After a successful writing career, Lily Clayton Hansen transitioned back into acting, which she has been studying since childhood, growing up as a theatre performer in her hometown of Chicago. Blessed with a vivid imagination, a penchant for storytelling, and a lifetime of experience interviewing all walks of life, picking up acting felt fluid and fun for Hansen. The avid movie buff, who loves nothing more than spending an afternoon indulging in arthouse cinema, quickly decided to focus on film. In 2019, she studied at one of the top acting schools in London, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. After graduation, she continued to study every week with award-winning British actor, coach, and director Jake Harders, who taught Hansen everything she knows about naturalism, physicality, and trusting her intuition when creating a character with gravitas.
Acting is a natural fit for Hansen, as she knows more about the pain and joy that people go through daily thanks to a 17-year biographical writing career. She brings her great capacity for empathy, vast life experience, intuition, and active listening skills to every role.
Beyond starring in other people’s projects, Hansen has won accolades for her own, including two Telly Awards for “Snowflake,” which she made for $500. The short film, directed by Hansen’s long-time collaborator Carter Bowden, showcases the psychological effects of social media and why it seems to make so many users insecure. Hansen, who also won a “Best Performance” award for her role of Lacey, plays a social media influencer who has a nervous breakdown because of too much focus on herself. A finalist in more than ten film festivals, “Snowflake” has been called “just as disturbing as it is funny: for how accurately it demonstrates the internal 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 the behavior that stole one of her favorite souls. The film has been praised for its avant-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.
Hansen continues to act and write screenplays and is currently working on a new short. Her goal with movie-making is to show what she cannot say and convey insight that will wake watchers up.
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.