‘She inspired me’: Everything Nava Mau has said about playing Teri in Baby Reindeer

If you’ve seen Baby Reindeer, you’ll know that the series touches on a lot of heavy content. Written and produced by Richard Gadd, the episodes follow Martha as she grows obsessed with Donny, the character Richard plays as himself in the show. But once you remove the stalker storyline, you see that the real shining star of Baby Reindeer is Teri, the trans woman that Donny wrestles with his self hatred in order to date.

In the show, Teri is depicted as the light that leads Donny out of the darkness of the sexual assault we see take place in episode four. Now, after Baby Reindeer received a 100 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, the award winning Mexican actress Nava Mau who plays Teri has spoken about what it was really like to play her.

Nava said she felt a “great sense of responsibility” in playing the character as she could tell through the writing just how Richard had loved Teri in real life.

via Netflix

She said: “When I read [the script], I could tell that Richard really loved her, whoever inspired this character.

“I knew that it was based on real life and it seemed really important to show people that trans women exist in real life and in relationships with real people. I could see Richard’s heart in the writing and I hope that people will see it too.

“I felt a great sense of responsibility, and I cared a lot about telling the story in the best way possible.”

Additionally, in conversation with GQ, Nava spoke about how playing Teri has changed her for the better as she has been “inspired” by her self assurance.

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“Teri has no question about who she is, she almost is not even going to entertain any sort of attack on that,” she said.

“I had to work real hard to embody that self-assurance. I think that a lot of trans people, and a lot of women period, have just been taught over and over and over to swallow our emotions, to tamp down on our needs and consider the needs of others first.

“I think that that’s been for safety, but it’s also been to uphold patriarchal structures of power. And so Teri said, ‘I’m not doing that’. Teri said ‘Why would I uphold the same structures that seek to break me apart?’.”

via Netflix

Nava also revealed how much she knew about the real Teri, as Richard himself as shared very little about her, saying: “Richard shared a lot with me. Richard was very generous with sharing, you know, pieces of his own experience and the real-life relationship that inspired this.

“This relationship between Teri and Donny, I almost don’t even know how to convey how incredible it is for an actor to be able to go to the writer and be like, ‘Hey, just tell me what it was like’.”

Baby Reindeer is available on Netflix now. For more like this run down of everything Nava Mau has said about playing Teri in Baby Reindeer and all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

Related articles recommended by this author:

• The few mysterious details Richard Gadd has revealed about the real Teri from Baby Reindeer

• Inside Nava Mau’s vibey life when she’s not playing the best character in Baby Reindeer

• Baby Reindeer: A psychologist has explained why Martha always used ‘Sent from my iPhone’

Featured image via Netflix.