You’re an actor in the middle of a key scene, and you need speak your lines, hit your mark, and project just the right amount of emotion. How can you do that with a huge camera right in your face?
Wouldn’t you be tempted to at least glance over at the lens that is trained on you? Acting for the camera requires a specific set of skills, and Saints are learning those skills directly from a star of one on TV’s hottest drama series.
Kelley Curran is known to fans of HBO’s The Gilded Age as the ambitious lady’s maid Turner, who marries brilliantly and transforms herself into Mrs. Enid Winterton, a society force to be reckoned with. Curran is now sharing her craft with 15 Siena theatre students in her newly developed Acting for the Camera class.
Her course teaches the fundamentals of acting on camera to young actors who are more used to performing on stage in front of a live audience. That’s a whole different level of calibration for their voices, facial expressions and body movements. Same skill set, said Curran, but different tools.
Her course teaches the fundamentals of acting on camera to young actors who are more used to performing on stage in front of a live audience. That’s a whole different level of calibration for their voices, facial expressions and body movements. Same skill set, said Curran, but different tools.
“I think the best thing I can do as their teacher is give them a safe space where they can be unself-conscious and remove any inhibitions about being seen, so they focus on their craft,” said Curran. “The students have been very kind and generous with each other as they critique their work and I’ve been really impressed and thrilled with their expressiveness and vulnerability.”
Actors on set don’t get a free pass for as many takes as they want simply because there’s no audience on hand.
“The pressures on a film set are there. There’s a lot of labor and time involved with acting in TV and film,” she explained. “It can be very expensive to lose time if an actor is unprepared, and they risk becoming a person who is seen as unreliable.”
In addition to acting-on-camera skills, Curran is also teaching her students the vocabulary and process of acting on set, and how to commit to a character. In addition to solo and partner scenes, the whole class is working on an extended continuous shot scene without cuts that will showcase their ensemble skills.
What are the class reviews from the students?
Fun facts: this isn’t Curran’s first time at Siena. She attended the Saints’ summer volleyball camp when she was a student at Bethlehem High School, and while her parents are not alumni, they did share their first kiss at Siena when her dad played a rugby match here.
“I love being in this class for so many reasons. It’s a phenomenal 10/10,” said Cassidy-Maye Hogg ’29. “Kelley Curran does an amazing job at engaging us in the material and introducing us to what it’s like working on camera. This is my first time taking any acting class, but it single-handedly is the reason I may minor in Creative Arts.”
Isabella Scavo ’26 shared that Curran stressed on the very first day that she is committed to the role of teacher as much as any acting role.
“She’s proven that to us every single day by coming in with energy and excitement,” said Scavo. “I think I can speak for all of us when I say I'm going to miss this class when it ends!”
James Kelly ’26 said Acting for the Camera has forced him to grow as an actor and as a person.
“To be in front of the camera is to be in front of, as Professor Curran calls it, the world’s greatest BS detector,” he said. “The class taught me ways to access my true experience and feelings to present an emotional reality under imaginary circumstances.”
