Martha Kelly
Martha Kelly is an actor, born 1968.
Los Angeles stand-up produced her, and the FX comedy Baskets moved her onto television from 2016 to 2019 as Martha Brooks. Nothing in her delivery suggests somebody who set out to be an actor, and that turns out to be the whole asset.
The instrument is unusual enough to describe precisely. Kelly speaks in a flat, unhurried monotone and her face does almost nothing. Most comic actors sell a line; she declines to, and the effect is that everyone around her starts working harder. In Marriage Story she plays the evaluator, and the scene is agonising specifically because she gives the person she is observing nothing at all to play against, only a clipboard and patience.
The turn came when a drama pointed the same instrument at the audience. As Laurie on Euphoria, a drug lord who conducts business in a calm, unhurried voice, the flatness stops being funny and becomes genuinely frightening, and it earned her a 2022 Primetime Emmy nomination for guest actress in a drama. The performance did not change. Only the context did, which is the strongest thing you can say about a specific comic instrument: it works in both directions.
Since then the offers have widened. Representative Welch in Fallout, Rose Mary Woods in Gaslit, Zorya Utrennyaya in American Gods, Agent Harrington in Common Side Effects, and a rare lead as the voice of Carol in Carol and the End of the World, an animated series pitched entirely at her register.
Movies (4)
TV (13)
Where to start with Martha Kelly
Two shows, in this order. Baskets first: Martha is its heart and the funniest thing in it, and seasons of her being quietly ignored by everyone build into something surprisingly moving. It is also the clearest sample of what she does, because the pace of the whole series bends to accommodate her.
Then Euphoria, where the same delivery gets used as a threat. Her scenes are the most tense in a show that is trying very hard to be tense everywhere, and they work because she never pushes.
For a single scene, Marriage Story is worth the detour on its own. Carol & the End of the World is the lead vehicle, an odd and rather beautiful animated series. Gaslit shows her doing straight period drama, Fallout is the big-budget cameo, and Common Side Effects is the newest thing worth trying.
Baskets and Euphoria
The two roles that built the career, both delivered at exactly the same flat pitch. Martha in Baskets is the warm version and Laurie in Euphoria is the terrifying one, and nothing in the delivery changes between them.
The comedy and animation
The supporting work, where one scene is usually enough. Marriage Story gives her a perfect small moment, and the animation is where the deadpan gets used most, since the voice does all of it anyway.