Found this article. Thought I'd post it for any possible Flash fans. ;) I just like finding articles that mention Related. :P

Summerville's own film star in the making

BY BILL THOMPSON
The Post and Courier


No rest for this traveler.

Nor does she want any. Not yet. First, there's the small matter of collecting challenging roles. Something she's dreamed about since strutting about her parents' home as a child, pretending to be Diana Ross.

"I knew I wanted to be an actress since I was 4 years old," says Shanola Gralyn Hampton, who enjoyed her big-screen debut earlier this year in the romantic comedy "The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green."

Already established as an actress in daytime and primetime television, Hampton is expanding her purview. The 1995 Summerville High graduate is in Traveler's Rest shooting her second feature, the independent film "The Hanged Man," which will complete principal photography this month.

A resident of Los Angeles, Hampton is the daughter of Summerville businessman Gralyn Hampton and the late Anna Hampton. Her family knew early on that keeping the ambitious young woman close to home would be a tall order. After earning a bachelor's degree from Winthrop University and a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Hampton immediately set her sights on Hollywood.

"My family knew I wouldn't stay down South, not because I don't love it, but because there was something out there bigger for me. I grew up in the theater and thought I was going to go to New York. But my last year at the University of Illinois, I did an internship at a casting office in Los Angeles. One day at the casting office they asked me if I wanted to audition for a part. And that's how I got going."

Hampton was a fixture in shows on the Warner Brothers cable network - aka the WB - appearing in such series as "Popular" and "Reba." She went on to guest shots on "Strong Medicine," "General Hospital," "Scrubs," "Pepper Dennis" and others before settling in last fall as a recurring character on the WB's "Related."

"The WB was very good to me. As an actress you always want more, of course. More roles, better roles. But I can't complain. I have been doing well in the television world."

Now she wants to conquer the movies.

Being directed by Neil Weiss, the script for "The Hanged Man" was penned by Simpsonville's Glenn Hopper. Hampton has the featured role of X-Factor, a therapist who plans to plumb the pysches of an unusual group of chatroom "friends," a group which plans to meet each other for the first time face-to-face in a bar - and discuss a joint suicide.

"We all meet in a chatroom, and have become almost family in a way, even though no one really knows each other. Some sort of desperation is driving each of the six individuals to meet at a bar with an elaborate plan to commit suicide. She wants to get into the minds of these people. The only thing that would be considered cultlike about it is that they have this poison they may take. But there is no shared belief system. All of these people are very different. They argue online and reveal very different characteristics and worldviews. It's a personal journey for each of them."

Hampton says she was very impressed by the screenplay, which she describes as risky, "but a good risk."

"It's edgy, searching work, the kind actors crave.

"Acting is a passion of mine, and you have to go out with that passion. For all young people who have that burning desire to really be in this world in any capacity, my advice is simply, 'Do it.' The world is bigger and you can go out there. It's OK. You can make it. Then you can come home and make a movie.

"But you have to be prepared for rejection," says Hampton, with a recent pilot called "More, Patience" also under her belt. "There is so much rejection you have to deal with on a daily basis. It's always about something you're not. That's been a little bit of a shock, but things are unfolding for me now after five years of struggle."

The allure of working in film is powerful. Not to say Hampton is drawing a line in the sand and saying "No more TV."

"In television you work long, crazy hours, but then you have a hiatus. I love to travel with my husband, Daren, who is also a line producer on this movie. And that time away gives you the opportunity to do it, or make a feature. Still, I want to be on that level where I have a regular job in a TV series to go to every day. Often, TV is where you get the meatiest characters to play. The world of independent films is like that, too."

Hampton, who wishes she had more time for stage work, has prepared herself for just about any contingency, the better to snare the attention of producers and casting agents. She has trained, for entertainment purposes, as a fencer (rapier) and knife fighter, and is experienced at hand-to-hand combat, the quarter staff, swimming and distance running.

Hampton also has studied varied forms of dance (jazz, modern).

She is doing her own stunts in "The Hanged Man," but isn't quite ready to take on Michelle Yeoh or Jet Li.

"I was an athlete in college only in the sense that we did a lot of combat stuff for theater arts. Today, if the role requires it, I'd have to retrain and get up to speed, but know what I'm doing."

So it would seem.