SAG Nominee in the Building

“I had just received some of the most exciting news of my life,” she laughed. “And now I am supposed to cry hysterically on camera!”

Within a few weeks, Guinn was on the L.A. red carpet.

“No one prepares you for the feeling of walking the red carpet with people screaming your name,” she recalls. “It’s a crazy and overwhelming feeling…definitely a pinch-yourself-moment!”

Though the comedy The Bear claimed the award, earning a SAG nomination would become the latest entry on the Erwin native’s list of accolades she earned since graduating from ETSU in 2004 and moving to the Big Apple. Her Broadway debut would come in 2009 with the musical Hair followed by On the Town and a two-year-plus national tour of Les Misérables.

Guinn says making the jump to television and film was, well, a leap.

“It was like being thrown into water and told to swim.”
–Allison Guinn recalls after filming an episode of Boardwalk Empire.

“In television, how you rehearse, how things are shot…it’s all different. There are a lot of technical words and phrases that were new to me. With every new TV job I get, I’m still learning.”

She was offered the recurring role of K.T. in Only Murders in the Building after submitting an audition recording. There was no call-back but rather “I had the role, it’s for five episodes, maybe more, and here’s your costume fitting date.”

Guinn admits she completely freaked out.

“Steve Martin…Martin Short…these were my heroes, and now I would be filming with them. And Meryl Streep! Anytime you audition, you hope for the best. It’s like wishing you would win the lottery, and in this case, I did.”

Still, not every day is a stroll on the red carpet. Far from it.

“People ask me all the time, ‘So Allison, what’s next? What is a typical day like for you?’

“And the truth is, there are no typical days, and no, I don’t know what is next. As an auditioning actor, there are no typical weeks. In fact, my plans for next week are up in the air.”

Story and Photo by Joe Smith