Lily Clayton Hansen has been acting since childhood. After a successful writing and interviewing career, Lily transitioned back into acting in 2016 primarily focusing on film. In 2019, she studied at one of the top three acting schools in the United Kingdom, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, based in London. She currently studies on a weekly basis with award-winning British actor, acting coach, and director Jake Harders, who is also on staff at Central.
Acting is a natural fit for Hansen, as she knows more about people from her biographical writing career. She brings her great capacity for empathy, active listening skills, and vivid imagination to every role.
Beyond starring in other people’s projects, Hansen has written, produced, and starred in two of her own short films. The first, “Snowflake,” won her a Best Performance award. “Snowflake,” in which Hansen plays a social media influencer that has a nervous breakdown because of too much focus on herself, has been a finalist in nine film festivals. It has been called “just as disturbing as it is funny for its almost documentary-like portrayal of the psychological turbulence that social media addiction causes.” Hansen’s second film “You First,” based on her real-life experience of losing a best friend and ex-boyfriend to a heroin overdose was a finalist at the Longleaf Film Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina. In the film, Hansen plays the addict as a true-to-form attempt to truly understand addiction. The film has been praised for its avante-garde aesthetic and heartfelt take on addiction. Instead of focusing on skid row, it tells a tale of two lovebirds whose insurmountable obstacle is self-sabotaging behavior.