While Good American Family star Imogen Faith Reid didn’t speak to Natalia Grace about her story while filming the series, she still tried to be an advocate on set.
“Playing my own version of Natalia, I really wanted to fight for her voice to be heard and for this story to just give her so much justice and empowerment,” Reid, 27, exclusively told Us Weekly about the scripted version of Grace’s adoption scandal. “I was so passionate about playing her and I really fought for her.”
Reid noted that Grace’s point of view will soon be at the center of the Hulu series, adding, “We’re still on Kristine [Barnett]’s perspective right now, but when it switches onto mine, I made sure to just really fight for her. I was really passionate about it and it was an honor to play her.”
Before filming the show, Reid prioritized doing her research into Grace’s life.
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“I definitely did watch the [Investigation Discovery] documentary,” she recalled, referring to The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks. “It was really fascinating and interesting to watch it all. I did watch interviews prior, so I knew a lot about Natalia as a person.”
Reid continued: “I did obviously [take] the initiative to create my own version of Natalia. I used my own acting abilities and used my own experiences that I have as a person and just put that into my own version.”
Grace, 21, was born in Ukraine in 2003 before being adopted by Dyan and Gary Ciccone five years later. She immigrated to the U.S., but the Ciccones ultimately relinquished parental rights due to her disruptive behavior. In 2010, Grace was adopted by Kristine and Michael Barnett.
The Barnetts later accused Grace, who has a rare form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, of secretly being an adult masquerading as a child. In 2012, the couple petitioned to change Grace’s birth records to reflect a 1989 birth date, which legally changed her age from 8 to 22. Grace was left to live on her own in an apartment while the Barnetts moved to Canada with their three sons.
Kristine and Michael were charged in 2019 with multiple counts of neglecting a dependent. The charges resulted in a five-year investigation, during which they accused Grace of threatening to harm them and their sons. Michael was found not guilty and the case against Kristine was dismissed.
“It’s almost like playing different roles [based on the perspective of each episode]. The Natalia we’re seeing right now from Kristine’s perspective, she’s always a step ahead. She’s manipulative and she knows what she’s doing,” Reid told Us about the unreliable narration at the center of the show, which also stars Ellen Pompeo, Mark Duplass and Christina Hendricks. “As an actor, for me playing that part, it was really fun for me as my first TV role to actually play something like that. Because you have to always be switched on. You have to know what you’re doing.”
Reid can’t wait for viewers to see how the storytelling progresses later in the season, saying, “When we switched to Natalia’s perspective, that was obviously my favorite perspective to play with because I was then able to really slow things down, fight for that justice and let my voice be heard. It was my character’s perspective, so I was able to just let the scenes play [out] and it was amazing.”
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While they haven’t personally connected, Reid is hopeful that Grace sees the care that went into the series. Good American Family marks Reid’s first lead role after previously appearing as a body double on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and HBO’s The Third Day.
“I was so nervous about taking on a speaking role to begin with and being a lead. I really thought, ‘Can I take this on?’ Because it’s a lot of pressure, but the thing that helped me through it is I thought, ‘I’m a little person, I can tell this [story],’” explained Reid, who also has a form of dwarfism . “I had an incredible cast that I knew was going to guide me and I wasn’t wrong. So I was in very good hands.”
Reid broke down the extra work that went into playing Grace, sharing, “Disney helped so much. They actually hooked me up with an acting coach and I actually had an incredible movement coach as well that helped me figure out Natalia’s movement.”
She continued, “It was very early on when I decided that I wanted to portray my own version of Natalia. So through this, we found the movement in my own body that felt genuine but not imitating Natalia as we have different types of dwarfism. That was something that was really important to me. There was also an incredible dialect coach who helped me with the American accent and all of this just really helped portray my character.”
New episodes of Good American Family premiere Wednesdays on Hulu.
