Clare Foley
Clare Foley is an actor, born 2001.
Between 2011 and 2016, while she was still school-age, Foley assembled an American independent filmography most adult actors would take: Win Win, Very Good Girls, Every Secret Thing, Mistress America, The Great Gilly Hopkins and Little Men. That is a run of directors, not a run of paycheques, and it is unusual for a child actor to be steered that carefully.
The two jobs that made her recognisable were genre. In Sinister she is Ashley Oswalt, the daughter who quietly redecorates the walls of a house her father should never have moved the family into, a part that requires a child to be unsettling without appearing to try. In Gotham she originated Ivy Pepper, that show's version of Poison Ivy, across its first two seasons, then returned for a brief third-season appearance to hand the character over to another actor, a transition the series treated with more ceremony than most.
She also played a young Piper in Orange Is the New Black and Ruby Taylor in Do No Harm. Her credits here thin out after 2016, which is common for performers who grow up on set and then get to choose. On the evidence of that indie run, she could pick it back up whenever she wants to.
Movies (8)
TV (1)
Where to start with Clare Foley
Horror got her noticed, so begin there. Sinister earns its reputation: the dread comes from home-movie footage and from a child who is far too calm about what is on it.
Gotham is next, and specifically its first two seasons, where Ivy Pepper is a strange feral kid rather than a costume with a catchphrase.
The better films are the quiet ones. Little Men is an unhurried story about two boys and a rent dispute between their parents, and it is the most grown-up title on her list. Win Win is a warm high-school wrestling comedy with an unusually good conscience, and Mistress America is fast, brittle and very funny. Southpaw and Every Secret Thing round it out, though neither asks much of her.