Katherine McNamara

McNamara worked the teen circuit first, in the way that career is built: Kickin' It, Jessie, Girl vs. Monster, an episode of Workaholics, Lily Bowman in New Year's Eve, then Sonya across Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and Maze Runner: The Death Cure. Nothing in that list suggests what she would turn out to be good at.

Shadowhunters is where the audience came from. Three years as Clary Fray brought her a Teen Choice Award and a People's Choice Award, which are fandom metrics rather than critical ones, and that is precisely the point. The skill she has is holding the emotional centre of a show whose plot is frankly nonsense, playing every absurd development as though the stakes were domestic and real. It is an underrated job and very few actors are good at it.

Since then she has been the reliable lead in genre television: Mia Smoak on Arrow, Julie Lawry in The Stand, and Abby Walker in Walker Independence, which brought a Critics Choice Super Award nomination for best actress in an action series. Around that runs a steady stream of quickly-shot thrillers and romances, from Assimilate and Indiscretion to Trust, Finding You, Air Force One Down and the True Justice films.

That is the honest shape of it: a working genre lead with a devoted audience, doing a specific job very consistently.