Like thousands of “Reasonable Doubt” fans across the country, actress Kiah Clingman, who plays Kristin on the show, is “counting down the hours” to the highly anticipated Season 3 finale. Clingman has kept audiences hooked with her mysterious and mischievous portrayal of Kristin, the sister of Kyle Bary’s Ozzie Edwards, a former child star caught in a whirlwind murder trial after his girlfriend’s death.
Ahead of the highly anticipated finale, which is expected to give fans of the show answers to some of the questions they have been asking themselves all season, we sat down with Clingman to learn more about her, her role, and get the tea on the show’s finale.
“She has this innocent facade, a sweet facade, but it was not that hard for me. I’m an only child. So, I grew up with a very vivid imagination, constantly trying to get their attention,” the actress said, reflecting on her character. “And I was craving validation, even at a young age, although my parents provided it. So I think that’s where I pulled from for Kristin, because she didn’t get that validation from her parents or any affirmation. She was the overlooked, abandoned child.”
Naturally stepping into the dark, sultry, and unapologetically Black universe of “Reasonable Doubt,” Clingman joked that even her mom gives her side eye for the character she’s brought to life. But before she landed the role that would change everything, Clingman had actually stepped away from acting altogether.
“I felt like I was at a place with acting where I just didn’t understand my place anymore,” she told theGrio. “Transparently, I was just tired of the rejection. I was tired of putting out 120 auditions a year and then not hearing anything back, whether it’s a yes or no.”
In 2021, she quit her full-time consulting job at Deloitte “on faith” and committed to being a filmmaker full-time with KiahCan Productions. This came shortly after she received a rejection from the role she wanted, which she described as “a major blow” to her acting career. From there, she went on to produce a series of projects, including her award-winning feature film “Color Book,” and had no plans on stepping back in front of the camera.
That was until she received a call from casting director Erica Arvold, who had helped cast her in a feature film, asking her to audition for a role she thought Clingman would be “perfect for.” At the time, the actress and producer, who was out of town for a film festival screening her film, scrambled to find a space or studio that could help her film her audition video. With no equipment and crappy lighting, Clingman nearly gave up until she had a conversation with a friend.
“I basically gave up. I was like, ‘I’m not going to do it. This role is not going to be like a make-or-break for me.’ But I ended up meeting up with a filmmaker friend later on that night, who’s also an actress, and she said, ‘Oh, I bring my ring light everywhere I go. I have my taping stuff. Why don’t you just come to my hotel, and I’ll tape you?’ So that’s what I did. And long story, very short, we taped [and] I hated my audition.”
That same “hated” audition ended up changing her life. Within days, Clingman, who was the top choice of the showrunner and producers, was cast as Kristin. Soon, she was on set with “Reasonable Doubt” creator Raamla Mohammed and producers like Kerry Washington and Anton Cropper, the latter of whom was tied to the very project she’d once been rejected from.
“I love that story because it felt very divine and serendipitous,” she explains, reflecting on the moment everything fell into place. “It was surreal. It provided me with so much validation and confirmation that I am on the right path, and that it’s okay to take a break. Things will come back to you, in the way they are supposed to, at a time when you’re more prepared to receive them.”
A proud Howard University alum, Clingman said being on set, surrounded by talented Black people in every department, was deeply affirming.
“Being able to look up and see people who look like you, everywhere in every department, that doesn’t happen, that is unheard of,” she said, applauding Mohammed for intentionally building that space as a creator. “It makes me more comfortable, more confident [because] you have people around you that look like you, who are pouring into you.”
That sense of community helped as as she not only stepped back into acting but also experienced some firsts on set, such as filming her first intimate scene. Still, Clingman described her time on “Reasonable Doubt” as pure fun.
“Every episode, [I was] giving a little bit more and showing the layers of Kristin,” she continued. “[It was] like peeling back the onion just one layer at a time every episode. I think that was the fun part.”
When asked to describe Kirstin’s future ahead of the finale in three words, Clingman said, “unraveling, revealing, and painful,” as she visibly struggled not to give any spoilers.
Ultimately, with a mission to “amplify the stories of the unheard and stories that we don’t get to talk about,” Clingman says she’s excited to dive back into filmmaking with her first solo directorial debut in an upcoming dark comedy shedding light on women’s health issues and the possibilities of the future.
“I’m just, I’m excited to see what’s next,” she concluded. “I really love that I can do it all. People always try to put you in a box and say, ‘You can’t do it all.’ But I really feel like I’ve proven that you can, and you can do it with balance and grace.”
