This time, she does less scaring, more listening

Big things seem to happen in Ryan Kiera Armstrong’s shows.
She kicks people, shoots people, sets them on fire. She kills and is killed. Also, she plays the violin.
For someone who’s only 15, she’s been busy. But in “The Lowdown,” she has an opposite experience.
The show (on Hulu and 9 p.m. Tuesdays on FX) stars Ethan Hawke as a Lee, a writer who is brash, booming and a bit foolhardy; Armstrong (shown here) plays his daughter Francis, watching and absorbing and, on occasion, salvaging. “You have to be the counterbalance,” she said.
It’s the kind of work some actors (including Armstrong) do well — with the eyes and face, not the mouth. “I’m just reacting in my own head,” she said by Zoom. “I hope you can see it.”
It’s a long way from her work in the past … or, possibly, in the future. (A pilot for a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” sequel has been filmed, with her in the lead role; so far, there’s no word on its fate.)
But long ago, she started watching and absorbing.
Her mother is a Toronto dentist, her father is a Los Angeles actor and the family also spent years in New York. “I’ve kind of been on the road my whole life,” Armstrong said. In general: “I’m a New Yorker — but I live in LA.”
That’s where her dad, Dean Armstrong, is based. He’s an actor who’s been busy, including being the villainous developer throughout the recent “Sullivan’s Crossing” season. But he may be better known for running an acting school and coaching individuals.
“I kind of just went on sets with him,” Ryan said. (We’ll switch to the first name, to avoid confusion.) “I would listen to him teach; I would just be there watching.”
The students were mostly adults, she said, “but I was constantly absorbing.”
And then, of course, she insisted on acting. Her dad hesitated — “he knows how hard the industry can be” — but by 6, she was auditioning.
Big roles have followed quickly, in stories by Stephen King (the title role in “Firestarter,” an early victim in “It, Chapter Two”) and in others. She’s been a vengeful cowgirl in “The Old Way,” a scheming violinist in “American Horror Story” and more.
“I really do like doing horror, as crazy as that sounds,” Ryan said. “Because you get to play someone you’re not at all, sometimes someone you’d never want to be.”
Along the way, she adds skills. “I had to learn the violin a year in advance for ‘American Horror Story.’ It’s so cool now; I get to learn martial arts.”
And she does roles that range widely, from other-world special-effects for “Skeleton Crew” (a “Star Wars” spin-off on Disney+) to “Lowdown” scenes filmed in Tulsa’s blue-collar neighborhood.
“I love love filming on location,” Ryan said. “For my last role, we were in the studio so much — seven months. I was so pale.”
Now she’s been out in Tulsa’s world, sometimes saving her fictional father and sometimes just watching. There are episodes without her, but she offers key emotion in the final two, Oct. 28 and Nov. 4.
That includes a quietly moving moment, when Francis reads a poem about her relationship with her dad. “The performance was really truthful, because she was nervous and I was nervous and I was trying to be strong like she is.”
These are complex emotions, ones Hawke sort of sees in his relationship with his own daughter, actress Maya Hawke. “It’s a fine balance to be the parent you want to be and the human being you want to be. And sometimes, they don’t seem to line up.”
Yes, Ryan sees some ways that her real father is similar to her fictional one. “My dad is such a performer himself …. He’ll definitely make you laugh and put a smile on her face.”
But her real dad has never been kidnapped and hauled in the trunk of a car, the way Lee was. And Ryan has never, to her knowledge, shot people or set them on fire. Some things are best left to fiction.