is an American actress and professional kiteboarder. Monroe made her film debut with the drama film At Any Price (2012). Her breakthrough came with the cult horror film It Follows (2014), which established her as a scream queen. She has since starred in the thriller film The Guest (2014), the sci-fi thriller film Tau (2018), the psychological thriller films Greta (2018) and Watcher (2022), and the horror film Longlegs (2024).
Aside from her roles in horror and thriller films, Monroe appeared in the drama Labor Day (2013), the action Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), the neo-noir Hot Summer Nights (2017), the comedy-drama After Everything (2018), the black comedy Villains (2019), and the action movie God Is a Bullet (2023).
Monroe was born Dillon Monroe Buckley on May 29, 1993, in Santa Barbara, California. Her mother was a sign language interpreter and her father was a construction worker. She later changed her first name to Maika, by which she had already been known for most of her life. At the age of 17, Monroe left Santa Barbara and moved to Cabarete in the Dominican Republic to continue training in kiteboarding after spending the previous summer there. She subsequently completed her senior year of high school online.
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In April 2012, Monroe signed up for the drama film Labor Day, an adaptation of the novel of the same name. She played Mandy, a farm girl who romances with a young man and eventually becomes his wife and the mother of his child. In June 2013, she joined the cast of the psychological thriller film The Guest. In 2014, she starred as Jay in the horror film It Follows, which became a cult hit. In 2016, she co-starred in the invasion thriller film The 5th Wave, based on the novel of the same name. Monroe also co-starred in the 2016 movie Independence Day: Resurgence, the sequel to Independence Day (1996), playing former First Daughter Patricia Whitmore.