“Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” Star Chandler Kinney on Disney Channel Stardom, Zendaya, and Coming of Rage

The mood carried into the next year. Going into the pandemic in early 2020, she says, “I was already really depressed, honestly.” She finished her winter quarter in March and went home to be with family, not realizing she wouldn’t see her classmates in two weeks like they thought previously. COVID-19 emptied her schedule and left time for her depression to grow.

“I didn’t sit in quarantine and write a novel. I was not productive at all. I was one of the ones that was just depressed,” Kinney says. “It was an awful time for everyone, but I don’t think that I made the most of it. It was really hard to find the motivation to do anything. That was the beginning of my journey with mental health. Very naively, I was under the impression that I wouldn’t ever deal with depression in any form because I was so optimistic and bubbly. I don’t know where that idea came from, but that’s a very false perception of mental health. It doesn’t matter what kind of personality you have.”

In 2021, she began to feel like herself again, and acting projects began to open up with COVID precautions. She left UCLA, where she was studying psychology, to act full-time and film Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. While she’d still like to go back to school at some point, her psychology courses have already helped her gain a new perspective on the characters she plays and how they become they people they are.

Take the loyal cinephile Tabby Haworth, for example, the character Kinney plays in Original Sin. Tabby reframes the world through the movies she’s watched, especially horror movies, which allow her to view her life like she’s in a theater watching things play out. The distance is a form of safety. She cracks jokes and focuses on helping her friends with their problems until her own life hits a breaking point.

“She definitely comes undone over the course of the season,” Kinney says. The shift comes in episode five, when she finally admits to Imogen (Bailee Madison) that something happened to her in the woods last summer. The moment of vulnerability strengthens their friendship; now, Imogen and Tabby can combine their energies as they try to figure out who sexually assaulted both of them. “She is learning how to be vulnerable and learning how to open up and trust others. That starts with Imogen. Imogen and Tabby’s friendship, it’s everything that I think anyone would want for themselves. It’s an unbreakable bond.”

At another point in episode five, a house party culminates in an argument between Tabby (backed up by the Liars) and Tyler, in which the jock spews out racist insults. Kinney recalls filming that scene, and how the support she received on set was crucial.

“A scene like that is tough for an actor, especially because I can’t say that I haven’t been in a situation totally unlike that, maybe not exactly as intense or direct, but as a young Black woman living in today’s society, it’s no secret that I’ve dealt with my fair share of misogyny, sexism and racism,” she says. “In that moment, I felt like Tabby, but I also felt like Chandler, and it was very cathartic to be able to yell at someone. When I wrapped on set that day, I felt 10 pounds lighter. I felt like I was able to finally have the opportunity to say everything that I would want to say to some of the people that have been in situations like that. I felt really supported by the other girls, and I felt really supported by the boys.”