Hulu’s Good American Family stars A-list actors like Ellen Pompeo, Mark Duplass, Sarayu Blue, Dulé Hill, Christina Hendricks and more, and it follows the Barnett family (Pompeo and Duplass) as they adopt Natalia Grace (Imogen Faith Reid), whom they believe is a child with dwarfism. They soon learn that she might be lying about everything, and things take a turn for the worse.
Based on a true story, the plot is truly one wild ride—and to help break it down, First for Women sat down with star Christina Hendricks to learn more about the preparation that went into it and how they transformed into their characters. Read on for more, and be sure to watch a clip of Reid and Duplass in Episode 1 below!
Imogen Faith Reid shares how she became Natalia Grace
For debuting actress Imogen Faith Reid, 27, transforming into the devious and potentially deadly Natalia Grace was no small feat. According to her, it involved lots of preparation and even required her to move countries.
“Disney was so amazing with hooking me up as an acting coach. And through there, we broke down the script together, and we broke down the character,” Reid told First for Women. “Also, I had a movement coach, because Natalia has a different form of dwarfism than I do. So, [it was] finding that physicality in my own body, but making it natural and genuine and not like I’m pretending.”
Speaking of dwarfism, that was one of the reasons Reid wanted to play Grace in the first place, saying, “I wanted to portray the light in her and empowerment and the fight for justice.”
“With my dwarfism, it’s not seen as a disability, but a lot are,” she continued. “This show does a really good job of telling you not to judge people by the way they look and the way they sound. As a little person, I go through everyday struggles of reaching things, or I have to get my friends to open my water bottle because I can’t, and so I can relate to what little people go through, which is why I also wanted to play Natalia.
“We all go through things in life, and we all have different emotions, and I think it was really important to showcase this show.”
Good American Family marks Reid’s first-ever professional acting job. Originally from Europe, the actress sent in a self-tape hoping to land the role, and when she did, her first thought was, “I have to pack.”
“It was such a surreal moment, and I was so grateful to be a part of it. It was so overwhelming,” Reid said before sharing that after coming to America, all she wanted to do was eat the food. “Raising Canes, Panda Express, In & Out…Honestly, the food here is wonderful.”
Reid is set to appear in all eight episodes of Good American Family alongside stars like Pompeo, Duplass, Blue, Hill and more.
Christina Hendricks on her last-minute casting
Christina Hendricks is an actress best known for her work in Mad Men (2007 to 2015), Ginger & Rosa (2012), The Neon Demon (2016), Bad Santa 2 (2016) and Good Girls (2018 to 2021). Now, she is gearing up to take on her next big role as Cynthia Mans—Natalia’s third adoptive mother—in Good American Family.
“I got cast about 30 hours before I was on set,” Hendricks shared. “So I received the scripts, fell in love with them all very quickly and watched the Investigation Discovery series [The Curious Case Of Natalia Grace] to try and get as much information as possible. I watched interviews online that showed Cynthia’s imagery to develop her look. Then I ran over to the set and met with hair and makeup. We found the right wig, went to costumes and started developing all these ideas.
“I noticed in all the imagery that I’d seen that she only wore skirts, and I thought that was a very important thing, that she’s obviously decided for herself and took different kinds of clues. We created Cynthia in that amount of time.”
Hendricks on how ‘Good American Family’ approaches the Natalia Grace story
Before being cast, though, Hendricks claimed she was unfamiliar with Natalia Grace’s case, but even if viewers are, she says that they are “going to be in for a real ride.”
“You’re going to follow the Barnetts, and that might be what you think you’ve heard up until this point, and then we do this complete shift and we start to see it from Natalia’s point of view. That’s what I don’t think that people have seen out there, and when I tell people I’m on the show, that’s not the perspective that they’ve heard,” the actress said. “When we get to, I think, episode five, we start to shift into Natalia’s perspective. You see her in these apartments that are not set up for someone with this disability and it’s just heartbreaking to watch someone in that environment that hasn’t been made comfortable and easy for them, especially if it’s a child in these circumstances.”
Good American Family is available to stream every Wednesday on Hulu.
