For anyone who has ever tried to imagine their way into such a starry setting, the self-consciousness of the gesture was highly relatable. You can take the girl out of the wilds of Donegal and on to the red carpet, but you can\u2019t take the Donegal out of the girl. \u201cYou\u2019re going, \u2018Everything\u2019s fine\u2019,\u201d McNulty laughs. \u201c\u2018Get it together. Breathe\u2019. It\u2019s a lot of meditation work beforehand. We\u2019re playing One Direction in the car and I\u2019m going, \u2018Everything\u2019s fine\u2019. This is not normal at all in any capacity. That\u2019s the joy of the whole experience: the absurdity of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNulty, who is from Letterkenny, joined the cast of the Netflix hit series Stranger Things from its third season. She turned 24 years old on the night the premiere for its fifth and final season was held in mid-November. McNulty is familiar with the might and muscle of major productions \u2013 she has fans around the world due to her role as the titular character in Anne with an E<\/a>, the Canadian feminist remake of Anne of Green Gables, which ran for three seasons between 2017 and 2019. But Stranger Things on Netflix dwarfs most everything else in its path.<\/p>\n Arriving in 2016, the series by the Duffer brothers immediately struck a chord with viewers for its loving depiction of the 1980s in the Midwestern town of Hawkins, Indiana; its Spielberg-like focus on a group of young friends embroiled in a terrifying mystery, and its smartly nostalgic foregrounding of brilliant 1980s songs and icons such as Winona Ryder. In the intervening years, Covid halted production a few times, its young cast members have grown up, and David Harbour, who plays chief of police Jim Hopper, has come under fire for allegations of bullying, but \u2013 a decade on \u2013 there\u2019s still a sense that the show can harness a rare and elusive magic. <\/p>\n \u201cI watched season one the week it came out,\u201d McNulty says. \u201cI knew from the beginning how sensational it was.\u201d When she auditioned for the show in 2021 to play the role of Vickie, she wasn\u2019t told it was for Stranger Things. \u201cAll the characters\u2019 names were different. But I guessed. I looked at the scene and because I was such a big fan of the show I was like, \u2018I know exactly what\u2019s going on\u2019. I did a self-tape in Oxfordshire, where I was living at the time. When I got the call, I cried and screamed. It was wild. I have no idea how I got so lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, McNulty has her hair scraped back from her face. She\u2019s wearing silver earrings, minimal make-up and a loose jumper: she looks real and down-to-earth. She brings the same authenticity to her roles. You believe her on screen, whether she\u2019s orphan Anne coming to live at Green Gables in the 1800s, or Vickie, the candy striper student who exchanges longing looks with chatterbox teen Robin, played by Maya Hawke, in Stranger Things. <\/p>\n [\u00a0How a Letterkenny teenager shone on the small screen as an \u2018accidental feminist\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n McNulty has always forged her own path in life. An only child raised by her grandparents near Letterkenny, McNulty\u2019s perspective was shaped by home schooling and a sense of difference. \u201cI was shy, anxious. I was awkward. And I was a nerd \u2013 I would read five books a day. I was a real nerd about the Victorian era and feminism.\u201d McNulty tried to socialise to \u201cput myself out there\u201d. But it was acting that made her feel, she says, like her bones weren\u2019t disjointed. \u201cActing gave me access to pretend to be someone cooler and the thing that I wanted to be, like putting on a cloak.\u201d <\/p>\n She performed in amateur productions in An Grian\u00e1n Theatre in Donegal. At age 10, she landed a role in a production of The Sound of Music in London. At 13, she had a part in the series Clean Break on RT\u00c9 1. And she sent out self-made tapes to casting directors. Auditioning for Anne with an E, \u201cMy wifi couldn\u2019t send the tapes because the files were too big.\u201d So the lads behind the desk at An Grian\u00e1n did it for her. \u201cIt was a full community thing.\u201d She beat off more than 1,800 other contenders to be offered the part, after three live auditions in Canada, and having flown back home to wait for the decision.