Shelley Hennig

The Crown as a Way Out

Shelley Hennig never planned to end up on a film set. In 2004, she walked across a Las Vegas stage with the Miss Teen USA sash and a smile that seemed destined for toothpaste ads. But that title was only a way to pay for her studies at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in New York.

And the gamble paid off.

In 2007, she joined the daily grind of production with Days of Our Lives. There she played Stephanie Johnson for 465 episodes. It's a survival school where actors memorize dozens of pages every morning and shoot at a frantic pace that leaves no room for error. Because on mass-market television, efficiency matters more than inspiration.

That effort earned her two Emmy Award nominations in the young actress category. But Hennig knew that if she stayed too long in daytime soap operas, her career would die from suffocation. In 2011, she decided to break her contract and try her luck in prime time.

The Stigma of the Fantasy Genre

Her arrival on The Secret Circle in 2011 seemed like the logical path for an actress with her look. The series was canceled after just one season, but it opened the doors of the CW network for her. That was when the character appeared that permanently changed the course of her career.

In 2014, she joined the cast of Teen Wolf to play Malia Tate. What began as a brief appearance became a regular role lasting six seasons. Hennig had to learn to move like an animal in the forests of Vancouver, Canada, while keeping a dry comedic tone that wasn't in the original scripts.

But horror films claimed her soon after.

In 2014, she starred in Unfriended and Ouija. Both productions performed spectacularly at the box office thanks to their small budgets. Unfriended grossed more than $64 million from a minimal investment of one million. Those projects took her out of the television niche and introduced her to the global audience in movie theaters.

The Leap to Action Streaming

Hennig spent years trying to move away from supernatural teen roles. In 2018, she starred in the romantic comedy When We First Met for Netflix alongside Adam DeVine. It was an attempt to show that her range could fit more down-to-earth stories that depend less on special effects.

The entertainment industry is fickle when it comes to timing.

In 2023, she returned to the universe that made her famous with Teen Wolf: The Movie. That same year, Netflix released Obliterated, in which Hennig played a CIA agent in a plot that mixed real action with a rowdy tone. The series was shot entirely in Las Vegas and required intense physical training for the choreographed fight scenes.

In 2024, she took part in the thriller Cult Killer alongside Alice Eve and Antonio Banderas. The film was released in U.S. theaters with an R rating for its explicit violence and strong language. Filming took place mainly in locations in Ireland under director Jon Keeyes.