Mckenna Grace
Mckenna Grace is an American actress and singer. Born in Grapevine, Texas, she began acting professionally at age five and relocated to Los Angeles, California, as a child. Her earliest roles included Jasmine Bernstein in the Disney XD sitcom Crash & Bernstein and Faith Newman in the soap opera The Young and the Restless. After several small roles, she starred as a child prodigy in Gifted, a breakthrough for which she received a nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.
Grace subsequently appeared in the films I, Tonya, Troop Zero, and Captain Marvel. During this time, she appeared in several horror projects, including The Bad Seed, The Haunting of Hill House, and Annabelle Comes Home. For playing the abused teenager Esther Keyes in The Handmaid's Tale, Grace was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, making her the first child recognized for a guest acting Emmy. She appeared in the supernatural comedy films Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as Phoebe Spengler, receiving critical praise and a Critics' Choice Super Award nomination. In 2022, Grace wrote, executive produced, and starred in The Bad Seed Returns, and portrayed Jan Broberg in A Friend of the Family. She then starred in the romantic drama Regretting You and the supernatural horror Five Nights at Freddy's 2.
After signing with Photo Finish Records in 2020, Grace released her debut single, "Haunted House", in 2021, as part of the Ghostbusters: Afterlife soundtrack. She released two extended plays in 2023: Bittersweet 16 and Autumn Leaves, which explored pop rock and folk sounds, respectively.
Early life
Mckenna Grace was born on June 25, 2006, in Grapevine, Texas. She is the only child of Ross Burge, an orthopedic surgeon, and Crystal Grace, a medical sales representative. As a young child, she lived in Dallas-Fort Worth. She trained in cheerleading, gymnastics, tap, and ballet. She participated in beauty pageants, where she was crowned "Tiny Miss Texas". Grace has never attended a regular school; she has been homeschooled and had on-set tutors. In 2017, Grace stated she was attending a creative writing workshop with other homeschooled students once a week. She took a college course on media aesthetics in 2021, in which she had to repeatedly write about The Handmaid's Tale without mentioning her own work on the show.Grace first expressed interest in acting at age four, after she received a collection of DVD films starring Shirley Temple from her great-grandmother. Grace's acting teacher, who was Morgan Fairchild's sister, advised that she should sign with an agent. Grace secured her first part in a commercial at the age of five. Her agent later recommended traveling to Los Angeles to see if she might land roles in films and television shows. After Grace secured parts in Crash & Bernstein and Goodbye World, her family moved to the city, with her father having a residency in Ventura.
Acting career
2012–2017: Early roles and breakthrough
Grace made her acting debut in Disney XD's Crash & Bernstein, recurring as Jasmine Bernstein. She reprised her role in the show's second season, playing the role until 2014. During this time, she made a guest appearance on the Fox sitcom The Goodwin Games. In 2013, she made her film debut in Goodbye World, a comedy-drama that disappointed critics. Between 2013 and 2015, she had a recurring role as Faith Newman on the soap opera The Young and the Restless. In 2015, Grace portrayed young Caroline Forbes in The Vampire Diaries. TVLine included her appearance in a list of the best flashback castings on television: "It's one thing to look like the younger version of a character, but Grace even cried like Caroline". Grace appeared in three films released in 2016—Mr. Church, The Angry Birds Movie, and Independence Day: Resurgence—all of which received negative reviews.In September 2015, Grace joined the cast of the drama film Gifted, which tells the story of Mary Adler, an intellectually gifted seven-year-old. She was selected for her "childlike charm yet old-soul maturity" and chemistry with co-star Chris Evans. She prepared for her role by watching several films about child prodigies, including I Am Sam and In America. Grace used songwriting to help remember the complex mathematical problems that Mary solves in the film. It became her breakthrough role. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times found her to be "an irresistible force", praising her scenes with Evans as "sensational". For her performance, Grace received a nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.
