Sun, surf and sand, darkened by betrayal and deception.
A fun-filled vacation gone horribly awry.
An extraordinarily driven mother, determined to save her daughter, Kayla, from the
clutches of brutal kidnappers.
Those are the broad strokes of “Spring Break Nightmare,” a feature film that debuted
on the Lifetime Movie Network in March and which is periodically available on Hulu.
Right in the middle of it all is Lauren Faulkner ’15, a Radford University theater
graduate and an actor on the rise who has a key role in “Nightmare.”
She plays Becky, Kayla’s sensible best friend and the center of the movie’s first
big dramatic twist.
“I loved the balance of work and fun,” Faulkner recently said of making the movie,
which was shot across two weeks in Florida locations that included Clearwater and
St. Pete Beach. “It’s hard not to have fun when you’re in a place where there are
so many creative people, all working at once.”
“Nightmare” is actually her second turn in a recent Lifetime melodrama – she was also
in 2021’s “Party Gone Wrong,” which was partially filmed at The Hotel Roanoke – and
those roles mark a steady progression for the former Bland County resident.
Early on, Faulkner performed on Southwest Virginia stages in Pulaski and Wytheville,
and while studying at Radford, she starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Clybourne
Park” and the legendary musical “Cabaret,” among other productions.
Not long after she got her degree, the Rocky Gap, Virginia, native headed to Los Angeles
to find a place in the entertainment industry, and she quickly turned up in such short
films as “The Bizarre Act of Samantha” in 2017, and 2019’s “Caroline.”
“I think anyone would tell you it’s a difficult city to thrive in,” Faulkner recently
said of LA. “The cost of living is high, and there are so many people trying to do
the exact same thing that you are.
“You just have to have this mentality of ‘I’m going to stick with it in order to make
things work.’”
Her tenacity succeeded. She will soon mark her eighth anniversary of living and working
there.
“It never really gets any easier, I would say, but I now have a community. I've met
so many wonderful people who are in my corner, and I have people I can rely on who
are going through the same things as me,” she said. “That definitely makes it all
the more worthwhile.”
Faulkner’s primary focus remains film work – she estimates she goes on as many as
five auditions each week – but she said she’s still interested in the theater and
the challenges and excitement of performing in front of an audience. Just over a year
ago, she began trying her hand at comedy as well.
“I’m doing stand-up as kind of a means to scratch the live theater itch,” she said.
“I've performed at a handful of places, but I would love to keep branching out. At
some point, I’m hopefully going to come back to Southwest Virginia to do a comedy
set. I want to bring my comedy back to where I came from.”
And, speaking of her roots, Faulkner said she has fond memories of her work and her
time at Radford.
“A lot of people will tell you that because acting is subjective, you don’t need training.
And I don’t know if you do or not; I can’t speak for everybody, but I enjoyed mine.
I feel well-equipped to tackle various roles and understand scenes and find a character’s
arc … based on my theater training.”
“I’m very thankful for all the training I received from my professors at Radford,”
she added. “They really, really do want everyone that they educate to succeed, and
you feel that, and I’m very grateful for that.”
