✦ MCKENNA GRACE ✦

ACTRESS ✦ SINGER ✦ SONGWRITER ✦ HORROR ✦ DRAMA ✦ SCI-FI

Ghosts, heartbreak, complicated girls, and a lot more range than you probably realized.

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MCKENNA GRACE

Mckenna Grace is an American actress, singer, and songwriter born June 25, 2006, in Grapevine, Texas.

She began acting as a child, appearing in projects including Crash & Bernstein and The Young and the Restless before gaining wider recognition as Mary Adler in Gifted.

From there, her career moved through an unusually wide collection of genres.

Drama.

Horror.

Superheroes.

Ghosts.

Psychological thrillers.

And eventually, music of her own.

✦ SWEET FACE. VERY QUESTIONABLE NUMBER OF HAUNTED PROJECTS. ✦

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THE ROLES

MARY ADLER — GIFTED
YOUNG TONYA HARDING — I, TONYA
YOUNG THEODORA — THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
YOUNG CAROL DANVERS — CAPTAIN MARVEL
JUDY WARREN — ANNABELLE COMES HOME
ESTHER KEYES — THE HANDMAID’S TALE
PHOEBE SPENGLER — GHOSTBUSTERS

Mckenna built much of her early career playing unusually intelligent, emotionally complicated, or slightly unsettling characters.

Sometimes vulnerable.

Sometimes stubborn.

Sometimes standing approximately six feet away from something supernatural that absolutely should not be there.

Gifted gave her one of her earliest major dramatic showcases.

The Handmaid’s Tale pushed her into much darker material.

And then came the proton pack.

✦ PHOEBE SPENGLER ✦

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GHOSTBUSTERS

As Phoebe Spengler in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Mckenna became one of the central faces of a new generation of the franchise.

Phoebe is awkward.

Brilliant.

Dryly funny.

Curious enough to investigate something that most reasonable people would immediately run away from.

And very comfortable carrying around dangerous scientific equipment.

The role combines comedy, emotion, science-fiction, family history, and supernatural adventure while letting Mckenna play a character whose personality depends as much on tiny reactions as big dramatic moments.

GHOSTS?
COOL.
LET HER GET THE PROTON PACK.

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THE HORROR GIRL

Mckenna has publicly described herself as a genuine horror fan, which makes the number of creepy projects scattered throughout her filmography feel extremely appropriate.

The Haunting of Hill House.

Annabelle Comes Home.

The Bad Seed.

Ghostbusters.

She has spent a significant amount of her career around haunted houses, possessed objects, ghosts, murder, and people making extremely poor decisions in dark rooms.

And somehow she keeps coming back.

✦ AT THIS POINT, THE GHOSTS SHOULD BE SCARED OF HER ✦

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THE MUSIC

Acting lets Mckenna disappear into someone else.

Music gives her somewhere to put herself.

Her songwriting developed into a much more personal creative outlet, with songs built around growing up, relationships, insecurity, frustration, heartbreak, self-image, and all the uncomfortable emotions that are much harder to hide behind a character.

Her 2021 song Haunted House was featured during the credits of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, creating an unusually perfect crossover between her acting and music careers.

She later released Bittersweet 16 in 2023, leaning into pop, pop-rock, and alternative influences.

ACTING TELLS THEIR STORY.
MUSIC TELLS HERS.

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HER CREATIVE SIDE

Mckenna has described songwriting as something deeply personal and therapeutic.

There is a noticeable contrast between the two sides of her career.

On screen, she can become somebody completely different.

In music, there is nowhere to hide behind the script.

The emotions are hers.

The stories are closer.

The embarrassment is real.

And that vulnerability gives the music a different kind of intimacy than acting.

✦ CAMERA ON: SOMEONE ELSE.
MIC ON: HERSELF. ✦

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HER PUBLIC ENERGY

Despite how serious or unsettling many of her characters can be, Mckenna’s public presence often comes across much brighter.

Animated.

Enthusiastic.

Creative.

A little nerdy.

Very capable of becoming excited when discussing something she genuinely loves.

She can move from thoughtful conversation about acting or songwriting directly into excitedly talking about horror movies without much warning.

That contrast works strangely well.

ON SCREEN:
someone is probably traumatized.

OFF SCREEN:
she is probably excited about the movie that traumatized them.

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THE CONTRAST

Mary Adler is a gifted child fighting against expectations placed on her.

Esther Keyes exists inside one of television’s darkest worlds.

Judy Warren gets trapped inside supernatural horror.

Phoebe Spengler sees a ghost and basically responds by asking how it works.

And then Mckenna steps away from all of them and writes songs about feelings that belong entirely to her.

That contrast has become one of the more interesting parts of her career.

ACTRESS.
SONGWRITER.
PROFESSIONAL SURVIVOR OF HAUNTED THINGS.

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MCKENNA GRACE

Child actor turned leading actress.
Actress turned songwriter.
Songwriter who somehow keeps ending up around ghosts.

From Gifted to Gilead, haunted houses, proton packs, and increasingly personal music.

✦ GIFTED ✦ THE HANDMAID’S TALE ✦ GHOSTBUSTERS ✦ BITTERSWEET 16 ✦