Molly Cravens

Molly Cravens is an American actress. Cravens portrayed Hayley Sundin on Pureflix series Up on High Ground.

## About

**Molly Cravens**(born January 18, 2001) is an American actress.

Her most recognizable acting role is as Hayley Sundin on the television series Up on High Ground (2014–2015).

## Supporting roles and Casting

Cravens began acting at age 7 doing local Illinois plays. She was cast into her first film role in the St. Louis independent feature film "Hercules: The Brave and the Bold" in 2012 alongside her two older sisters.

Molly and her sister Rylee initially auditioned in 2012 after driving 60 miles with their father for two final open roles in a cast of hundreds for Hercules: The Brave and the Bold. Rylee saw a casting call for the audition, noticing a scene had already been filmed in a nearby town of Hartford, Illinois a few months prior. One of the casting directors along with the film director were present the day of their audition and weren't sold on the two sisters, until Bryan Kreutz, an assistant director at the time and only present this one instance for casting suggested they get their shot after liking what he saw in person. Little did the group of actors and directors know if not given the shot at this film, what *Up on High Ground* would have looked like without the two apart of the main cast.

In 2012 Cravens was sought out by St. Louis producers to act in the short film *To Inflict* as a Dunkin Donuts/Coffee shop barista character named Piper. The name of the character was picked by Cravens. At the time of the principal filming of the scene, Molly was only 11 years old. This coffee shop scene where Cravens plays the barista was filmed as the very first scene in production order. Molly was credited in the Elizabeth Wiegard directed film that would be selected in the 7th Indie Fest USA film festival in Garden Grove, California in 2013.

 Up on High Ground

Cravens was added as a twin character with Matthew Becker, portraying high school freshmen even though she was a year and half younger than him. Although Molly's not in the opening title sequence she was told by producer Bryan Kreutz her name would be the first after the sequence was over when listing the "also starring" actor names. Cravens was not present for the 2nd of only 2 full main cast publicity posters due to timing of the shoot being around an out of state Soccer Tournament her and her sister Rylee were apart of. The two actresses were photo-shopped into the poster based on the way they were standing off to the side in screen-captured photos from two episodes. Cravens is considered to be the last member in the main cast, even though not billed in the opening credits, for the family and faith based TV series *Up on High Ground*, playing the character Hayley Sundin.

Cravens appeared all nine episodes of the series that ran on several The CW TV affiliates in syndication and Pure Flix Entertainment from 2014-2015.

*Up on High Ground* marks the third time that Brayden Patterson, Joe McGettigan, Erin Morris, and Bryan Kreutz have worked together alongside sisters Rylee and Molly Cravens. The first was the 2013 Indie feature film *Hercules: The Brave and the Bold,* the one after was *To Inflict.*

The initial first season story arc called for Molly's character Hayley to have her as besties with two girls, Thea Swanson and Erin O'Byrne. Many of the producers tasks were to schedule multiple student actors in the main cast and recurring cast together to show the cliques and friendships they were apart of to be believable at the school. Molly's schedule was a challenge, even having Hayley written out of some scenes due to unavailability. Call times even required her sister Rylee's to be hours before hers and vice versa, but riding together from long distances to the set required long hours, even though Molly was not needed until much later in the shooting schedule for the day. Kreutz recognized this early and made other actresses like Taylor Vandelicht to be apart of her clique so Cravens could be included in background or reaction shots and essentially used while waiting for her key dialogue scenes later. A grocery store scene in the episode *Fued of Friends and Foes* had Hayley supposed to be meting up with Erin, but because of the prior episodes and scenes that conflicted where Hayley and Erin could not be together as friends this scene instead had Hayley sticking with her mom Jaris instead of breaking away with her friend Erin O'Byrne. Erin asking Hayley's younger sister Roxy where her sister was in the story even.

Hayley Sundin and Thea Swanson were written as best friends into multiple episodes throughout the series, by design, from the beginning of production.

A heavily written script with a large amount of dialogue between Cravens character Hayley and Erin was on the horizon. Showing more character development into relationships and girl attention competition in dressing was intended to be the next episode to be taped before the series was canceled. The episode titled *Pretty Much Perfect* had Hayley and Erin spending much of the episode together and actually showing their close friendship.

Matthew Becker and Erin Morris were the final two lead actors together in a scene. The final scenes of solo performances were by Jessica Jordan and Molly Cravens when the series on set production ceased in October 2015. This final scene with Molly Cravens was the only scene to not have a director present on set. The scene was actually planned and scripted out to be a single still camera flashback scene shot in Cravens actual bedroom for a nightmare flashback moment in the episode *Gone, But Not Forgotten.*

## Personal life and career

Cravens is a musician; particular instruments she plays are the Trumpet and Piano, which she has played in a music video duo alongside her sister in summer 2012, available on YouTube. Molly is also an award winning soccer player in the Saint Louis Metro area.

Molly is an avid dog lover and even fosters for local shelters in her home in the metro St. Louis area.

Her trademark through Up on High Ground and outside of acting is her very long, blonde hair. She wore it up the only time in the second to last episode and final episode scenes that were taped together on her second to last taping day of Up on High Ground.

## Filmography

**Film**

**Television**

## External links

\* Molly Cravens at TV.com