<\/p>\n When the Canadian producers hired her with five days\u2019 notice to stay for six months filming on Prince Edward Island and in Ontario, McNulty had the drive, ambition and vision to say yes. At 14, she also had luck on her side \u2013 her mother was born in Canada, so Amybeth had a Canadian passport, and her grandparents were happy to go with her. <\/p>\n \u2018Me getting these roles that are quite strong-willed, knowing women, is because that is who I am at my core<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00a0Amybeth McNulty<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But the scale of the change was profound. From being a dreamy, homeschooled kid who loved playing in the woods, camping and making up fantasy worlds with her pals, McNulty was thrust into the spotlight. When the trailer for Anne with an E appeared online, the response cut her to the quick. Viewers decried her looks and her accent. \u201cThe majority of the first wave of comments was wildly negative,\u201d she says. \u201cThat was my first interaction with the negative side of the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n McNulty\u2019s work would soon be recognised and lauded by fans and critics alike. When the show was cancelled after three seasons, the scale of protest was remarkable. An online petition to bring it back attracted 1.5 million signatures, billboard illustrations of McNulty were erected by fans in Toronto and Times Square in New York, and actors including Ryan Reynolds weighed in to add support. But the rollercoaster effect of social media\u2019s Janus-faced glare has stayed with her. \u201cI delete Instagram and Twitter and TikTok off my phone all the time,\u201d she says. \u201cYou have to protect yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n With McNulty, the stakes are high. She might not be a well-known name in Ireland or in her adopted home of London, where she has lived for the past five years, but online she\u2019s a sensation. She has 6.4 million followers on Instagram and 4.4 million followers on TikTok. Plenty of fans online rave about her work \u2013 since Anne with an E<\/a>, she has also appeared in films including Black Medicine (2021) and All My Puny Sorrows (2021), the adaptation of the Miriam Toews novel. But there\u2019s more to her than that. Many come for the celebrity wattage, but stay for her candour and depth of emotion. <\/p>\n The two pinned images on McNulty\u2019s Instagram account are not from fancy premieres: they\u2019re pictures of her grandfather and her mother. Her grandfather died in 2023. Her mother died four years ago, in 2021. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was my mum\u2019s anniversary yesterday,\u201d she says. \u201cFor me, grief feels like this person that shows up on your doorstep, barges into your house, and they make themselves comfortable and tear your house apart. It\u2019s almost like a friendship that I have with grief now. You sit down, have a cup of tea and a conversation: that\u2019s how I visualise it. I find talking about grief and death comforting. I don\u2019t think we as humans speak about it enough. We\u2019re afraid of it.\u201d<\/p>\n On Instagram, McNulty\u2019s first sentence in her tribute to her grandfather is simple and powerful: \u201cDad.\u201d \u201cI was raised by my grandparents mainly,\u201d she says. \u201cMy \u2018dad\u2019 was technically my grandad, but he was my dad, you know? I always had that understanding that he and my grandmother would pass sooner, maybe not as soon as they did, but I had that understanding as a kid.\u201d <\/p>\n Her grandparents, who were Scottish and moved to Donegal, taught her to be strong. \u201cThey were incredibly political. They really cared about history. They cared about telling me about everything that\u2019s happened in Ireland and in Scotland, and wanting to know where I came from. Dad was a huge feminist and wanted to raise strong women, and he did. Me getting these roles that are quite strong-willed, knowing women, is because that is who I am at my core. I think a casting director can smell that a mile away. It\u2019s not hard to spot in a 12-year-old.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s very rare to have a queer storyline not be the main aspect of a TV show. There\u2019s a casualness about it that\u2019s beautiful<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00a0Amybeth McNulty on Stranger Things<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Stranger Things was the last audition McNulty did that her mother and grandfather both knew about. It seemed written in the stars that she would get it. In season two, Jim Hopper reads aloud from Anne of Green Gables to his young charge Eleven \u2013 a scene that so excited McNulty that she screen-grabbed it to share on her social media. <\/p>\n When she began filming Stranger Things, McNulty placed a photo of her mother on her door and a \u201cMake Dad proud\u201d sign on her mirror. Both were visible, tangible reminders of their presence in her life. \u201cI\u2019m not sure what I believe in, but I do pray,\u201d she says. \u201cI speak to them frequently. At the London premiere, I was like, \u2018I know they\u2019re here,\u2019 and I find that quite comforting.