I would like to say thank you for being conscious of the world around you and for being a a global citizen and serving kind of this world that we share and this this human race that we have because it's it's so important to think beyond yourself and beyond your own life and your own realm to to take care of everyone in the world that we live in.
It's um I always feel if everyone took just a couple of seconds every day to think of someone else and to do something kind for somebody else, the world would be a lot better place.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world thanks to each and every single one of you who come back every single week to listen, to learn, and grow.
And you know that I make it my best effort to find guests and connect and have create conversations that I think are going to serve and support you in amazing ways.
And today's guest is going to do exactly that.
She's not going to disappoint.
And today I'm live from WE Day.
And if you don't know about WE Day, it's part of the WE Charity and the WE Movement where 20,000 kids today are being celebrated for the service they're doing in their local and global communities. It's phenomenal.
Now, I've already been out on stage, but our guest today, Katherine McNamara, has not been out on stage yet.
She we've just sneaked her in here to have a moment to ask her a lot of different questions about her life, her perspective, why she's here today.
And for those of you who don't know Katherine, I want to tell you some amazing things about her.
So, listen to this and listen carefully.
Katherine is best known for her role on the teen drama Shadowhunters, which has received 14 Choice Awards and two People's Choice Awards.
Katherine was the People's Choice Female TV Star of 2018.
She now stars in DC Comics series Arrow and was recently cast in the Stephen King mini-series The Stand.
She's deeply passionate about charity work and released a song where listen to this, 100% of the proceeds were donated to the United Nations charity Girl Up.
She also helped raise $2 million for Children's Mercy Hospital with Selena Gomez.
Katherine, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you.
It's so wonderful to meet someone who's doing so many incredible things, so incredibly talented, doing this on very little sleep.
Oh, well, it's what I do.
I've never needed much sleep.
have you slept again did you say in the last 24 hours?
I don't exactly know, but most happened on an airplane.
But no, honestly, people ask me all the time cuz I always keep a crazy schedule like this of how I do it with no no sleep and it's because I'm dedicating my time to things that I really care about.
You know, I genuinely want to be doing these things.
And so, you know, if it means I have to give up a couple hours of sleep, that's worth it. I love that.
And how did you get involved with We Day?
I'm fascinated to know the story of how did you find out?
How did you hear about it?
So, We Day is something that I've known about for a long time.
Actually, a lot of my cast members from Shadowhunters have done We Day events all over the world and it's something that I've been trying to find an opportunity in my schedule and and an opportunity where, you know, I have met up with We Day's course of action.
And it did this just happen to be perfect.
I just finished up shooting Arrow here and I'm about to start The Stand here as well and Congratulations. you. Thank you so much. And uh so, here we are.
So, this is your first We Day, too? first We Day. too. Oh, there we go. Awesome. Great. First We Days.
Yeah, and that's the same for me.
So, I've been wanting to get into We Day for so long.
So many of my friends involved in We Day and so, it's been it's been a very similar journey. So, I love that. Well, it's meant to be. Yeah, absolutely.
So, I want to dive into so many things about you and the first thing I want to talk about is what was your first and well, not your first, what's your favorite memory of growing up in Kansas City?
I think some of my favorite memories growing up in Kansas City all happened at my grandparents' house.
They have this house that's in it's in this beautiful wooded area and it sort of became my nature playground was their backyard.
They had all these woods and hills and rocks and things I could climb around and look at the wildlife and just kind of be alone in my imagination and that I think started a lot of my sense of make-believe which is truly what I believe led me to being an actor.
I never wanted to be an actor as a kid.
I didn't even know that was a job coming from a family of science and medical professionals and I I wanted to be an economist as a kid. Wow.
So that that was totally my track until I you know fell into this backwards but that that and just the sense of community there.
You know there's something so special about it which is why I always go back as much as I can and that's why I'm so involved with the Big Slick as well which is the the organization that was started by Jason Sudeikis and Paul Rudd and and Will Forte, David Koechner, Rob Riggle, all Eric Stonestreet, all of these really successful actors that are from Kansas City.
And they go back every year.
It started as a little poker game and now this year we raised over $2 million for Children's Mercy Hospital there in 2 days.
They calculated all of the numbers and in the last 10 years they've raised over $10 million for the hospital and it's it's amazing.
