playing at the Kirk Douglas Theatre (9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City) through June 1. More information can be found at CenterTheatreGroup.org.