‘Good American Family’: Imogen Faith Reid on That Devastating Switch to Natalia Grace’s Perspective

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Good American Family Episode 5, “Too Hurty Without It.”]

The first four episodes of Good American Family are intentionally designed to keep viewers on the Barnetts’ side and fully sympathetic to Kristine’s (Ellen Pompeo) suspicion that Natalia Grace (Imogen Faith Reid) is a dangerous adult woman masquerading as a child to infiltrate and harm their family. Even the cinematography and musical mixes have horror bends at key moments. Seeing Natalia get dropped off at an apartment away from the boys at the end of Episode 4 brings a rush of relief. The fact that Kristine and Michael (Mark Duplass) continue to financially provide for her seems like an exceedingly altruistic move on their part, too.

However, the second half of the show, beginning with Episode 5, flips the narrative entirely and continues the events through Natalia Grace’s eyes. Here, we see what has since been proven to be scientifically true: This really is just an 8-year-old child with severe physical limitations and chronic pain who is abandoned to fend for herself by her adoptive parents. Worse, the story depicts Natalia’s allegations that she is being emotionally and even physically abused by her mother and has no one else to turn to for help in her darkest hours.

This week’s episode, “Too Hurty Without It,” finds Natalia trying to survive in a new home by herself. She doesn’t know how to use a can opener, so she’s reduced to eating freeze-dried pasta right out of the box. The power goes out, so she loses her cartoons (the only thing she has to entertain herself with), and the food in the fridge starts to rot and stink. She can’t even turn on the rusted bathtub faucet to wash herself. When she cuts her hand with a knife while desperately trying to open a can of peaches, her yelp is so devastating it’ll make any parent watching want to reach through the screen to comfort her. We’ve spent four episodes becoming convinced she’s an Orphan-style monster, but here, we learn just how helpless and fragile she is. (The fact that this is all based on a true story makes it even more heartbreaking to watch.)

There is one fleeting moment of hope for Natalia amid all the struggle here. She meets a neighbor (played by Jane Adams) who is kind enough, letting her use her phone and introducing her to her grandson who is Natalia’s real age (though the neighbor somehow buys her story of being 22). Things spiral from bad to worse, though, when Natalia joins the boy on a bus trip in hopes of showing him her parents’ home and finds they no longer live there. The kids are then lost in the middle of the night, and her neighbor is incensed when they finally make it back. Natalia is quickly kicked out of the apartment and sent by Kristine to a second-story place where she struggles to get up the stairs, while the Barnetts cut off all contact (and grocery provisions) and move to Canada.

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The whole episode is a very hard watch, but it’s also extremely effective in reframing the story as Good American Family intends. TV Insider caught up with Imogen Faith Reid to talk about her portrayal of this gutting moment in Natalia’s life.

Episode 5 is devastating to watch. How taxing was it for you to perform this part of the story? 

Imogen Faith Reid: Oh yeah, it was a little taxing for me. I mean, I knew going into this episode that there’d be a lot of hours on set, and this was my first big role, so I was pretty daunted by it. I knew it’d be physically and emotionally just hard. But the support I had around all of that just made it so worthwhile. Everybody was so supportive. We were all in it together, and it was a really memorable episode for me for sure.

Playing a real-life person, especially one that’s alive, is always gonna be tricky, but this is unique. Is this a situation for you where you’re trying not to think about what she would think of your portrayal or where you are keeping that in mind all the time?

It was something that I was keeping in mind throughout playing Natalia, but I pretty much decided early on that I wanted to do my own version of Natalia as an actor. And with that, especially in my [character’s] POV, I wanted to spread so much empowerment into her character and make sure that she feels seen, and just for her voice to be heard, and I hope that does come across.

Yeah, a lot of this story as a whole seems to be about showing how much this poor girl has been silenced. Do you think the goal of this show overall is to give her a voice that she hasn’t had in the media and the public sphere? 

Yeah, I think there is a lot of controversy around this topic, especially in the tabloids and in the media, and I think it is important when we show Natalia’s [side] that she was a child and kind of shut those rumors down. I think that’s important.

The first four episodes are all about the Barnetts’ perspective. But even then, as someone with a small child, I saw some of her behaviors as just child tantrums. Can you talk about sprinkling in those nuggets, especially for people seeing it a second time?