It's just so lovely to be a part of and really shows the spirit of Kansas City. That's unbelievable.
I love that story and and tell me a bit about it because I I love what you shared there.
And and I talk a lot about I joke a lot about how when I was growing up I had three options either to become a lawyer, a doctor or a failure because that's kind of like all I knew about and so when you said that that you didn't know that you could be an actor that you didn't know existed I felt the same way about anything in media like I didn't think it was a real career and like you
said your your family was medical professionals your mom was a scientist and and it's like tell me about that decision of wanting to be an economist and then falling backwards into this because I think so many of our viewers are always thinking about finding their passion and finding something that they really believe in like you said doing things that are meaningful. Absolutely. Absolutely.
How did you switch from economist to this?
It sort of hit me like a brick wall.
I I was always a huge math nerd and I to this day I love economics because it's it's the real world application of the math that I love so much.
And I was just so fascinated by the fact that these formulas and graphs and complex math that I learned so much about could actually be used to predict and explain things that happen in the real world.
And once I discovered that, it was kind of a runaway train of um I became obsessed with different things, particularly developmental economics, because I I loved the sort of anthropological aspect that gets thrown into that when you're trying to find ways to help these developing countries exist in the world in a way that they can grow to their full potential.
Uh and that that fascinated me.
But aside from that, I was a ballet dancer as a hobby, and I and a girl scout and a softball player and all these other things, but I ran into a family friend who was directing a community theater production and needed a dancer.
And I was the kid who would try anything.
So I was like, "Sure, why not?
Let's go do this theater thing and see what that's all about."
And I will never forget walking on stage on opening night.
It's You have these moments of clarity in life, and they come few and far between, but you know beyond a doubt when they happen.
And I walked on stage and something hit me like a brick wall, and I just knew in that moment that I was put on this earth to tell stories.
And I was put on this earth to to create characters and to be a part of this communal um entertainment form, I guess.
And I've never looked back. I love that.
That's so beautiful, and I I think you're so right.
You articulated so well that we all get an opportunity if we slow down, Mhm.
if we if we kind of pause a little Mhm.
and take in these experiences, we all get these moments of clarity. Yeah.
And And I always say like when you eat something, you know whether you like it or not straight away. It's true.
But But we never do that.
We never reflect on that when we're doing something new. Right.
Or like when we do an activity, like you said, when I walked on stage, you just, you know, you felt it.
I think we should just check in with ourselves more. It's true.
do something new and be like, "Did I like that?"
Like you know, "Did I like that?"
I heard somebody give a talk earlier this year about being vulnerable to joy.
And there was something I thought was so beautiful in that because so often we're so focused on what the next thing is or protecting ourselves or whatever it is that we we don't allow ourselves to be open to whatever it is that's coming our way. Yeah.
And so we miss out on so much and I've I've tried to really make a concerted effort to do that, to be vulnerable to whatever it is.
Be it joy, be it a lesson to be learned, be it whatever.
Yeah, it tell me something that you've learned recently or something that you've been learning recently.
something that I've learned recently is uh the importance of of taking a moment actually.
Just what you said, taking a moment, taking a breath, and just And I I I live a life of a lot of chaos recently.
And it's really important to stop and take in those moments and just sit for a minute sometimes and really just be present and absorb what it is that you're in the in the midst of. Yeah, I love that.
Tell me how and I mean this genuinely, how does someone finish high school at 14 and get a Yeah. degree at 17, right?
kind of ties into why we're here today. Yes.
Um I again, I've always been a huge nerd, but I credit that to one of my very first teachers.
Um she was my preschool teacher and she saw something in me, this this propensity and love for learning and took the time to foster that.
So, for me from my family as well to to this teacher, school, learning, education was always presented to me as discovery, as joy, as what can you figure out about the world? What can you learn?
How can you expand what it is that you know?
It was never a chore, it was never something negative, it was never, you know, uh presented as uh as work in a sense.
And so yeah, so that's how I've always approached learning and I was allowed to go at my own pace and did a lot of um online and correspondence programs that allowed me to do that while still going to the school for art and music and recess and lunch and all the fun things.
And it it was the perfect storm for me because I got the best of both worlds and and accidentally graduated high school at 14. That is amazing.
I love hearing that because I think so many of us have had experiences of school where there it was the other two extremes of like boredom, chores, who cares?