\u201d<\/p>\n McNulty believes in the importance of sharing stories \u2013 both her own and the stories she delivers through the characters she plays. \u201cI know a script is good if I have a bit of a cry,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a human connection of wanting to make someone feel something or feel understood.\u201d For her, Vickie\u2019s storyline as the love interest of Robin came with an added charge and poignancy \u2013 that of representation. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m queer myself so I knew what a big deal it was going into it,\u201d McNulty says. \u201cMaya\u2019s coming-out scene before I joined the show was one of the most impactful pieces of queer media I had ever seen in my life. To join her on the show was a huge deal to me. I wanted to do it right, but also just to have the joy of seeing love on a screen, and it\u2019s as simple as that, and now we\u2019re going to go and fight monsters. It\u2019s very rare to have a queer storyline not be the main aspect of a TV show. There\u2019s a casualness about it that\u2019s beautiful.\u201d <\/p>\n The word queer was historically used as a pejorative for the LGBTQ+ community but has been reclaimed in recent decades, and for McNulty, it felt right. \u201cGrowing up, it was a thing of, \u2018I know I like guys and I know I like girls, and I don\u2019t know what that means, so I\u2019m not going to call myself gay\u2019. It was like, \u2018What language can I use?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI noticed people started using the word queer more, and I loved it. It\u2019s taking back a word that has been used in a negative connotation as a powerful tool for yourself. It\u2019s the word I use that makes sense for me as a human. I feel it\u2019s all-encompassing of my journey with queerness and sexuality and gender expression.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0\u2018Anne With an E\u2019 is playful, quaint and undercut with darknessOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Before McNulty began filming with Maya Hawke, she had no clue that Maya\u2019s parents were Uma Thurman<\/a> and Ethan Hawke<\/a>, aka indie Hollywood royalty, stars of Kill Bill (Thurman), Before Sunset and Reality Bites (Hawke), and myriad more films. <\/p>\n \u201cI had no idea who her parents were,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI\u2019d done a little bit of Googling obviously, to be like, \u2018Who am I working with?\u2019 But that clearly just went over my head.\u201d When the pair met up ahead of filming, \u201cShe made me this vegetarian pasta. We just sat and talked about us and our lives and who we are as people, even more than the scene and the work we had to do. Maya is the most calming presence. Any time I would get nervous or anxious, all I would have to do is look at her, and that\u2019s it. There was just something in her of like, \u2018You\u2019re good, chill, you\u2019re fine.\u2019 I think building that foundation in our relationship was what was going to make the scene work.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Amybeth](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/7GBKO3VJZZHXFH2VAJHEDUY7MI.JPG\")
Amybeth McNulty at Netflix’s Stranger Things season five world premiere in Hollywood, California. Photograph: Charley Gallay\/Getty Images for Netflix <\/p>\n![\"Amybeth](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/M5L3R3J7QJIJEZ62JFXNE3WU7Y.jpg\")
Amybeth McNulty playing the lead role in Anne With An E <\/p>\n\n
![\"Amybeth](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/AY4U33C4WUMIPVAVPHP2X3XHXA.jpg\")
Amybeth McNulty: \u2018Queer is the word I use that makes sense for me as a human.’ Photograph: Joanne O’Brien <\/p>\n\n
![\"Amybeth](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/3HALE3AOK5F73B24I4MGU6KPVY.jpg\")
Amybeth McNulty as Vickie in Stranger Things ![\"Maya](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/LOBRSQPWM5ABNEXMBWDL2TJWKM.jpg\")
Maya Hawke (centre) as Robin Buckley and Amybeth McNulty (right) as Vickie in Stranger Things ![\"McNulty](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/QZQTAXXKQFEXZMMSNJSRXM3BKU.jpg\")
McNulty (left) as Vickie and Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley in Stranger Things <\/p>\n