Shelley Hennig calls her “Teen Wolf” character a “pioneer for women,” and we’d like more female leads like that

In just a matter of days, Teen Wolf will premiere the first of its final 10 episodes. The show returns with the back half of its sixth and final season on July 30th on MTV. And ahead of that, Shelley Hennig spoke with HelloGiggles about what she’s going to miss most about her character, the tough-as-nails werecoyote Malia Tate.

In a word, Hennig says she’ll miss “everything.”

"Malia is the best character I've ever played and it's gonna be hard to top her and I'm not gonna try to," she said at Comic-Con. "Who am I kidding? Of course [I will]. I'm competitive. But, she's so badass. I grew up with two older brothers, so I was treated like a boy. I wasn't aware of inequality until [I became] an adult, and I think playing this character helped me get through some shit. I think she's sort of a pioneer for women."

How about we aim to create more characters like that? K, thanks in advance, Hollywood!

Hennig also spoke about what’s been hardest about saying goodbye to Malia — and Teen Wolf more broadly.

“Saying goodbye is the hardest thing, in my opinion, in life,” she explained. “I don’t like saying goodbye.” No, but really. She made a deal with co-star Tyler Posey that she can FaceTime him at random times and he has to answer. (But, she’ll FaceTime in moderation of course.)

“We all have amazing chemistry with each other and we, I don’t know how to stress this enough,” she continued. “We just love each other and saying goodbye is hard, so hopefully we’re good at keeping in touch.”

Considering their strong bond — and, you know, modern technology — we’re sure they’ll keep in touch just fine.

Teen Wolf Season 6, Part 1 is now available on DVD.