Or in my case it was very much like performance, getting top grade in top grades and like doing well in exams, which also doesn't leave a good impression for kids because it becomes about pressure and pain and you know, you're now just trying to catch up with this metric just to show your parents or compare yourself to someone else.
So, how are you What's your message today to the children on stage?
Are you putting that in there?
Are they going to hear that?
I'm trying to as much as I can.
I My the topic that I'm discussing is about something a little bit different, but I always try and talk about education because I feel as though so many kids, especially today, take it either take education for granted or don't see it as something that can be joyful. Yes.
And it's not to say that, you know, there are going to be assignments or classes or things that are going to be really difficult and not going to be any fun at all, but for me, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm a stubborn optimist, but it's all about finding the fun in them.
It's, you know, you have to Mary Poppins it a little bit and figure out how to how to make it fun and how to make it something that you can enjoy because you have to do it either way. Yeah, no, I love that.
There's a study that was done at Yale.
I'll get the scientist's second name wrong, so I don't want to say it. Her first name is Amy.
And in my book I talk about how she talks about how they did a study where they interviewed nurses and cleaners and all these people that work as part of a hospital staff. Mhm.
And they spoke to cleaners and they all asked them, "Describe your job."
And half the cleaners described it as low-skilled, dirty, a chore, hard, very difficult.
And the other half described it completely differently.
They used words like healers, transformers.
Like they felt that they were a part of humans' emotion and they felt that they were building up these relationships with patients.
And so it's a term that Yale Crofts called job crafting.
And it's like how you view that is what it becomes.
And so some of these people felt that their work was so highly skilled and so fulfilling and so meaningful. It's funny.
Life It's if there's anything I've learned in kind of becoming an adult is that life is all about perspective.
Yeah, every morning when you wake up you can choose to have a great day or to have a terrible day, no matter what happens.
It's all about how you view it and how you look at the world.
And it's it really is a series of choices. Mhm. And And what do you do?
What's your choice when Because you live a busy life. You said you have chaos.
You know, you're shooting, you're traveling, you're speaking, you're doing charity work.
Like when you get those moments in your day where things are going not the way you planned, what's the choice you're making?
How are you bringing it back? I'd love to hear.
I always try and find something good.
Something that I can focus on that can make me smile or to just laugh at the chaos because how silly things can be and how, you know, absurdly chaotic things can get.
It just gets to a point of you have to laugh or you're going to cry because and I'd much rather laugh.
And that's it's sort of how I was raised.
My whole family does that.
You know, my my grandmother was the head nurse of an ER for for several decades and nothing fazes her.
She is one of the the strongest willed people.
Yeah, she's seen everything.
And my entire family is of the mind that you can make some anything silly.
Any situation you can make it you can turn it into laughter. Yeah.
And so that's kind of how I was raised and that's I try and carry that on and spread that around as much as I possibly can.
Are you a Harry Potter fan?
I'm a huge Harry P- You've just reminded me of What are those things called?
I My sister's going to hate me for not remembering.
What are those things called where they come out as your biggest fear, but you have to imagine it as something funny.
You know what I'm talking about?
I know what you're talking about and I can't remember for the life of me right now.
Oh, we're going to get Yeah, yeah, we're going to we're going to get roasted for this.
I'm such a Harry Potter fan, too. So this is terrible. Boggart.
I feel like it's a boggart.
Sure, we'll go with that.
Yeah, so you know what I'm talking about, right?
And like you see a dementor and you have to imagine it as as the balloon in the moon that pops or Absolutely. Yeah.
Okay, if we're talking about Harry Potter, I have to stop you. What's your house? Okay. Okay, I can see that.
Well, I I don't think anyone is purely one house. I have a theory on this. Okay, cool. Yeah. No, no.
Yeah, I think that's uh I would say I'm Ravenclaw with Gryffindor tendencies and a sprinkle of Hufflepuff.
That's that's what I've come to determine.
I mean, maybe a little, but not enough not enough to to claim it. Well, there you go. Mhm.
It's something that I see in the best of actors and and something I've really worked hard to try and emulate in my career.
