Morgan Cryer: An Undiscovered Star
Exclusive Interview by Michael Aaron Gallagher of StayFamous.Net
Morgan Cryer, model and actress.
There are three kinds of stars in Hollywood. There are rising stars, shooting across the galaxy with purpose. There are falling stars on a slow descent, their best days only a glimmer behind them. And then there are those rare stars that are about to burst onto the scene and make everyone take notice. They are undiscovered – but not for long.
In the entertainment industry, where fame and success are often elusive, it takes something special to stand out from the crowd. With her sun-bleached blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, engaging personality and winning smile, Morgan Cryer is destined to do great things.
From gracing the cover of Discovery Girls magazine to being featured in ad campaigns for Capital One and Bloomingdale‘s, Morgan is quickly making a name for herself. In addition to her recent appearance in MattyBRaps “The Good Life” music video, which currently has more than 4 million views on YouTube, she is also starring in a couple of films scheduled to be released next year, including The Ballerina.
Morgan first began her journey, working in the mid-Atlantic region around the age of 3 or 4, her mother Michelle says. Her love for acting and modeling was apparent early on and she soon landed print work and television commercials in the area.
“A friend of mine moved here from South America and had a local agency that she worked with,” Michelle said. “And she said, ‘You should really call my agent and get Morgan started with her.’ I did. And I guess it was about a week or so later that she had booked [her first] regional commercial.”
By the time she was 8 years old, Morgan was gaining national exposure, landing a commercial for Walmart, which helped her earn SAG eligibility. It soon became clear that she had a talent that could one day become a career.
As an up-and-coming actress, Morgan took on a new leading role this year in an independent film, called The Wages of Sin, which deals with the impacts of racism and religious indoctrination in America and a friendship that develops between two young people from very different backgrounds.
Morgan Cryer stars in the independent film, “The Wages of Sin,” directed by Cyrus Kapadia.
“My character’s name is Rebecca,” Morgan told me in a recent interview. “She lived with her grandfather… [who] was very Christian-based, so she didn’t have any friends really. She was just religious, like her grandfather. And she met this kid named Justin and she started talking to him and her grandfather was not too happy about that.”
Although the role was a challenging one, director Cyrus Kapadia explains that Morgan was able to strike the right balance, necessary for the film.
“Morgan is almost the polar opposite of her character, Rebecca,” Kapadia said. “She was very outgoing and full of enthusiasm on the set, yet always professional and very easy to work with. She took my direction and feedback every bit as well as the adult actors… She would give 100 percent to each take, and kept it at a high caliber, take after take. Morgan knew the script, she knew her marks, and she knew the correct emotion that each scene required.”
Morgan Cryer on the set of “The Wages of Sin.”
Ten girls auditioned for the role, Kapadia says, but Cryer’s performance especially stood out.
“Morgan impressed us in a different way,” he said. “She didn’t overdo the Southern accent. She wasn’t the youngest, and she didn’t deliver an overly innocent portrayal of the character. But when she read lines with the casting team, it was obvious that she had spent quite a bit of time inside Rebecca’s head and clearly knew what was required of the character. Our biggest concern for the actor who would play Rebecca was whether they could find the right balance between respect and fear for her grandfather, Leonard, a man raising her in such a negative environment. Believing in the lead character of Young Rebecca is essential to the success of The Wages of Sin and, hopefully, the audience will feel that Morgan Cryer has delivered a performance that serves the story well. We certainly do.”
In addition to The Wages of Sin, Morgan has had principal and supporting roles in more than 30 projects to date, including background work on Insurgent (2015), starring Shaileen Woodley.
“I spent a day or two working on that,” Morgan said. “That was really fun. It was cool to be on one of those big feature films and see how they do everything.”
As she continues to hone her acting skills, Morgan is hoping to land some bigger Hollywood roles over the next couple of years.
“I love the Indie films but I just feel like, I like the environment of the bigger feature films,” she said. “Moving out to LA, I definitely want to try and make it big and do a lot of feature films and a lot of big modeling jobs.”
Morgan is also looking forward to writing her own screenplays.
“Right now I’m writing a few screenplays that I’ve been working on,” she said. “And I’m thinking about shooting [them] when I get done with school.”
Outside of acting and modeling, Morgan also enjoys being a cheerleader and surfing along the Eastern seaboard.
“I’ve been surfing for about 4 years now,” Morgan said. “One day we were just heading to the beach and my mom was teasing that it would be funny if I were to try to surf. So I took that challenge [and] me and my brother both got a board and we just went out there and tried it. And it was fun!”
Morgan Cryer enjoys surfing on the East Coast.
Whether she is riding waves like a surfer girl, striking poses as a model or acting on the big screen, Morgan’s talent and ambition are taking her to new heights. As she continues to catch the eye of casting directors and talent scouts across the country, one thing is certain – Morgan Cryer won’t remain an “undiscovered” star for long.
Morgan is currently represented by East Coast Talent in Atlanta (Barbara Garvey Myers). For more information about her work, visit her IMDb page at imdb.com/name/nm4588157/.
“Morgan Cryer: An Undiscovered Star”
Copyright 2015 by Michael Aaron Gallagher
Photography courtesy of Michelle Cryer and Shelly Kapadia
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