Who is Kennedy McMann? Meet the actress who plays the lead role in Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew season 4, headlined by Kennedy McMann, is gearing up to be released on May 31, 2023. The upcoming season will be the final season for the mystery drama which was launched on October 9, 2019. While critics have given the CW drama mixed reviews, viewers have loved the show. This led the creators to churn out a fourth and final season of the show.

Leading the show is Kennedy McMann as the titular character. She is accompanied by Leah Lewis as her old high-school nemesis Georgia "George" Fayne, and Maddison Jaizani playing her colleague Bess Turani Marvin. The other cast members include Tunji Kasim as Drew's ex-boyfriend and former teenage convict/footballer Ned "Nick" Nickerson, and Alex Saxon as Drew’s love interest Ace.

Kennedy McMann was a relatively new actor when she signed as the lead in February 2019. Before Nancy Drew, she appeared in one episode each of Gone and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. The episode of the former was titled Family Photo, where she played a character named Sara Moreland.

In the crime drama TV series, the Michigan native was seen as Carol Solomon in the episode named Revenge. After these tiny parts, McMann landed her first big and significant break in Nancy Drew.

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Kennedy McMann studied acting at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama where she met her husband

When Kennedy McMann was roped in to lead The CW series, she was a fresh graduate from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. The young actress studied Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting at the Pittsburgh-based drama institution, where she also met her now-husband Sam McInerney.

Before Carnegie, McMann was a student at Arizona-based Skyline High School in 2014. She earned the title of Mesa Public Schools' inaugural Student of the Month honoree along with four others on November 12, 2013, when she was in her senior year.

Her mother, Lisa McMann, is an author who has created the dystopian fantasy series The Unwanteds and The Unwanteds Quests and the WAKE trilogy for young adults. While talking to Lansing State Journal in October 2019, Kennedy McMann detailed her Nancy Drew association while growing up.

She said that she has had a pretty long history with Nancy Drew as she came from a "super literary family." Kennedy said that since her mother is an author, she grew up reading books.

After wrapping up production of season 4, the actress noted how the show “completely changed my life." She added that she started the journey at 22 and finished it at 26 as she has grown up, gotten married, and brought a house. Kennedy also noted that she has found herself and lived an "absolute childhood dream." She said that the experience has completely changed her life and called it an "incredible gift."

Talent agency Buchwald, which has branches in New York City and Los Angeles, represents the Nancy Drew star. Apart from Gone, Law and Order: SVU, and Nancy Drew, McMann was seen in the 2020 short film, This Is Not A Love Letter. She was also seen in two episodes of the Hulu TV series Tell Me Lies, among others.

After the amateur sleuth series, Kennedy McMann will be featured in The Good Lawyer, a potential spinoff of ABC’s The Good Doctor. Felicity Huffman appeared along with her on the March 13, 2023, episode of the medical drama in an embedded pilot episode. Huffman is a Primetime Emmy Awardee of Desperate Housewives and Transamerica fame,

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Nancy Drew season 4 hits The CW on Wednesday, May 31, 2023, at 8 pm ET.