Euphoriazine – Of her character in the upcoming Hallmark film Love, Classified (out April 21), Katherine McNamara says, “Taylor and I share one main quality, above all else, we are both workaholics.” No kidding. McNamara has been working since she was 13 years old. She had a lead role in two hit television shows — Mia Smoak on Arrow and Clary Fray on Shadowhunters. Since both of those shows ended in 2019 and 2020, respectively, McNamara has been in the Stephen King miniseries The Stand, as well as several horror films, plus she has a couple new projects on the horizon. McNamara’s Instagram bio describes her as a professional chameleon and with the amount of entirely diverse characters she has played, it’s a title she has earned.

Her most imminent project, Love, Classified, tells the story of a romance novelist and mother (played by Melora Hardin) who returns home from a book tour, hopeful to become closer to her children. Meanwhile her son, Zach (Max Lloyd-Jones), and daughter, Taylor, (McNamara) become involved in a new dating app that offers a fresh perspective on love and life in general. It’s a pretty significant departure from her time cage fighting, battling demons, and shooting down foes in a warehouse, but the role seems a natural choice for McNamara, who is happy to talk about love in all of its forms. “The great thing about Love, Classified is that it does what Schitt’s Creek did in a beautiful way, like Schitt’s Creek said it so perfectly — it’s about loving the wine, not the label,” she tells EUPHORIA. “It is not the labels that are important, it’s not about anything other than having an honest, authentic connection to another human being.” That authenticity is something she brings to all of her roles and possibly what has made her so popular in the darker worlds she has existed in. Even when she is kicking ass, bloody and beaten, McNamara’s characters are consistently human and relatable. So even when she slips easily into the skin of a character in the 1800s — like in her upcoming TV series Walker: Independence — plays the daughter of a superhero —like when she was Mia Smoak on Arrow — or portrays the daughter of a romance novelist in Love, Classified, there is always that spark of vulnerability that is 100% McNamara. Maybe that’s what makes her so in demand no matter the genre.

If there is a genre that most would associate with McNamara, it’s fantasy. She became a fixture in the public eye through Shadowhunters on Freeform, which was a television adaptation of an already popular book series called The Mortal Instruments. After a failed film adaptation, the stakes were high for the show. It helps that McNamara took the role just as seriously as any fan — because she was a fan too. “I grew up loving those books and those films and the mythology of the world in the sense of an escape,” she shares. “It had always been a dream of mine to put on a superset or play someone with magical abilities. It’s just fun being in the forest and sword fighting. You feel like you are 6 years old again and that’s why I love the life I live, because I get to do so many different things.” That enthusiasm ended up serving her well. Shadowhunters has the kind of following that hasn’t died down even three years after the show’s end. While some critics called the film a disappointment, largely because of the awkward lack of chemistry within the cast, Shadowhunters was filled with believable people in believable relationships who just happened to be dealing with unbelievable situations.