Grace portrayed the younger version of Tonya Harding in the biopic I, Tonya. She said it was the most difficult role she had ever undertaken physically due to having to learn to ice skate. As Harding was a skilled jumper from a young age, Grace had a double who performed the spins, jump combinations, and double lutz in the film. I, Tonya was well received by reviewers, with particular praise for its cast's performances. Writing for RogerEbert.com, the film critic Christy Lemire complimented Grace's portrayal of Harding's angst and heartache.
2018–2020: Horror roles and further recognition
Grace appeared in the 2018 horror drama The Bad Seed, a remake of the 1956 film of the same name, itself an adaptation of William March's 1954 novel. She portrays Emma Grossman, a girl who murders anyone who crosses her. Grace, who had longed to play a horror villain, was excited by the opportunity. In preparation for the role, she watched the 1956 film and focused on emulating the mannerisms of Rhoda Penmark, including her gait and facials; Grace also consulted Patty McCormack, who played Rhoda in the 1956 film. Upon The Bad Seed September 2018 premiere on Lifetime, critics commended her performance. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Grace's ability to be "unnerving, sweet and occasionally funny" is key to the success or failure of The Bad Seed, and "she nails every beat"; similarly, The A.V. Club lauded her portrayal of "the calculatedness of Emma's demeanor while giving a giggly edge to lines".In 2018, Grace starred in Netflix's horror series The Haunting of Hill House. To prepare for the role of young Theodora "Theo" Crain, she dyed her hair dark brown. The Haunting of Hill House, and its performances, received praise from critics. Now opined that she played the role with "wisdom way beyond her years". In the same year, she made a guest appearance on the supernatural horror show Chilling Adventures of Sabrina holiday special entitled "A Midwinter's Tale". Grace played a younger version of the titular character, who is portrayed by Kiernan Shipka as a teenager. According to the series creator, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Shipka immediately suggested Grace for the role after hearing a pre-teen Sabrina would appear on the show. During this time, she began recurring on the CBS sitcom Young Sheldon as Paige Swanson, a child prodigy and rival to the titular character.
Grace appeared in three films released in 2019. The first of these was a comedy-drama titled Troop Zero, which features Grace as a misfit girl who wants to send messages to space and enters a nationwide competition alongside a group of Birdie Scouts. For Troop Zero, she cut her hair asymmetrically, with one side near her shoulder and the other by her chin. Grace also tried not to wash her hair or maintain herself too well since she wanted to appear crazy like her character. Critics were generally favorable in their reviews of the film and lauded the cast. Variety described her as a "magnetic young performer", while The A.V. Club found her approach to her character "refreshingly non-intuitive", noting her portrayal of the feelings of loss through excitement rather than misery. Grace next portrayed a 13-year-old version of the eponymous character in the superhero film Captain Marvel. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $1.1 billion and ranking among the highest-grossing films of all time.
Grace's final release of 2019 was the supernatural horror film Annabelle Comes Home, which became the seventh installment in The Conjuring Universe. She starred as Judy Warren, daughter of the paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The director Gary Dauberman stated he was "very, very fortunate and very, very happy" to cast Grace, citing her professionalism and talent. Upon release, Annabelle Comes Home grossed over $231 million and received mixed reviews; Grace's performance was praised, however. According to The New York Observer, the "terrific" Grace had her own unique interpretation of the "horror movie kid" cliché that suits the "twisted age in which we find ourselves". She also voiced the younger Daphne Blake in 2020's Scoob!. She was set to reprise the role in the follow-up Scoob! Holiday Haunt, which was canceled in August 2022.
