"SHE'S THE MANIC TINKER BELL OF THE APOCALYPSE!"

Shadow hunters’ Katherine Mcnamara plays hellion Julie Lawry

The Stand couldn’t be more timely. How weird is it for life to be imitating art?

I definitely had several conversations with the cast and crew when the pandemic first started: “Wait a minute. Didn’t we just go through this on screen?” I feel like as artists, it’s our job to hold a mirror to the human experience and society and bring up those questions. Pandemic aside, that’s what The Stand is about. It’s how people deal with these circumstances, and forcing them to look at what they really stand for, and what path you take when you’re confronted with the unthinkable.

Tell us about Julie Lawry and why she’s so broken.

Julie is someone who always wanted a life better than she had. She probably spent her life looking at fashion magazines and television and media and dreaming of this life of luxury. When this apocalypse happens, she decides to take that as an opportunity to rise like a phoenix from the ashes and take everything she wanted, in an ill-advised way. I like to think of Julie as the manic Tinker Bell of the apocalypse! She wants to have a good time and a good life. She’s very ambitious, and determined to do what she can to get what she wants.

What can you tease about when Julie first meets the others?

I spent all day screaming profanities and shooting a shotgun! It’s interesting when it’s the first day on set and you have to come in with guns blazing. Julie really does run the gamut in that first scene. You see this girl who’s not only fighting for her survival, but craving a sense of humanity. She’s clearly been starved of human connection and any sense of security or love. She dives into the deep end of the pool as soon as she sees someone she perceives as safe, but just as quickly turns the tables on them again. Julie is not really a rational character!