McNamara’s business degree also informed her outlook on equal pay and what she asks from her team when it’s time to negotiate. “I don’t want special treatment for any reason. I don’t want special treatment because I’m young. I don’t want special treatment because I’m an actor. I don’t want special treatment because I’m a woman,” she says. “I think ultimately that’s what equal pay seems to be about. It’s about realizing that we’re all human beings, and everyone should be fairly compensated for the work that they do.”
After college, McNamara went on to book small parts in TV shows like "30 Rock," "Glee" and "The Fosters" before her first major film role as Sonya in "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials" in 2015. Her big break came a year later when she was cast as Clary Fray, a teenage girl who learns that she’s a supernatural demon hunter, in Freeform’s "Shadowhunters," based on Cassandra Clare’s young adult book series, "The Mortal Instruments." The show—which McNamara found out she was cast in only 10 minutes before it was announced—shot her to a level of fame that only cult-favorite teen shows can do. Suddenly, she was one of Vanity Fair’s top 12 TV actors under 25, a People’s Choice Award winner, and a star with more than 3.7 million Instagram followers.
“'Shadowhunters' will always be really special to me because I’ve never had a character that’s so similar to who I am,” she says. “My journey very much parallels Clary’s journey as a girl who’s unsuspectingly thrown into this world with all this responsibility and has to grow up in the process. 'Shadowhunters' became family for me.”
In 2018, McNamara was driving in her car when she learned that "Shadowhunters" was cancelled after three seasons. “I was shocked,” she says. “We all thought the show was going to continue.” Immediately, fans took to social media to express their outrage. The Shadowfam, the show’s fandom, called on networks like Netflix to save the series, as well as Freeform to renew "Shadowhunters" for a proper final season. Their efforts paid off, and the series officially ended in May 2019 with a two-and-a-half-hour finale. “Because we knew it was ending and we knew this was our time to pay homage to the books, to the fandom, to these characters, to this world that we built, we were able to go, ‘You know what? This is the last time we get to do this, so let’s go all out. Let’s give 112 percent,’ and I think we did that,” McNamara says.
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McNamara’s business degree also informed her outlook on equal pay and what she asks from her team when it’s time to negotiate. “I don’t want special treatment for any reason. I don’t want special treatment because I’m young. I don’t want special treatment because I’m an actor. I don’t want special treatment because I’m a woman,” she says. “I think ultimately that’s what equal pay seems to be about. It’s about realizing that we’re all human beings, and everyone should be fairly compensated for the work that they do.”
After college, McNamara went on to book small parts in
TV shows like "30 Rock," "Glee" and "The Fosters" before her first major film role as Sonya in "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials" in 2015. Her big break came a year later when she was cast as Clary Faye, a teenage girl who learns that she’s a supernatural demon hunter, in Freeform’s "Shadowhunters," based on Cassandra Clare’s young adult book series, "The Mortal Instruments." The show—which McNamara found out she was cast in only 10 minutes before it was announced—shot her to a level of fame that only cult-favorite teen shows can do. Suddenly, she was one of Vanity Fair’s top 12 TV actors under 25, a People’s Choice Award winner, and a star with more than 3.7 million Instagram followers.
“'Shadowhunters' will always be really special to me because I’ve never had a character that’s so similar to who I am,” she says. “My journey very much parallels Clary’s journey as a girl who’s unsuspectingly thrown into this world with all this responsibility and has to grow up in the process. 'Shadowhunters' became family for me.”
In 2018, McNamara was driving in her car when she learned that "Shadowhunters" was cancelled after three seasons. “I was shocked,” she says. “We all thought the show was going to continue.” Immediately, fans took to social media to express their outrage. The Shadowfam, the show’s fandom, called on networks like Netflix to save the series, as well as Freeform to renew "Shadowhunters" for a proper final season. Their efforts paid off, and the series officially ended in May 2019 with a two-and-a-half-hour finale. “Because we knew it was ending and we knew this was our time to pay homage to the books, to the fandom, to these characters, to this world that we built, we were able to go, ‘You know what? This is the last time we get to do this, so let’s go all out. Let’s give a 112 percent,’ and I think we did that,” McNamara says.
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