Mooresville’s Lacy Camp calls herself a “journeyman actor.” In fact, that’s what most actors are. “It’s a very small percentage that get to be a household name,” Camp says. Only about 2% of actors make it to that level, Backstage magazine noted in an August 2024 story.
Still, since appearing in her first play as Mammy Yokum in “Li’l Abner” at North Mecklenburg High School, the actor’s life was all Camp wanted.
She was focused on her career during those early days; she wasn’t thinking about marriage and kids. “All I wanted was to be an actor,” says Camp, 47. “I thought acting would allow me to travel, experience new things, meet cool people and eat all the good food.”
Soon enough, something happened to broaden her focus and force her to realize she did want more than acting. Marriage and motherhood suddenly seemed important. And motherhood would bring an entirely new dimension to her career.
Camp’s two daughters wanted to act. Her older daughter, Ruthie, ultimately chose other pursuits. But her youngest, Darby, now 17, began making a name for herself before she turned 10.
If you don’t know Darby Camp’s name yet, chances are, you will.
No glitz or glamor
Lacy Camp is hardly the first fledgling actor to dream of red carpets, A-list parties, maybe an Oscar. But after graduating from UNC Greensboro with a BFA in acting and directing, Camp chose Birmingham, Alabama, over New York or LA. She had been in a few musicals, but didn’t consider herself a “triple threat.” She wanted to act, and not necessarily sing and dance.
She considered Wilmington, but remembered a mentor’s advice: “Don’t move anywhere until someone pays you to move there.” So, she toured with Birmingham Children’s Theatre and later with Auburn, New York’s Merry-Go-Round Playhouse.
She loved being on the road. The drawback, she says, was that “every May, you’d be out of a job and have to audition again.”
The uncertainty didn’t change her trajectory, though.
“9/11 was a huge wake-up call,” she said. “I was pursuing a career that had no roots. My granny had recently passed away. My brother, who’s just a couple of years older, had just had a baby – the first grandchild in our family for our generation. Suddenly I was an aunt. I began to question how fulfilled I really was.”
She moved home from New York and began teaching at her alma mater, which she calls “the last thing I ever thought I’d do.” In high school, she says, “I used to wonder how fast I could get out of Mecklenburg County.”
Two weeks after 9/11, she met North Meck’s then-assistant basketball coach, Clark Camp. They got engaged on Valentine’s Day and married the following July. “Twenty-two years later, I have no regrets.”
Acting / Teaching / Parenting
She found a supportive acting community in Mecklenburg County. Through their shared agent, Lu Anne Bernier of Monarch Talent Agency, she met Pat Dortch in 2012. Bernier arranged for the two to carpool from Charlotte to Wilmington to audition for a North Carolina Education Lottery commercial.
They weren’t hired, but they became good friends and took classes together at Charlotte’s since-closed Actor’s Lab. Dortch eventually founded a studio and wrote/directed/starred in a TV pilot, “LIMBO,” in which Camp had a part. He’s also acted in shows such as “McGyver” and “Nashville.”
“I admire him for his ability to teach and inspire – especially teenagers,” Camp says of the writer/director/actor/teacher. “It’s hard to be good at all those things at the same time, but somehow he manages it — along with being an all-star family man for his wife and three kids.”
Camp frequently refers aspiring thespians to Dortch, whom she met after he’d left his first career as a furniture designer, manufacturer and store owner. Camp left her first career, too. Teaching wasn’t a big stretch, though. Her mom taught for 30 years, and her husband has been in education for 25 years.
“I don’t know many actors who don’t have a side hustle,” Dortch says, noting many are naturally entrepreneurial. These “survival jobs” pay the bills between acting gigs.
After Darby’s birth in 2007, Camp departed North Meck to launch the middle school drama program at the Community School at Davidson, where Darby is a senior.
In 2014, Camp was ready to retire from teaching. That coincided with Darby, then 8, landing a role on “Big Little Lies,” the Emmy-winning HBO dark comedy starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon. More on that big break later.
Darby began acting as a toddler along with her mom and older sister. But she wasn’t pushed into it; Camp isn’t your stereotypical stage mom.
Darby chose acting. Ruthie, now 19 and a sophomore at UNC Wilmington, preferred basketball over learning lines. She was in a number of commercials, including one for Pennzoil that starred her mom and former Carolina Panthers’ quarterback Cam Newton.
Ruthie’s residual checks funded a family trip to Disney. But the family business wasn’t for her. She couldn’t understand why her mom and sister chose to watch sad movies.
Actors are “a special breed,” Camp says. “We have to maintain our mental health while being vulnerable enough to go to really dark places.”
Striking that balance came naturally to Darby, who landed her first union role, for “Drop Dead Diva,” at just 6. She began getting more work, and mom and daughter enjoyed being on the road – to Atlanta, Austin, Charleston – for as much as two weeks at a time.
“I was having so much fun with Darby,” Camp says. “And I had no idea when I was younger that this would be fulfilling.”
Hollywood, at last
Remember Camp’s rule about not moving until someone pays you to move? When Darby landed a screen test in New York, she had never been on a plane. The flight was paid for by the production company.
Darby auditioned with Chris “Captain America” Evans, but didn’t get the part. Still, she impressed the casting director, who a couple of years later was casting “Big Little Lies.” The studio flew Darby and her mom to LA for the screen test.
Mom and daughter made the most of their 24 hours in Hollywood, going from the iconic Hollywood sign to the stars on Grauman’s Chinese Theatre’s sidewalk to Ubering from one hot spot to the next with another “theater mom” and her son who were in town for an audition.
“I told Darby, ‘We’re coming back. I just know it,’” Camp says.
She was right. Darby landed the role of Reese Witherspoon’s daughter on “Big Little Lies.”
‘Have a real life’
Witherspoon and other Hollywood veterans working with Darby told Camp not to move to California. Mom had been right; one didn’t have to live in New York or LA to work
as an actor.
It may have been Darby’s North Carolina roots, aided by
her freckles and distinctive curls, that set her apart from other kid actors.
Jean-March Vallée, the now-deceased “Big Little Lies” director, told Camp that the thing he liked about Darby was “that she was just a kid from North Carolina,” Camp says. “He wanted kids in his movies to look like kids in real life.”
In 2019, Hollywood Reporter named Darby a “Top 30 Under 30” actor. Her proud mom says, “I joke that my daughter took my hopes and dreams and then scored the touchdown.”
Camp scored a touchdown of her own when she discovered that family was just as important to her as a career. But she never abandoned the calling she’s felt since
high school.
Dortch admires how Camp has built a career and happy family. “Darby has a normal teenage life, in spite of her early success. Lacy has managed all of it with grace.”
Camp helps child actors prepare for auditions and find an agent, although she doesn’t actively market herself, relying instead on word of mouth. She also acts in commercials and community theater.
“I’ve always, always, always stayed focused on pursuing my dream of being a working actor,” she says. “People often give up on or get jaded with the industry. I’ve been fortunate to not have to rely only on my income for survival, which gave me the freedom to pursue my dream.” ■
