Winnetka native Maddie McCormick will star in A Snowbound Christmas, a holiday film expected during the 2026 holiday season. McCormick, who grew up performing on the Matz Hall stage at the Community House, returned to Chicago earlier in 2026 to shoot the movie.

The film was produced by Lakefront Pictures, according to a profile in Sheridan Road magazine published Thursday, Oct. 1. It also stars Chicago actor Harry Lennix, known for The Blacklist and The Matrix franchise, along with Jennifer A. Goodman and William Mark McCullough. A release date has not been announced.

McCormick also has a Roku rom-com called Cowboy Hearts in production, filming in Atlanta opposite Kristin Cavallari, who grew up in suburban Barrington.

Her Hollywood credits include Shameless, Little Fires Everywhere and season two of Netflix's BEEF.

As a kid, McCormick was a regular with the Winnetka Children's Theatre, performing in Matz Hall at the Community House, a building placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. The Children's Theatre of Winnetka has been staging productions there since 1975, when its first show, A Christmas Carol, hit the boards. Other alumni include Beck Bennett of Saturday Night Live and actress Mary Kate Schellhardt.

McCormick trained at the Piven Theatre Workshop in Evanston and The Second City before winning New Trier High School's Goodman Theatre Award for acting. Lennix is also a Piven alumnus. McCormick went on to attend UCLA.

The acting bug was a family affair. McCormick's grandmother, Catherine Bernice O'Connell, performed on stage at Lake Forest's Gorton Center well into her 70s. McCormick told Sheridan Road her earliest stage memory was delivering the line "Don't ask me. I just work here" as a mouse in a Lake Forest Children's Theater production of Cinderella.

Her grandmother's advice stuck, too.

"My nana used to say, 'Coffee in the morning and a 'tini at night, everything else will be alright,'" McCormick said in the profile.

McCormick, who lives in the hills of East Los Angeles with her husband, said the best thing about the North Shore is "hugging all the people I grew up with and now live across the country from." The worst? "Makes me homesick."

Her perfect North Shore day, she said, starts with Walker Bros. chocolate chippies for breakfast, a Foodstuffs salad for lunch, a visit to the Matz Hall stage to take a bow and a picnic at Ravinia to close the night.

The Matz Hall stage where McCormick got her start is part of a planned renovation. The Winnetka Community House is seeking $2.8 million to renovate its theater, as we reported Sept. 30.

No local screening or premiere date for A Snowbound Christmas has been announced. Cowboy Hearts remains in production.