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Mckenna Grace (born June 25, 2006, in Grapevine, Texas, USA) is an American actress best known to Ghostbusters fans for portraying Phoebe Spengler in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024). Her performance as the scientifically gifted granddaughter of Egon Spengler became one of the most celebrated elements of the Afterlife continuity, earning her a Critics Choice Super Award nomination.
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Grace portrayed Phoebe Spengler across both films in the Afterlife continuity. Phoebe is Egon Spengler's granddaughter, characterized by her exceptional intellect, dry wit, and deep connection to her grandfather's scientific legacy.
| Film | Role |
|---|---|
| Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) | Phoebe Spengler |
| Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) | Phoebe Spengler |
Grace was a Ghostbusters fan before she was cast; she reportedly told her mother as a young child that she would be very busy when she grew up because she was going to be a Ghostbuster.
When Grace first approached the role, she played Phoebe in a more robotic and flat manner, drawing on the character's side notes. Director Jason Reitman asked her to put "more Mckenna in Phoebe," encouraging her to be more expressive and emotionally present. The final performance landed somewhere between those two poles.
The hardest aspect of filming for Grace was maintaining Phoebe's sustained stoicism across long shooting days. She also prepared to solve a Rubik's cube in under five minutes for a scene that was ultimately cut from the final film.
During chemistry reads before production, Carrie Coon performed the argument scene with Grace to help establish their on-screen mother-daughter dynamic.
Grace and co-star Logan Kim developed a handshake on the first day of Afterlife production and added new moves to it every day until, by the end of filming, it had grown into a full performance. The two also sang Smash Mouth's "All Star" together on set every day. An unidentified crew member pranked both Grace and Kim by leaving bones at the foot of their trailers and outside the schooling trailer.
During the mine shaft elevator sequence, Grace and Kim communicated in Morse code using their flashlights between takes. For Phoebe's joke moments throughout the film, Grace filmed multiple alternate takes and Reitman chose the ones he preferred in the edit.
Some shots of Phoebe on the Ecto-1's gunner seat were filmed against greenscreen and composited into the final frame. For second-unit shots requiring a stunt double, the visual effects team performed a face replacement using Grace's likeness.
Grace stole Phoebe's glasses and a Ghost Trap from the Afterlife set as keepsakes.
The crew pretended to lock Grace inside Phoebe's footlocker at least once during production.
Grace wrote the song "Haunted House" in March 2021 without any intention of it appearing in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. She sent it to Jason Reitman hoping he would direct the music video. Reitman instead asked to include the song in the film's end credits, where it appears in the theatrical release.
In Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Grace's real dog Gizmo has a brief cameo appearance.
A notable preparation detail across both productions: Egon Spengler's hair color was changed to blond for The Real Ghostbusters animated series, while the reverse was required of Grace, who dyes her natural blonde hair darker to match Egon's original brown hair as seen in the films.
Grace was nominated for Best Actress in a Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie at the 2022 Critics Choice Super Award for her performance as Phoebe Spengler in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
| Project | Type | Role/Notes | Year(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Young and the Restless | TV Series | Actress, ~50 episodes | 2013-2015 |
| Crash & Bernstein | TV Series | Actress, ~15 episodes | 2012-2014 |
| Amityville: The Awakening | Film | Actress | 2017 |
| Mickey and the Roadster Racers | TV Series (short) | Voice Actress, ~10 episodes | 2017-2021 |
| Young Sheldon | TV Series | Actress, ~9 episodes | 2017-2024 |
| Annabelle Comes Home | Film | Actress | 2019 |
