Two extended breaks—first the pandemic and then the SAG-AFTRA strike—allowed Emmy-nominated actress Mckenna Grace to pursue a “dream” career in music.

The 17-year-old has starred alongside the likes of Paul Rudd and Finn Wolfhard (2021’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” in a role she’s about to reprise on the big screen) and Chris Evans (2017’s “Gifted”). She’s played the younger version of characters played by Brie Larson (“Captain Marvel”), Margot Robbie (“I, Tanya”), Candice King (“The Vampire Diaries”) and Kiernan Shipka (“Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”).

Grace has become a staple in the horror genre, including 2018 remake “The Bad Seed,” (alongside Rob Lowe), Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House” and 2019’s “Annabelle Comes Home.” Her ability to play hurt characters led to an ongoing role as an abused but rebellious child bride on “The Handmaid’s Tale”—a role that in 2021 made her the youngest ever actor to receive an Emmy nomination in the Guest Actress in a Drama Series category. She also had a recurring role as a child prodigy from a broken family on CBS’s “Young Sheldon,” bringing gravity to the comedy.

The Hollywood Critics Association included the Texas native in its list of the “Next Generation of Hollywood,” and she’s got plenty of projects coming up, including opioid drama “Spider & Jessie,” an Olivia-Wilde-directed film about gymnast Kerri Strug, and “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” alongside Kim Kardashian.

But even after actors go back to work following the strike, she’ll be keeping one foot in music. Case in point, her collaboration with blackbear on the “Paw Patrol” soundtrack. Grace has known the producer and musician because she was longtime friends with his brother-in-law. She’d previously appeared in one of his music videos.

“I wrote this really fun little song with my dog that’s for kids. … His kids really liked the song and what it was for,” said Grace, careful with her words because of the ongoing strike. Striking actors are not allowed to promote future screen projects. “I sent it to him. I was like, ‘Would you ever want to be on this song?’ He sent me back him singing over my track with the whole verse. I’m still freaking out about it. It’s the coolest thing to me.”

For the first time, Mckenna Grace said, she’s being introduced to musicians as one of them. She’s now released an EP, this summer’s Bittersweet 16, and numerous singles. She’s signed to Photo Finish Records and played her first concert at an L.A. club early in the year. She relishes every opportunity.

But before the pandemic, the only songs she’d ever written were for her family and friends.

“I feel like everybody growing up will write a song or two as a joke or a silly thing,” she said. “The first time I actually wrote a song—whenever I learned how to play ukulele—my best friend from when I was 7 passed away from cancer, and I wrote a song about that. I was 12, but it was still heartfelt, and that’s when I kind of started messing around with that kind of stuff.”

Listening to Conan Gray’s Kid Crow in the early parts of 2020 finally pushed her to start writing her own songs and take songwriting seriously. But despite her love for Gray’s music, as well as that of Chloe Lilac, Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey, her first songs were inspired by the likes of Green Day and Le Tigre, she said.

“I was also just really angry for a minute. I went through a little upset, angry phase, wrote all my angry pop-punk music,” she said, adding that the songs came to her after she stopped speaking to her first crush, when she was about 13. “It’s not even that angry. It’s just angry for me.”

Her co-star, Wolfhard, himself a musician in bands like Calpurnia, was one of the first to give her advice. The two also exchanged demos over the summer to see what each other was working on.

“I love following his music. I think he makes some weird and cool stuff,” she said.

Grace’s early songs included “You Ruined Nirvana,” which has nearly 4 million streams on Spotify. She took the songs to Matt Galle, the founder of Photo Finish Records, whom she’d met through pop star Shawn Mendes (whom she’d met at a Hollywood party).

“I met him and played him a bunch of my little crappy songs from quarantine, and somehow ended up getting to work with him and getting put into sessions,” she said.

She also released single “Haunted House,” which was later picked up for the end credits and soundtrack of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.”

Last fall, Grace underwent surgery for her scoliosis, with which she was diagnosed when she was 12. The curvature of her spine wasn’t yet to the point where it was affecting her health, but it had often left her frustrated for not being able to fit into jeans or a certain shirt like she was supposed to.

She encapsulated the struggle on “Self Dysmorphia,” which she said still makes her uncomfortable sometimes, but she hopes it can connect to others in a similar situation. She said she was terrified beforehand and that the recovery from it was the hardest month of her life. Nearly a year on, however, she sees the differences in her quality of life.

In March, Mckenna Grace released her first EP, a collection of eight poppy songs like “Post Party Trauma,” “Ugly Crier” and “Checkered Vans.” Several were influenced by that first breakup, but the record is full of very real observations on anxiety, young heartbreak and self-image.

All of her songs are completely personal stories—the complete opposite of the movies and TV shows in which she acts out stories written by others—and that’s been scary for her. Still, even when a collaborator in a songwriting session suggests a clever turn of phrase, she turns it down if it’s not true to her experience.

The only deviation is when she’s writing for a film soundtrack, in which case she’ll write from the perspective of the character she plays in the film.

“I want the best lyric for the song, but I don’t want to be like I’m lying,” she said.

The pop-punk phase didn’t last long, and these days these Grace is much more influenced by singer-songwriters like Swift (specifically, folklore), Lana Del Rey, Stephen Sanchez and Laufey.

“I’m in L.A. right now, visiting a friend, and on the ride over here, I was making my mom listen to all the unreleased Lana Del Rey demos on Spotify that I could find,” she said. “I’m obsessed with her, and I just really love the classy old Hollywood type of thing that she does.

Grace followed the EP with “Casual Kisser,” which she calls a transitional song to the next phase of her music career. The single is a dry-witted account on the betrayal of trust.

And up next, she’s working on both her debut long-player (targeted for early 2024), as well as surprise new EP coming much sooner, which she said was inspired by her “actual first heartbreak.”

“I have one love song that I got out of this situation, and then I started writing heartbreak, for like a year,” she said. “It’s all autumn themed.”

He described her writing style as “all over the place,” but she’s particular about assigning color to all of her songs. So as she’s compiling songs for her album, she’s in essence building a color palette. The challenge becomes making the colors work together.

“That’s how I know I’m not entirely done with my album right now,” she said. “I feel like there’s one color missing. There’s one thing missing, and I don’t know what it is. So I’m still trying to figure it out.”

Mckenna Grace said she dreams of going on tour. She saves performance videos of Sabrina Carpenter, Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish and reviews them for pointers. After performing her first concert, she vomited because of all the excited anxiety, but that’s not stopping her. Neither is her view that performing music on stage is more difficult than acting. With the latter, it can take multiple days to nail one scene, with numerous takes from numerous angles.

“With music you have one shot; you have one show. You have one go at one song,” she said.

She travels with her guitar and rents keyboards wherever she goes, in case creativity strikes. She said she’s been thinking a lot about what she wants out of a music career. She wants to prove herself and her intentions, and to be taken seriously.

“I am here to work hard at this. I’m here to stay. It’s not just like, ‘I’m just gonna come and dip my toes into this and have some fun,’” she said. “I think that acting and music are my two loves in life.”

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.