The Kramer Philosophy

Clare Kramer is an astute and impressive young woman who puts as much of an emphasis on finding fulfilment in her personal life as she does to finding success on the silver screen. She recently became engaged to production assistant Brian Keathley and the obvious contentment that radiates from her has given her a positive philosophy on life which she is only too happy to share. “Just be relaxed, surround yourself with good people and have fun,” she says, “The only thing that really matters is relationships, this doesn't matter, that doesn't matter, it doesn't matter if I never get another acting job. If I have a good relationship with my fiancé, if I have a good relationship with the people around me and I'm true to them that at the end of the day that's what's going to matter.” One of the relationships that Clare obviously cherishes is the close bond that she shares with her younger sister Callie and I asked Clare about a wonderful rumour I’d heard regarding the fact that despite ‘growing up’ both Clare and Callie still go looking for their presents while staying at their parent’s house at Christmas time just as they did when they were small children. “We do,” Clare amusedly admits, “we sit at the top of our stairs, and my dad and my mom get down there with the video camera and still camera and they're like 'ok girls come on down' and we run down the stairs and I mean it's so cheesy but it's tradition. I think I'm going to have to have a kid to break it, I mean I'm 30 and I still do that but I love it!”

Clare is clearly not afraid to put in hard work in order to get to her desired outcome. As she has already attested to, she has the desire to give so much more credence to a character than simply saying a few words of dialogue taken from a script. She reasons and connects with the characters and in doing so gives them depth and this in itself could turn out to be quite an intense and exhaustive process. So what does Clare do to kick back and relax? “I love reading and we have a big L-shaped couch in our family room and my fiancé will lay on one side and I'll lay on the other side and we'll just watch TV, watch movies and talk. He's really taught me to relax, I was a very high strung, go a mile a minute person and I didn't know really how to whoa put the brakes on and I didn't realize how important relaxation is both mentally and physically and it's not just about go and do yoga and relax, you can relax wherever you are, you know it's just about not being stressed out about things and so that's kind of our philosophy.”

Clare’s latest project is Gravedancers, a horror movie directed by Mike Mendez that tells the tale of a memorial service innocently held by a close group of friends in celebration of a their departed friend’s life inadvertently invoking an ancient curse that has dire consequences. Clare plays the role of Alison, wife to one of the leading characters Harris, and it is a role that has had some physical and at times painful demands. As a keen boxer, Clare is not averse to getting tough, but would the physicality extend to doing her own stunts? “Oh definitely I love it like with Gravedancers I got to do 99% of my stunts so that was really fun for me.” Having the lead actors/actresses doing their own stunts leads to the image of movie studio execs following each cast member around all day in fear of their insurance policies frantically telling their stars ‘you can’t do that!’ “No!” Clare laughs, “On that movie, they were like 'do it, do it!' I got whiplash so badly after the second day of shooting. I did a ratchet, which is where they tie a rope to your waist and pull you back into a mattress and I got whiplash so bad that I woke up the next morning and thought 'oh my glands are swollen', and every time I talked I was like [makes a croaking sound] and they said no that's whiplash that's what that is.” Well no pain, no gain as they say.