Sierra Aylina McClain
Sierra Aylina McClain is an actor, born 1994.
Empire needed people who could genuinely sing, and Sierra Aylina McClain could. Born in 1994, she is an American actress and singer, first noticed as Sierra James in Daddy's Little Girls in 2007 when she was a child, and given her breakthrough as Nessa Parker in Empire, a series about a music dynasty where a performer who cannot carry a song has nowhere to hide.
That combination shaped what followed. She played Tosha in the dance sequel Honey: Rise Up and Dance, and then Tanya Clifton in Mindhunter, which is the hardest left turn on this list: a slow, cold, methodical series about the origins of criminal profiling, in a register with no music in it whatsoever.
Her longest run has been Grace Ryder in 9-1-1: Lone Star, from 2020 to 2023, playing an emergency dispatcher. It is a part that lives almost entirely on the voice, in a show where everyone else is running into fires, and it makes a decent case that she is at her best when the camera holds still and the whole performance is in the delivery.
Movies (2)
TV (3)
Where to start with Sierra Aylina McClain
Start with MINDHUNTER, and not because her part is the largest. It is the best-made thing on this list by a wide margin, the sort of series worth watching whole regardless of who you came for, and her scenes sit in its strongest stretch.
Empire is the breakthrough and still the best showcase for the singing, though it is a soap and you should go in knowing that. 9-1-1: Lone Star is the longest run and the most comfortable, procedural television that delivers exactly what it advertises every week.
The two films are for completists. Daddy's Little Girls is the child credit, and Honey: Rise Up and Dance is a late entry in a dance-movie series that had long since settled into its formula.