Sarah Grace Elliott has appeared in “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” “Outer Banks,” and more.
Story by Rachel Moody
Inside their hotel room in Florence, Italy, Sarah Grace Elliott and her mom attempt to cover one of the bright orange walls with a wrinkled white sheet. In front of the sheet is a wooden chair where Elliott sits across from her phone. It’s propped up against a large glass bowl, on top of a pizza box, on top of a luggage rack, on top of the bed. Behind the camera is her mom, prepared to read lines, a ritual the two have performed many times over her acting career.
This DIY set up will have to do. Self-tapes need to be filmed and turned in quickly, regardless of if she’s on vacation, and she really wants this part on “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
Three years later, the UNC-Chapel Hill senior has appeared in several notable TV shows like “Outer Banks,” “English Teacher,” “THEM: The Scare” and “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
“I have since been fired a few years ago from being her reader because it’s better when you actually have an actual actor reading with you,” says her mom, Kim Elliott. “But when she was little, it was me.”
Sarah Grace Elliott’s career didn’t take off until 2022, but she’s been acting professionally since she was about 10 years old after her mom’s friend suggested she get talent representation.
At that point, she’d been doing ballet for about a year, but she’s been performing and creating art her entire life. Kim Elliott says her daughter was always dancing, singing and performing skits with two younger siblings whenever guests came over to their house in Cary, North Carolina.
“And so she was always willing to be the star of the show,” Elliott says.
When Elliott and her husband grew up, dreams of a creative profession were squashed early on. They agreed to do things differently with their children.
While she was unfamiliar with the arts, she tried to find outlets for her daughter’s creativity and thought acting was one way to do that.
Sarah Grace Elliott joined KU Talent, a talent agency based out of Raleigh, and quickly booked her first role in a commercial for Biltmore Estate. They headed to Asheville where she got paid to play in the leaves and drink hot chocolate.
“So a lot of times we would be filming really late at night and so we were both delirious, so we were either really butting heads or just laughing the whole time,” Elliott says about road trips with her mom.
Elliott continued to audition and act in commercials, but for years she saw it as something fun that took the backseat to school and ballet.
It wasn’t until COVID-19 shut everything down that Elliott took a step back from dancing and delved deeper into acting while pursuing other creative passions like painting, drawing and writing poetry. She began working with an acting coach remotely.
Although her acting skills were improving, her mom says the agency told them there wouldn’t be many opportunities because it’s easier to hire an 18-year-old instead of a 16-year-old like Elliott. But they waited out the dry period and eventually it paid off.
“After she turned 18 it was like, boom, boom, boom, we’re getting all these auditions,” Kim Elliott says.
Sarah Grace Elliott auditioned for “Outer Banks” then anxiously waited to hear if she got a callback audition. At first a few days, then a week, and then two with no word. In the film industry, there is no apologetic rejection letter to provide closure. Just silence.
“Tape it, edit it, send it in. If you don’t book it or they don’t like you, you’re not hearing anything. No notes, no anything,” Elliott says.
She had already started to lose hope when finally, she heard back: She had a callback audition. A week later, she found out she got the part – her first ever part on a TV show, with several more to come.
The only issue? Elliott would have to miss her senior prom. She’d never been to a school dance, and this would be her last chance, but for Elliott there was never any question about it. She was going to be on “Outer Banks.”
In May, Elliott and her mom drove from Cary to Folly Beach, South Carolina. Even though Elliott was technically an adult and didn’t need parental supervision, her mom wanted to be there.
“And she was 18, so she’s legal and she can be by herself and all that stuff,” Kim Elliott says. “But I’m like, but she’s still my child, so I’m coming to the set.”
In a large-brim sun hat, Elliott sat on the sand dunes off-camera and watched them film for the entire six-hour shoot, keeping an eye on her daughter.
“She was on screen for a minute, I swear, I have looked at it,” Elliott says. “It’s a great minute. But it is one minute, and we were out there all day on that beach.”
Sarah Grace Elliott’s character, Lauren, only appears on-screen for about a minute.
“The amount of work that I had to put in to even book the “Outer Banks”– which yes, I’m just sitting on the beach talking, it’s very low stakes, it’s very fun– like you have to get to such a level to even do that,” Elliott says. “I think sometimes people would underestimate my commitment to acting or my ability to act because it’s like, ‘Oh, I can do that.’”
After Elliott graduated from Raleigh Charter High School, she and her mom took a trip to France and Italy where she continued filming self-tape auditions. Elliott says she usually only has a day or two to film and return her self-tape after she finds out about an audition.
In the film industry, things often move quickly and unpredictably, something that was especially apparent for Elliott after she became a full-time college student at UNC-CH.
During her freshman year when she was trying to adjust to the new college environment, she was also filming “The Summer I Turned Pretty” in Wilmington. and “THEM: The Scare” in Atlanta.
Natalie, her character in “THEM,” would be her biggest role yet. She appeared in three episodes of the show and in several one-on-one scenes with the show’s main character, giving her more room to show off her skills. But a bigger role also meant she would be shooting for longer, missing about a week of classes.
“It was really hard to fit scene prep and filming into my school schedule, so I was like either turning down auditions or skipping class, and that was only so sustainable,” Elliott says.
She was always too busy with auditions and acting classes to join clubs and get involved with campus life. But last year, Elliott switched from being in front to being behind the camera as assistant director for “Goin’ Out Hair,” a Carolina student film about a black woman’s journeys with her hair.
“From what I witnessed, she was constantly behind the camera and adding helpful notes to the actors whenever needed,” Asiah Graham, the film’s marketing and communications coordinator, says.
Junior year has a reputation for being the hardest year of an undergraduate’s college career and for Elliott, trying to balance classes with auditions led to burnout. This past summer she took a break from acting.
“I mean she’s already excelled so much from such a young age on these huge high-profile shows,” Logan Kelly, another actress under KU Talent, said. “Honestly, I can’t wait to see what she does next.”
Instead, she interned with WomenNC, a nonprofit focused on advancing gender equity in North Carolina. She read her poetry for the first time during an open mic night at Lanza’s Cafe in Carrboro, which she says was scarier and more vulnerable than when she plays a character. But she pushed herself and now she’s done it three times.
“I haven’t auditioned in three months, and we’ll see if I start again,” Elliott says. “I think I will.”
Elliott’s not sure where she’ll be after she graduates in May. But there’s one place where she’ll always be the star of the show.
“You know, our whole parenting style has been to nurture these kids and give them independence and set them free, and whatever they decide to do is what they’re meant to do and we’re going to support them,” Kim Elliott says. “But it is lovely to have her come back and hang out with us. Her siblings adore her, and we do too.”
