Chandler Kinney’s career began with dance, then moved through television, Disney’s ZOMBIES franchise and teen horror before bringing her back to live performance on Dancing with the Stars. On season 33, she and partner Brandon Armstrong finished third.
Dance came before acting
Kinney has said her first performance in front of an audience was at age three and that she began competing on stage while she was young. At nine, she auditioned for a GAP commercial; she has described that opportunity as the step that led to representation and acting classes. This is Kinney’s recollection of her own early path, shared in a 2023 interview with The Untitled Magazine.
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Her transition was not a sudden break from one discipline to another. “It was such a gradual, natural transition, and it genuinely felt right as I moved through it all,” she said. Her early screen credits included American Horror Story: Asylum, 90210, Girl Meets World and K.C. Undercover, according to that interview. Teen Vogue also noted her work on the two Disney Channel shows and her connection to Zendaya through K.C. Undercover.
Television roles developed her range
Riana in Lethal Weapon
Kinney became a series regular on Fox’s action series Lethal Weapon, playing Riana. In the 2023 interview, she said the role taught her to remain present and responsive in a scene: “Riana from Lethal Weapon taught me how to stay present in a scene and stay on my toes.” The reflection offers a glimpse of what she took from the work, rather than a claim about how the role was received.
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Willa in the ZOMBIES franchise
In Disney’s ZOMBIES films, Kinney plays Willa, the leader of the werewolves. The role draws on the combination of acting, singing and dancing that she has said she enjoys. She also returned to voice Willa in ZOMBIES: The Re-Animated Series. Disney’s current biography lists her return as Willa in ZOMBIES 4: Dawn of the Vampires, placing the character across live-action and animated installments.
Tabby in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin
Kinney played Tabby Hayworth in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin and its follow-up, Pretty Little Liars: Summer School. She described Tabby as loyal and protective, as well as a cinephile who uses movies to interpret the world around her. The role gave Kinney room to explore a character’s psychology—an interest she connected to her own studies.
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While studying psychology at UCLA, Kinney decided to leave school and act full time in order to film Original Sin, Teen Vogue reported in 2022. She said her coursework had helped her think about how people and characters behave. Looking back at the strain of trying to do everything at once, she told the magazine, “I wasn’t able to show up for others, or myself.”
Dancing with the Stars brought dance back to the foreground
Kinney competed on season 33 of Dancing with the Stars with professional partner Brandon Armstrong. They placed third, and Disney’s contestant biography describes them as the first Black couple to compete in that season’s finale. The milestone refers specifically to that season’s finale, not to the show’s history as a whole.
The appearance reads as a return to a discipline that had been part of Kinney’s performing life since childhood, rather than a new turn toward dance. In 2023, before the competition season, she summed up her enthusiasm for combining dance with future work: “Any time I can dance, I take it!” The available biographical accounts do not establish enough about her technical training to compare her dance experience with that of other contestants.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What connects Kinney’s different career chapters?
Her roles have taken her through distinct formats: an ensemble action series, musical fantasy films and animation, teen horror, and a live partner dance competition. The through-line is the range of performance demands, not a single genre or character type. Kinney herself has described different lessons from the work: staying alert in scenes as Riana, combining performance disciplines as Willa, and exploring a character’s inner life as Tabby.
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- Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Full Screen, NTSC
- Language: English
- Region: Region 1 U.S. and Canada only
- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Video Run Time: 51 minutes
Chandler’s Friends
Kinney has said she and her mother founded Chandler’s Friends to support children who lack resources. In an interview, she named a reading program, blankets for children in foster care, back-to-school supplies and an annual toy drive among its projects. Those are the activities she described; the available information does not establish the organization’s current operating status.
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