Emily Nelson

About Emily

Emily Nelson​ is a professional actress, improviser, voice over artist, and teacher living in Los Angeles. Originally from Chicago, she began acting and improvising in high school, before earning a BFA in Acting from Carnegie Mellon University. Some of her television credits include True Detective, Platform, Glow, Shameless, Sideswiped, Melissa & Joey, Code Black, Bones, The Mentalist, Cold Case, Boston Legal, Without a Trace, and ER and the feature film Made of Honor. Nelson's stage work has included wonderful roles in such plays as Cooking with Elvis, Home Free!, and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds, among others.

As a teaching artist she currently teaches at AMDA | College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts. Nelson is thrilled to join the teaching staff at Interlochen Center for the Arts for Camp as well as Interlochen Online, teaching Acting for the Stage & Screen.

Passionate about the arts, Nelson has taught with many outreach programs as a teaching artist, including: Young Storytellers Foundation, Urban Anthropology Project (Los Angeles), Creative Youth Community Learning Experience (CYCLE), The Shanti Foundation For Peace (Chicago), Society for the Education of the Arts, The National Shakespeare Company, Actor’s Creative Experience, Strike Anywhere! Improvisation (New York City), The Florida Studio Theatre (Sarasota, Florida), and The Washington Island Players (Washington Island, Wisconsin). Nelson lives in Los Angeles with her family and two wonderful huskies.

I believe the best way for a young actor to grow in the craft of acting is to give them a wild confidence in their own imagination and experience. Play and creativity is at the heart of all great acting, and young students have that! The benefits of learning how to communicate the stories and inner lives of their characters brings complex and satisfying learning to the student, benefiting them in many aspects of life.