Mackenzie Davis
Canadian actress (born 1987)
Mackenzie Rio Davis (born April 1, 1987) is a Canadian actress. She made her feature film debut in the drama film Smashed (2012). In 2013, she appeared in the film The F Word, for which she received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. From 2014 to 2017, she starred as computer programmer Cameron Howe in the AMC period drama series Halt and Catch Fire.
Davis starred in the two-time Emmy award winning Black Mirror episode "San Junipero" in 2016, for which she received critical acclaim. She appeared in the films The Martian (2015), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and portrayed the title character in the comedy-drama film Tully (2018). She then starred as an augmented super-soldier in Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), and co-starred in the romantic comedy film Happiest Season (2020). In 2021, she had a lead role in the miniseries Station Eleven, which earned her a Critics' Choice Super Award.
01Early life
Davis was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Lotte, a graphic designer, and John Davis, a hairdresser from Liverpool, England. Her parents own AG Hair. She graduated from Collingwood School in West Vancouver in 2005 and then attended McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. She went on to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.
02Career
Davis's first feature film was Smashed. In 2015, she appeared in The Martian as NASA satellite communications engineer Mindy Park.
From 2014 to 2017, she played programming prodigy Cameron Howe in Halt and Catch Fire for the duration of its four-season run.
In 2016, she co-starred as Yorkie in "San Junipero", an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror, which received two Emmy Awards. She was also cast as Mariette in Blade Runner 2049.
In 2019, she appeared in Terminator: Dark Fate as an augmented super soldier who is sent from the future to protect Dani Ramos. In October 2019, she was cast in the lead role in the HBO Max miniseries Station Eleven.
In 2020, Davis starred as Kate in The Turning, opposite Finn Wolfhard and Brooklynn Prince. The film is a modern adaptation of the 1898 horror novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. She also starred as Diana Hastings in Irresistible, a film by Jon Stewart about the outsized influence of money on the American electoral system. She also starred in the 2020 romantic comedy Happiest Season co-starring Kristen Stewart.
In June 2020, it was announced that Davis would be part of the ensemble cast of Zellner Brothers' science-fiction comedy Alpha Gang, which includes Jon Hamm, Andrea Riseborough, Nicholas Hoult, Sofia Boutella and Steven Yeun.
In February to April 2023 she played the role of Isolde in Phaedra in an updated version of the play by Simon Stone at the National Theatre in London.
Her short film WOACA, her directorial debut, screened in the Short Cuts program at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
In May 2022, she signed to star in Justin Anderson’s directorial debut Swimming Home, an adaptation of the Booker Prize-nominated novel of the same name by Deborah Levy, alongside Christopher Abbott and Ariane Labed.
03Acting credits
| † | Denotes works that have not yet been released |
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Alex | Terri | Short film |
| 2012 | Smashed | Millie | |
| The Hat Goes Wild | Cathy | Credited as Mackenzie Rio Davis | |
| 2013 | Breathe In | Lauren Reynolds | |
| The F Word | Nicole | Alternative title: What If? | |
| Bad Turn Worse | Sue | ||
| Plato's Reality Machine | Sophia | ||
| Moontown | Shayna | Short film | |
| 2014 | That Awkward Moment | Chelsea | |
| Emptied | Charlotte Laurence | Short film | |
| 2015 | Freaks of Nature | Petra Lane | |
| A Country Called Home | Reno | ||
| Memory Box | Isabelle | Short film | |
| The Martian | Mindy Park | ||
| 2016 | Always Shine | Anna | |
| 2017 | Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town | Izzy | Also producer |
| Blade Runner 2049 | Mariette | ||
| 2018 | Boomerang | Jenifer | Short film |
| Tully | Tully | ||
| 2019 | Terminator: Dark Fate | Grace Harper | |
| 2020 | The Turning | Kate Mandell | |
| Irresistible | Diana Hastings | ||
| Happiest Season | Harper Caldwell | ||
| 2023 | WOACA | Short film; writer, director, producer | |
| 2024 | Swimming Home | Isabel | |
| Speak No Evil | Louise Dalton | ||
| 2026 | My Notes on Mars | Margot |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | I Just Want My Pants Back | Lucie | Episode: "Safety Nets" |
| 2014-2017 | Halt and Catch Fire | Cameron Howe | Main role (40 episodes) |
| 2016 | Black Mirror | Yorkie | Episode: "San Junipero" |
| 2017 | No Activity | Patricia / "Pat the Rat" | Episode: "The Witness" |
| 2020 | Home Movie: The Princess Bride | Princess Buttercup | Episode: "Chapter Two: The Shrieking Eels" |
| 2021-2022 | Station Eleven | Kirsten Raymonde | Main role (10 episodes) |
| 2022 | Love, Death & Robots | Martha Kivelson (voice) | Episode: "The Very Pulse of the Machine" |
| 2026 | The Undertow† | Nicola | Main role |
| Below † | Fonda Howander | Main Role (miniseries) |
Theatre
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Phaedra | Isolde | National Theatre, London |
04Accolades
| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Canadian Screen Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role | The F Word | Nominated |
| 2016 | Monster Fest | Best Performance in a Feature Film (Female) | Always Shine | Won |
| Tribeca Film Festival | Best Actress in a U.S. Narrative Feature | Won | ||
| 2017 | Napa Valley Film Festival | Special Jury Award, Best Breakout Performance | Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town | Won |
| Tacoma Film Festival | Best Performance (shared with Jun Zhao) | Won | ||
| International Online Cinema Awards | Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie | "San Junipero" | Nominated | |
| 2018 | Best Supporting Actress | Tully | Nominated | |
| Indiana Film Journalists Association | Nominated | |||
| 2019 | Women's Image Network Awards | Supporting Actress Feature Film | Nominated | |
| CinemaCon | Ensemble Award (shared with Linda Hamilton, Natalia Reyes and Gabriel Luna) | Terminator: Dark Fate | Won | |
| 2022 | Critics' Choice Super Awards | Best Actress in a Science Fiction/Fantasy Series | Station Eleven | Won |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Mackenzie Davis”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- TIFF-2026-BELOW-MACKENZIE-DAVIS-02.png by JoshPopov, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 'The Martian' World Premiere (NHQ201509110005) cropped.jpg by Bill Ingalls, Public domain
- Mackenzie Davis by Gage Skidmore.jpg by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0
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