You see it in actors like Meryl Streep and Sam Rockwell and you know, the actors of that nature where they completely transform.
completely transform. Every single character they play is entirely different in look, in physicality, in the way that they interact with the other characters in the world around them, the way they speak, the way they walk and that's something that I think is is essential to our job cuz you know, what we have the opportunity to walk a
million different lives and play a million different people and figure out how they work and I think the farther I can push myself to to completely transform and and immerse myself in every character I play, the the more diverse of a rolodex of characters I'll be able to play, but also the better I'll be able to serve the story. Because I'm not
Because I'm not a part of a story to put myself forward.
I'm a part of the story to kind of be within that canvas and and within that cast of characters and to, you know, serve the the greater arc of whatever the story is telling and and play my play my piece and, you know, play my part well.
And serve the greater machine of the story.
And, you know, it's it's also really fun to see how far you can go in in a different direction and be somebody completely different. Absolutely.
And and what's your process?
Like, do you do method acting?
Would you see yourself considering that?
Or what's your process to really get into a role? Like, is it research? Is it spending time?
Is it What's your habits?
I want to know how you break it down when you get into bit of everything, honestly.
And it it depend it differs based on the project and what it requires.
So, I always do as much research as I can given that I'm a huge nerd.
And it it helps me to know as much as I can, because then it will kind of help inherently, even if I'm not actively thinking about it, if I have the knowledge, it'll be in the back of my head when I need it.
Um and then, you know, if there's source material, I'll definitely go read it.
Like, for Shadowhunters, I read The Mortal Instruments series just because so much of it is told from Clary's perspective.
And even though our series was very different, at least I had that knowledge and I had that in the back of my head that I could pull little bits from.
Or with Arrow, because I was playing Oliver and Felicity's daughter, given that their characters were so iconic and so well developed, I went through and watched the entire series so that I could pull little qualities and nuances and quirks and things to to pepper through so that she really was an amalgamation of these two characters that audiences know so well.
So, I'll do a bit of that and then, you know, I I'm I love Pinterest.
I love Pinterest. So, I'll go on Pinterest and I'll look up different clothing or or different hair and makeup looks or whatever it is to see kind of what I can piece together and see something that I might not have thought
of or something that I might, you know, this that or if there's an accent required or if, you know, I I do as much as I can and then try and watch a few similar tonal projects or similar characters to see what other people have done in similar situations. Just to try and get
Just to try and get as much as many ideas as I can get, as much influence as I can to see what I like, what I don't, what I want to pull, what I want to incorporate, what's in the back of my head, just so I have as much information as I can to play with on the day. Mhm.
That makes complete sense.
I love what a intellectual pursuit acting is. It's great. It can be. It can be.
It's when I'm listening to you.
And that's about 50% of it.
I always say I do 50% of my work before I get there and then 50% of it happens on the day because so much of it It's so much of it depends on the director and the other actors in the scene and the set when you get there and the environment because half of acting is interacting with the other people and with the environment around you.
So, if I come in and I've done all my work and I'm solidly set in what I'm going to do, I don't have any flexibility and there's no room for play. Yeah.
So, you have to get there and be able to kind of bounce around and adapt and go, "Okay, let's play ball.
Let's pass this tennis ball back and forth and see what happens."
Yeah, I think that's a great rule. 50% before, 50% after.
Otherwise, because sometimes we try to prepare 100% and then almost you paralyze yourself when you're in the zone, right?
You just you can't be playful and mess around.
And my favorite moments are those little magic things that happen that surprise you. Totally.
that you you finish a take and you go, "I did not expect it to go that way at all.
I did not expect to feel that whatsoever, but holy moly, that was great." Yeah, I love that.
That's so cool and it's funny, now we need to find you to be casted as an economist cuz then you won't have to prepare.
You can just you can just go in Let's do it.
Well, that's I mean, that is what my degree is in. Yeah. There you go.
Exactly, that's what I mean. That's what I mean.
And and, you know, you if you were playing an economist, do you know any cool economist stories or like any historical pieces?
There must be something cool there.
unless I'm playing Alan Greenspan, which I really don't think I would be happy with.
Uh I'm going to have to do some research on that.
Yeah, I'm sure there are.
I'm sure there's some crazy stories of female economists that are like I'll find it. Yeah, we'll find it. We'll find it.
Okay, uh I know that you love Disney. I do. You do love Disney.
If you could be a voice actor Ooh.