2021–present: Mainstream success
In 2021, Grace began recurring on the Hulu dystopian series The Handmaid's Tale, an adaptation of the 1985 novel of the same name, as Esther Keyes, an intelligent and rebellious 14-year-old who has been abused, raped, and married off to an older Commander. She was selected for her ability to portray scariness and awfulness. Grace said that it was vital for someone the same age as the character play the part since all the abuse Esther endured was experienced by many 14-year-olds on a daily basis: "If it makes people upset or uncomfortable that an actual 14-year-old is having to talk about how she was raped and it's acting, then maybe that will make you want to do something for actual girls who are going through this." The show's fourth season premiered on April 27, 2021, to positive reviews. Entertainment Weekly commented that Grace had "a memorable turn as a tyrannical child bride", and Den of Geek commended her "remarkable self-possession". At the 73rd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Grace received a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, making her the tenth youngest actor nominated at the Emmys and the first child recognized for a guest acting award.In 2021, Grace voiced a silly and energetic horserider in the DreamWorks animated film Spirit Untamed and played the young version of Annabelle Wallis's character in the horror film Malignant. Grace had a leading role as Phoebe Spengler in the supernatural comedy Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the sequel to Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. For the role, she cut and dyed her hair. The film was released theatrically on November 19, 2021, and became a moderate commercial success, grossing over $204 million on a budget of $75 million. Critics were generally ambivalent towards the film, though they commended Grace's performance. Mark Feeney of The Boston Globe asserted that " has its moments, most of them owing to a quite-phenomenal Mckenna Grace", and Gizmodo considered her performance "instantly unforgettable ... truly revelatory, star-making". Grace was nominated for the Critics' Choice Super Award for Best Actress in a Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, filming for The Handmaid's Tale halted. Grace and her father decided to write a follow-up to The Bad Seed, knowing that Lifetime wanted to air a sequel. He wrote the general structure of the film while she gave feedback, primarily on the dialogue. According to Lifetime's executive vice president Tanya Lopez, the network was "blown away" by Grace's concept for the sequel. Grace, who reprised her role as Emma, found acting her own script to be a unique experience: "It wasn't my interpretation of someone else's writing or character ... It was me being able to act out the scenes as I had envisioned them." The film, titled The Bad Seed Returns, premiered on Lifetime on September 5, 2022. It was the first project produced by Grace's company, Beautiful Ghosts Productions, with her also serving as executive producer. In the same month, Grace reprised her role as Esther in the fifth season of The Handmaid's Tale. Den of Geek favorably compared her screams in the season's sixth episode to those of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, stating they "distilled seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale protest into one primal outburst".
In March 2022, Grace joined the cast of Peacock's true crime miniseries A Friend of the Family as Jan Broberg—who was kidnapped twice and sexually abused by a family friend as a child—sharing the role with Hendrix Yancey. While filming, Grace tried to spend as much time with Yancey as she could and copied her mannerisms and smile. Grace also worked alongside Broberg, who produced the show; the two discussed subtle gestures to show stress, such as nail biting. Grace described the role as "really emotionally and sometimes physically exhausting"; she had to push herself to new limits, and blend three versions of Broberg. A Friend of the Family premiered on October 6, 2022, to positive critical reviews; Common Sense Media argued that "Grace does a terrific job conveying the mixture of vulnerability and growing dread her character is experiencing".
The following year, Grace starred in the science fiction adventure film Crater, playing Addison, the daughter of a respected scientist from Earth. Grace decided to sign onto the film after the screenplay made her cry. She described it as "really special", admiring its ending, heart, dialogue, and the relationships between the characters. Crater was released on Disney+ on May 12, 2023, to generally positive reviews. Articles in Entertainment.ie and Variety considered Grace to be the film's finest performer. Later that year, she led PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, which is based on the titular television series, as the voice of Skye.
Grace reprised her role as Phoebe in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which was released in March 2024. In preparation, Grace analyzed Harold Ramis's performance as Egon Spengler, which she described as her "biggest inspiration". The New York Observer critic Emily Zemler wrote that she "is very compelling and should have been allowed to properly lead the film". Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter said Frozen Empire indicates that she could become "the franchise's MVP". In 2025, Grace starred in the drama film What We Hide, Amy Wang's satirical drama Slanted, and the thriller film Anniversary. Her most commercially successful releases were the romantic drama Regretting You, based on Colleen Hoover's novel, and the supernatural horror Five Nights at Freddy's 2; both were panned by critics, though they praised the performances of Grace and co-star Mason Thames in the former. A review in Slant Magazine identified her as the "lone bright spot" of the film and commended her "recognizably real" portrayal of her character's vulnerability and naivety.