Kiera Allen Is The 'Stealth Nerd' And Run Star Decimating Disability Tropes

By Annie Zaleski


As soon as actors are just breaking into the film industry, their first movie roles might be minor — as an example, uncredited appearances or characters with just several lines. Yet, Kiera Allen is launching her career in a major way: by making her feature film debut opposite Sarah Paulson, that’s how major.


In Run, a new thriller that premiered November 20 by way of the Hulu, the 22-year-old portrays Chloe, a whip-smart high school senior who's eagerly awaiting news of college acceptance letters while attending class virtually, presumably because she has a few health conditions, including hemochromatosis (where iron levels are elevated, causing indications like nausea) and asthma.


Her mom Diane (Paulson) seems cooperative of her daughter and her ambitions at first. Nevertheless, Chloe soon discovers that Diane's overprotective tendencies — barring the teen from having a smartphone, grabbing the mail before she can look for college letters — obscure sinister motivations. As this caring façade falls away and reveals a much uglier side, Chloe learns unexpected facts about her life and is thrust through a number terrifying ordeals, all of the way through to the film's surprise twist ending.


Run is the second feature from director Aneesh Chaganty, whose 2018 film Searching won the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. (Chaganty also co-wrote Run with his Searching co-writer Sev Ohanian.) In it, the bulk of Allen's scenes are one-on-ones with Paulson, leading to intimate, often harrowing moments that generate tension and up the suspense.


"She's so incredible," Allen tells MTV News of working with Paulson. "And she's also just a generous actor in that, even as soon as the camera isn't on her, she gave it her all every time. She played it completely, so I would have something to react against. Even if it meant that she was literally crying for six hours straight. She would do that for me; she would go through that intense emotional experience, although maybe half of it would never be seen on camera."


At the begin of a virtual junket for Run on a Saturday afternoon in mid-November, Allen reveals her 30-minute chat with MTV News is her first junket interview ever. You wouldn't know that from the conversation, which is lively and insightful, touching on her love of music ("Billy Joel is one of my main go to writers of all time of any kinds of writers — fiction, nonfiction, music. I just think he's the most perfect lyricist and has such a gift for melody") and her vast variety of Harry Potter-themed socks, which she cherishes in no small part because they were given to her by companions and family member. ("They make me happy to wear them. And also you could also be a stealth nerd once you're wearing Harry Potter socks," the self-proclaimed Gryffindor says.)


Growing up in New York, Allen habitually loved theater and films, and she acted in local and school productions. Her mom is a writer, and she also gravitated toward the power of the pen. "Basically, As soon as I noticed out that there were professional storytellers Whenever I was in elementary school, I was like, 'Oh, that's it. That's it for me. I'm never going back.' And I never did. It was never one over the other. It was habitually acting and writing. To me, they really come from the same core, the same place of wanting to tell stories."


Fittingly, Allen is now studying creative writing at Columbia University — case in point, she recommended to Zoom into her neuroscience class from Los Angeles the morning of Run's premiere — and lights up once asked about preference or inspirational authors. Her list includes James Baldwin, Edith Wharton, Proust, and one of her professors, Heidi Julavits.


She applied her love of writing and storytelling to her efficiency in Run. Allen did extensive statistics on Chloe’s medical conditions, however she also worked closely with Chaganty to develop the character’s biography and backstory, even composing journal entries in her voice. "My homework was to write these things," Allen says. "And that was how we got to the root of who we felt the character was and felt and was going through. And then on my days off, I was writing. I was pretty much journaling about this script. It was non-stop."


This hard work paid off, with Chloe acting as Run’s center, never overshadowed despite the icon status of Allen’s co-star. Paulson's Diane is a cipher: We know she occasionally works alternatively teacher and is often shown drinking wine, however her inner life and motivations are a mystery. As an alternative, Chloe, a science buff who tinkers with motherboards for fun, is fleshed-out and relatable.


"That's one of my main go to things about this character as well, that she is a teenage girl who gets to be a full person," Allen says. "That's not something that you visualize a lot in movies. I feel like I was hungry for that sort of representation as a teenage girl, to be able to see a girl my age who was smart and driven and had strong desires, and was going to go immediately after them — however was also kind and sweet. As an actor, to get to stretch in so several different directions and play so several different states, it was a really wealthy [and] exhilarating experience."


Like Allen, Chloe uses a wheelchair, and Run occasionally sets up plot points around this fact. While in one pivotal scene, Chloe crawls out her bedroom window onto the roof to get around a locked door, and after, is forced to calculate how to navigate a malfunctioning staircase lift. These translate as realistic accessibility challenges to puzzle through.


"I love that Aneesh and Sev in their script made inaccessibility, in a lot of ways, the main villain of the story," Allen says. "It's so often framed where, like, the disability itself is the obstacle to be conquer. And then they just make [Chloe] such a badass in the way she does get past [obstacles], things that she does increase to be granted the ability to access, even once it's violently denied her. There's one of my preferred parts of the movie."


In recent years, conversations about the significance of representation in the film and TV industries have reached a boiling point, resulting in a wave of wins for actors with disabilities. Ryan O'Connell, who has cerebral palsy, was nominated for Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for the Netflix series he created, Special. Actress Ali Stroker, who uses a wheelchair, won a Tony Award immediately after starring in a Broadway revival of Oklahoma!. And in early 2020, Shoshannah Stern, who is deaf, portrayed a doctor on Grey’s Anatomy. Any time Allen is asked what it means to her to be an actress portraying such a wealthy character — Chloe has a disability, although it doesn't define her — the significance is clear.


"I just got chills listening to you mention that, because it's such a cute way of putting it, and it's so true," she says. "It's astonishing to be segment of this moment, this groundbreaking moment of representation — the initial major thriller in over 70 years to star a real wheelchair user. Which should not be the case, although it is, and I'm very glad to be a piece of breaking that barrier down.”


"There certainly is a global in which that moment happened in a story that was not this empowering, and this trustworthy, and this authentic — where it was maybe, you know, a story that pitied the disabled character, or that painted her as an inspiration," Allen continues. "And I feel so lucky — like, I can't believe how lucky I got in so several ways. Not only that they were looking for authentic representation, however that it was authentic casting within an authentic story, as well as a story that I could get in back of and that I considered in."


Allen also credits Chaganty and Ohanian for this portrayal, in no small part because of their commitment to statistics and why thoughtful they were with the script. "They cared so much about it being a good representation, about it being authentic," she says. "And they listened to me, and so they made space for me to disagree, maybe, or to bring my own perspective to it. It was such a joy to work with this astonishing team."


Right now that Run is wrapped and released, Allen can visualize herself going in several different directions in the future: acting in more films and theater, authoring fiction and nonfiction, or writing for movies. "Why put limits, right?" She says with a laugh. "I would love to do any and all of it." Luckily, filming Run laid a strong foundation.


"It was life-changing to me as an actor and as a person," Allen says. "I left that set saying, 'If no one ever saw this movie — if they went and destroyed all the tapes, also it was never seen by anyone — this experience would still have changed my life. It was so extraordinary.”


"It taught me that I can be tougher than I thought. It taught me that I can be more susceptible than I thought," she adds. "It taught me that I was a lot more capable than I thought. Just having that several people believe in me, and these really, truly, astonishing artists believe in me, and take a huge risk on me, of casting a complete unknown because the lead in your second movie. I have so much respect and gratitude for that.