The Lively Dead Girl

Button-nosed sweetheart (and talented young actress) Karynn Moore meets an untimely fate in ABC Family’s new show Twisted, but it’s onward and upward for her career

Karynn Moore is finally getting what’s coming to her. After playing mean girl Harper on ABC Family’s all-too-swiftly cancelled Jane by Design, along with other assorted snarky roles, Moore has been cast as outspoken victim Regina Crane on the same channel’s new show Twisted, slated to debut right after the season 4 premiere of Pretty Little Liars on June 11th. For her part, Karynn is thrilled to continue her working relationship with ABC Family, and in particular the producers of Jane and now Twisted. “I enjoyed the Jane by Design experience, just because of how it happened. I went in not expecting to get what I got out of it—it was just really nice to be appreciated. It made me fall in love with television…it was a nice growing experience,” Karynn gushes.

As for Twisted, Moore is again playing the mean girl, but one who meets her end right off the bat. In the tradition of PLL, but also the now historic Desperate Housewives, Twisted starts off with a bang—a mysterious death—to get the plot rolling. And Moore is thrilled to be the murder victim here, at the epicenter of this particular show’s plot, one that takes place in a posh and somewhat impenetrable Connecticut suburb. “It’s fun to play the mean girl…It was such a fun opportunity to be ‘the girl that starts it all’,” she says, laughing.

It seems odd but also somehow fitting that this very pretty and exceedingly sweet actress should tend to play the more villainous roles. Surely, it’s a testament to her talent. When asked about whom she would like to work with, and who inspires her, Karynn spouts off a list so grand, including everyone from Woody Allen to Rooney Mara, but she is trying to remain open at this early point in her promising career: “It varies…where it’s going isn’t quite defined. I feel like all the windows are open; so I hope I have an opportunity to try a lot of different things, to find my place.”

And what’s next? Aside from a promising web series about healthy eating, produced by Chipotle, will there be more television? Of course, Karynn plays a murder victim on the pilot episode of Twisted, but is there more to the story than that? “It’s not the last you’ve seen of Regina,” she promises us, coyly.

Dan Heching