Kathryn Newton

The Swing That Defined a Career

Kathryn Newton made her TV debut before she could read fluently. In 2001 she landed the role of Colby Chandler on the series All My Children, and that shaped her childhood amid papier-mâché sets. But her real competitive edge wasn't in the scripts but on the golf course.

As a teenager, she nearly gave up acting to try to become a professional golfer. In 2012, she starred in Paranormal Activity 4 and won a Young Artist Award while still competing in high-level school tournaments. Balancing golf clubs with supernatural scares gave her a discipline that few young actors keep.

And the gamble paid off.

That competitive coolness helped her hold her own against industry legends. On big-budget sets, pressure often breaks those who have no anchor outside the cameras.

From Nicole Kidman's Daughter to Marvel Heroine

In 2017 her name began circulating in every casting office in Los Angeles after her stint on Big Little Lies. Playing the rebellious daughter of Reese Witherspoon opened the door to much grittier projects like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri that same year. It was a stage where she stopped being a child prodigy and took on weighty supporting roles.

Hollywood then decided Newton could carry a commercial film on her own, without needing adults on screen. So projects arrived in which her physical presence was the main engine of the plot.

In 2020, she arrived with Freaky, a horror comedy in which she swapped bodies with a serial killer. Critics praised her ability to shift from fear to psychopathy without missing a beat. But her biggest leap in scale came in 2023 with her official entry into the superhero genre.

That competitive coolness helped her hold her own against legends.

In Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, she took on the role of Cassie Lang. The shoot was demanding, packed with visual effects and requiring months of constant physical training. The film grossed more than $476 million worldwide despite mixed reviews of the script.

Monsters and Tight Budgets

In 2024, she starred in Lisa Frankenstein, directed by Zelda Williams. This gothic-styled film pays tribute to the cinema of the 1980s, and Newton explores a far more eccentric and less polished register. For the role, she had to learn specific dance moves reminiscent of B-movies.

That same year, she starred in Abigail, a horror film about a vampire ballerina who kidnaps a group of criminals. On this project she shared the bill with Dan Stevens and Giancarlo Esposito in a shoot set almost entirely in a mansion in Dublin.

The production of this latest film had a budget of $28 million.