Handmaid’s Tale star McKenna Grace says ‘life imitates art’ after spinal surgery

McKenna Grace has revealed that she underwent spinal surgery last month.

In a social media post that featured a video of her in the hospital post-surgery, the 16-year-old actor wrote: “Occasionally, life imitates art and the night my episode of Handmaid’s Tale where I was in a hospital bed came out, I was actually in a real hospital bed.”

Grace’s character found herself in a hospital bed in the episode titled “Together”, which aired on 12 October.

“Social media only reflects what we want people to know often we don’t see the ugly, hard, less-flattering sides of a person and their life,” she wrote in an Instagram post.

“For me, it’s been easier to hide my struggles and insecurities and maybe write about them in songs, but that didn’t fix them.”

Grace did not reveal the reason for the surgery.

In her post, the teenage actor thanked her surgeon, his team, her parents and her friends “who showed me that they are here in the exciting/fun times, but would also be there in the absolute lowest moment of my life”.

The Young Sheldon star concluded her post by encouraging people to watch the season five finale of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Grace plays the role of Esther Keyes in The Handmaid’s Tale, a character previewed by Deadline as “a sharply intelligent, teenaged wife of a much older Commander who rules her farm and household with confidence. She has a rebellious, subversive streak, and is calm and pious on the outside with turmoil, even insanity, on the inside.”

The teenage star, from Grapevine, Texas, has carved out a niche in playing the younger versions of main characters in her career so far.

She played the childhood version of Margot Robbie’s Tonya Harding in I, Tonya, the younger Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel, and the young Sabrina Spellman in the second season of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Grace has also become a staple of the modern horror genre, appearing in Amityville: The Awakening, The Bad Seed, and Annabelle Comes Home.

She has racked up a further 30 credits in TV shows since 2012, including Designated Survivor and The Haunting of Hill House, and appeared in another 18 movies.

Some of her notable film roles include Independence Day: Resurgence, The Angry Birds Movie, Gifted, and Ready Player One.

The Handmaid’s Tale will premiere its final episode of season 5 on 9 November on Hulu.