Some actors ease their way into the craft with a tender indie role or a moody supporting part. Melody Khamp kicked things off by playing a man-eating vampire stripper in a film directed by Flora Nwakobi and produced by Academy Award Winner Michael Arndt. No dialogue, just pure physical storytelling and the kind of presence that makes people forget they’re watching a silent role. It sounds unhinged on paper, but once she starts talking about the work behind it, the whole thing clicks into place.

The Making of a Kid Who Turned Boredom Into Art

Khamp grew up in Ottawa’s community housing, where the hallways doubled as rehearsal studios and the soundtracks were kids tapping out beats on walls, because instruments were expensive but rhythm was free.

She recalls, “We always made the most of every moment.” That environment trained her ear for honesty and an appetite for performance long before she knew what craft meant.

Her first show was a French production of The Wizard of Oz. She auditioned for Dorothy in secret because wanting the lead felt embarrassing. Then, she got cast as Uncle Henry, and somehow, that still felt like a win. Her mom sewed the costume. There’s a photo. It’s adorable, and also proof that she’s been running on gut instinct and moxie since childhood.

The Fancy Arts School She Escaped From

A prestigious drama program rolled into her middle school like a shiny promise. But unlike every kid’s movie ever, there wasn’t a producer in the audience of every show looking to sign the next big 12-year-old. However, it provided great training and serious opportunities. It was the kind of place everyone gushes about.

Khamp auditioned, got in, and lasted one year. She explains, “It was full of rich kids. I hated it.” It didn’t kill her interest in acting, just confirmed that not every “opportunity” is built for everyone.

She pivoted to a regular high school, where she had a drama teacher who couldn’t stand her. Everyone’s been there. The young performer still managed to win an acting award at a provincial competition where the judge was so visibly drunk it became part of the lore.

Khamp notes, “It was a silly experience, but it affirmed something in me.” Even chaos couldn’t knock her off her course.

New York, Strasberg, and the Hail Mary That Worked

After graduating early and stacking money from jobs she held since age fourteen, Khamp moved to New York for the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. “It healed my inner childhood,” she says. The classes weren’t just instruction. They were permission, and craft finally made sense for Khamp.

Money almost cut the story short. The school offered a single scholarship funded by Vincent D’Onofrio: one student in the entire institute snags it annually. She applied anyway and became that student. Suddenly, she wasn’t clawing to stay afloat. Khamp was training.

Then came Off-Broadway, where she performed in shows like Romeo and Juliet under HBO-linked director Emily Allan. From there, she was cast in Flora Nwakobi’s film and the vampire role that demanded she hold the screen without a single word spoken.

Becoming a Vampire, Scientifically Unscientific

Credit: Eve Edwards

Khamp doesn’t “prepare” for a role; she interrogates it. She studied movement, physicality, animal behavior, and anything else that might explain how someone who eats people for breakfast walks into a room without announcing it. She layered hunger and softness, danger and seduction, and a quiet kind of threat. And she did it all through breath and memory.

It wasn’t external. It wasn’t shock value. It was the kind of preparation that works only if you take the job seriously enough to risk looking strange in rehearsal.

What Keeps Her Running Toward the Work

Khamp describes acting the way someone talks about an awakening. “I don’t know much,” she says. “All I know is I have no doubt that every part of me aches to do this.”

She relies on curiosity and instinct. Khamp likes characters with texture and contradictions, and enjoys work that asks her to be awake, honest, and occasionally a little wild.

The seasoned performer wants more film, more stage, and more chances to build characters who feel lived in instead of stitched together. And if her big introduction to the industry arrived dressed like a supernatural stripper, that fun, chaotic energy tracks. Khamp has always built art out of whatever she had, wherever she was. New York just finally gave her a stage big enough for the appetite she brings to it.