James Oconner 
Anil Krishna 
Jonathan Millar 
© Netflix
If you’ve been watching Below on Netflix and found yourself wondering where you’ve seen marine biologist Fonda Howander before, you’re not alone. The character is played by Mackenzie Davis, an actress who has quietly built an impressive career across television, science fiction, drama, and thrillers. Over the years, she’s shared the screen with some pretty big names, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ryan Gosling, and Charlize Theron, so chances are you’ve come across her work before, even if her name doesn’t immediately ring a bell.
Davis was born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1987, and later moved to New York to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Her career has taken her from acclaimed television dramas to major Hollywood productions, with plenty of interesting roles in between. And if Below is your first introduction to her, there’s quite a bit of work worth checking out.
From Halt and Catch Fire to Black Mirror
One of Davis’s most memorable early roles came in Halt and Catch Fire, the period drama about the people trying to make their mark during the rise of personal computing in the 1980s. She played Cameron Howe, a gifted but unconventional programmer whose talent is matched by her stubbornness and unpredictable nature. The role gave Davis plenty of room to show what she could do, and Cameron quickly became one of the show’s most compelling characters.
She reached an even wider audience in 2016 when she appeared in Black Mirror. Davis played Yorkie in the episode “San Junipero,” alongside Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The story follows two women who form a connection in a seemingly ordinary seaside town, although things are not quite what they appear to be. It’s one of the anthology series’ most beloved episodes, exploring love, memory, identity, and the possibility of life after death. Davis brings a quiet vulnerability to Yorkie, and the performance is a big part of why the episode has stayed with viewers long after its release.
From Blade Runner 2049 to Terminator: Dark Fate
Davis has also made a name for herself on the big screen. She appeared in Ridley Scott’s The Martian before taking on the role of Mariette in Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. Although it wasn’t a lead role, the sci-fi sequel gave her another opportunity to work within a visually striking, carefully constructed world, something that has become a recurring feature of her career.
In 2018, she starred opposite Charlize Theron in Tully, a comedy-drama about motherhood and the exhaustion that can come with raising a family. It was a very different kind of project from the science fiction films she’d appeared in, but that range is part of what makes Davis interesting to watch. She later stepped into blockbuster territory with Terminator: Dark Fate, playing Grace, a cybernetically enhanced soldier sent back in time to protect a young woman whose future is crucial to humanity. In 2020, she took another turn with the romantic comedy Happiest Season, starring alongside Kristen Stewart in a holiday film about love, family, and the complications that arise when the two collide.
Mackenzie Davis’s Recent Projects
More recently, Davis appeared in Station Eleven, the post-apocalyptic miniseries based on Emily St. John Mandel’s novel. The story follows survivors navigating a world devastated by a pandemic, but it spends just as much time exploring memory, art, and the relationships people hold on to after everything changes. It’s an emotionally driven series, and a good example of the kind of character-focused storytelling Davis has often gravitated toward.
She also starred alongside James McAvoy in the 2024 psychological thriller Speak No Evil. The film follows a family whose holiday visit with another couple gradually turns into something deeply unsettling. As the situation grows more uncomfortable, the characters are forced to confront just how far politeness and the desire to avoid conflict can take them. It’s another tense role for Davis, who has become quite familiar with stories where ordinary situations take a disturbing turn.
Mackenzie Davis in Below
In Below, Davis plays Fonda Howander, a marine researcher who teams up with fisherman Calvin Penney, played by Josh Hartnett, to investigate a series of strange events affecting a small Newfoundland town. The mystery brings together science, local tensions, and the kind of creeping unease that makes it difficult to tell what’s really going on. For Davis, it’s a return to familiar ground, with a character caught between trying to understand the facts and dealing with a situation that becomes increasingly difficult to explain.
The series also gives her another chance to lead a story that mixes suspense with more personal questions about the people involved. If you’ve enjoyed Davis in Black Mirror, Halt and Catch Fire, or her science fiction work, Below offers a different side of her screen presence while still drawing on the tension and uncertainty that have featured in many of her previous projects.
If you’re planning to watch the series, you can also check out the official trailer for Below before diving in.
About the Author