If you could be the voice of any character of any Disney movie, who would it be? Uh uh ooh.
Um there's so many things I'd love to do.
I mean, they they keep creating all these wonderful new stories.
And you know, when I was a kid, I was always looking for these character these badass female characters.
So Mulan and Pocahontas were my girls.
Like they were the ultimate for me.
I wanted to be Mulan as a kid.
Um I had her poster on my wall. It was great.
Um but I you know, I'd love to be a part of pretty much any universe.
I think Pixar and Disney are doing so many wonderful things right now.
And I love that the Disney Pixar movies because they're so fun.
And you you go back and you watch the movies that you loved as a kid, and you can still enjoy them as an adult.
It's fascinating that there are so many layers to them that you don't even realize.
So I'd love to be a part of that world.
I mean, you know, it's it's something that I've I've worked for Disney for a long time, and they're such a wonderful company. Yeah, absolutely.
And have you seen that series?
You reminded me of something else.
We keep going totally off tangent, but you you keep feeding into all my all my passions.
Have you seen Wreck-It Ralph, the second one? I haven't.
That's the one I haven't seen yet.
going to give it away, but you can go on YouTube and watch this scene.
You don't watch the scene first.
But there's a scene where all the Disney princesses are there, and they're telling their stories, but in a very fun like in a very educational but funny way.
Oh my god, that's amazing.
about women empowerment and badass women.
So it's just I'm not going to give it away, but I want you to watch it even once.
It's It's the second movie. It's genius. Yeah, it's so well done.
And it's Disney almost making fun of themselves for how they portrayed princesses, but it's it's brilliant. It's really good.
self-aware comedy to be the most fun because it it it allows for suspension of belief, but also, you know, you can laugh at yourself a little bit. Yeah, absolutely.
Now, you've got to go on stage soon, so I've got to ask you I've got to rush to the rapid-fire section.
So, I ask a final five, which are fast five questions.
One word or one sentence answers. All right. Uh so, here we go. Here's your final five.
Um what's the biggest risk you've ever taken?
Ooh, biggest risk I've ever taken.
Uh I moved to New York City after booking a job um within a week and didn't know what I was doing, didn't know how long I was going to be there, but I just said, "All right, here we go." And I was 14. Well, okay. Yeah. You left that out. Very important detail. I love that.
Okay, what's the toughest decision you ever made?
Toughest decision I ever made was um there was a time in my actually, this kind of an existential decision.
Um there was a time in my life where I could have chosen to stay in a very dark place and and allow that to consume me or choose to frame it positively and make the difficult choice of at least at the time of looking on the bright side and finding that silver lining.
And I was lucky enough to be surrounded by people that helped me do that and help me steer down a a very healthy path as opposed to a very unhealthy path. And uh here I am today.
Well, if you don't mind, next time but but in LA where we both live there, I'd love to unpack that a bit more with you actually.
That'd be amazing to talk about that. Okay. Uh third question.
Uh the first thing you do in the morning.
Uh usually I roll out of bed, eat an apple, and go to the gym. Oh, cool. Okay.
I love working out in the morning.
It starts my day right and it's usually the only time I have. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, fourth question.
The last thing you do every night.
Last thing I do every night.
Uh I usually What do I do?
I make sure I take all my makeup off.
I'm really really particular about taking care of my skin.
I have to be in this job that we do.
Um I usually call my mom before I go to bed, just check in, see how her day was, and then, you know, make sure I don't have any emails to look at, and then off I go. Amazing.
And your fifth and final question, what's one message you'd love to share with all of the kids who are serving through We Day and having such a huge impact?
I would like to say thank you for being conscious of the world around you and for being a a global citizen and serving kind of this world that we share and this this human race that we have because it's it's so important to think beyond yourself and beyond your own life and your own realm to to take care of of everyone in the world that we live in.
It's um I always feel if everyone took just a couple of seconds every day to think of someone else and to do something kind for somebody else, the world would be a lot better place and you guys are already doing that. Completely agree.
Everyone, Katherine, thank you so much.
Katherine, you're amazing and I can't wait to dive in to so many more of these areas with you.
I feel I've learned so much more about you today, too.
And yeah, I hope we can do this again, genuinely.
Like there are so many things that I would love to unpack with you even more. Let's do it. Yeah, thank you so much. Wonderful. Thank you.
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