I think the show does an amazing job of coming from multiple perspectives, and of course, with my character, it’s almost like I’m playing two different people. I mean, Kristine’s point of view, as an actor playing Natalia, was fun in that respect because as an actor, you have to be so switched-on to play someone like Natalia from Kristine’s point of view because she switches constantly. She’s one step ahead. She knows what’s coming. And yeah, I think for a first-time viewer, it would be really interesting for them to see the POV switch, but for a second-time viewer, it might be glued on more to be like, “Oh yeah!” Just to see a bit more what’s going on. I think that’s really cool.

One of the ways that we see that is when Natalia parrots what Kristine tells her to say because she has to. One instance is what starts off this episode when she’s talking to Detective Drysdale [Dule Hill, with Natalia saying she hides knives and wants to kill her brothers]. One interpretation of that is she’s a dangerous and remorseless person. The other is that she is just saying what her mother tells her to say. Can you talk about threading the needle with so many of her lines like that?

Yeah, so especially in those scenes where I’m with Drysdale, I think what would go through my mind as playing Natalia would just be, I think Natalia was so frightened of saying the wrong thing so that Kristine would come after her because although Kristine had mentally abused her, that was still her mom. So she wanted to be a good girl, not to get in trouble. Because all she’s known is that she’s been bad, she gets in trouble, she’s this, she’s that. And yeah, I just think when I was doing those scenes, I would pretend that I would be hearing Kristine’s voice in my head, so that would stop me from wanting to say the truth… Well, Natalia didn’t know what the truth was, but to stop from giving anything away to Drysdale.

Disney / Ser Baffo

Can you talk about playing to the heartbreak that she experiences multiple times when she realizes that they’ve just moved on without her, with the voicemail message and then the library scene? How was that for you? 

Honestly, it was so heartbreaking to play Episode 5. It’s just there’s this little girl that doesn’t know what is going on. She has no clue what is happening. How can an 8-year-old wrap their head around what’s going on around her? All of a sudden she’s got no one, and she has to essentially grow up a lot older than she is and grow up by herself. She has to teach herself all of these things whilst being an 8-year-old and not being able to live a sustainable life because she can’t because she has a disability that the Barnetts have just neglected, and it’s just so horrible, and I really just wanted to do that episode justice because it was awful.

For those scenes you’re talking about when she has to learn to do things, it’s so sad when she stabs herself in the hand. Her little cry, as a mom, I wanted to reach through the screen. Can you talk about how the loneliness of those scenes really sells the loneliness that she feels?

Yeah, I think in those scenes, it’s just her trying to figure out what’s going on. “How do I do this? How did Mommy do this? How did Daddy do this? I don’t know what I’m doing.” And when she hurts herself, obviously, it’s just so sad because I think that’s when she finally breaks because she’s like, “I can’t. I don’t know what I’m doing. Why isn’t anyone here? Why is my mom not here? Why is my dad not here?” It’s just so awful that an 8-year-old had to experience that. And I think as well from Episode 5 on, there’s just such a shift because the apartment is so quiet, everything is so quiet, it’s not a busy house anymore. It’s just Natalia, and it really is a dramatic shift of just nothing, and it is just so heartbreaking.

In the scene where Michael returns to drop off groceries and turn back on the electricity, he’s so cold. Can you talk about like crafting the cruelty of that moment and that exchange?

Well, it honestly was horrible because Mark and I had this great dynamic on set anyway, and it was awful doing that scene with Mark because it just felt like a gut punch… Also, the characters Michael and Natalia had such an amazing bond, and for that to just switch? Liz Garbus, who directed Episode 5, gave such amazing advice, and she said, “This is like a breakup, and it’s just awful. It’s just Natalia questioning, ‘What have I done wrong? Why can’t you take me back? How can I change? Why am I not good enough? Let me be good enough.’ And it’s just awful.” And I think Mark was such an amazing scene partner because he just took Natalia’s emotions, my emotions, and just kept holding onto them, and we’d do it again and again, the same heartbreak… It’s honestly such a beautiful scene, but so heartbreaking at the same time, and Mark crushed it.

There’s a change of pace when we get to the Jane Adams character and the little boy. It almost seems like she has a little bit of a welcome release and brings some of her childhood back. Can you talk about portraying Natalia becoming a child again with another child? 

Yeah, I really, really loved this scene because we really got to see Natalia as she is as a child and to be with somebody her own age, and I loved the scene where they play the “Two Truths, One Lie” [game], and she says, “No, I’m 8, just like you,” and it’s the first time actually saying her age. “I am an 8-year-old like you.” I mean, of course, it does go south after that but I really loved that scene because I think we really need to see Natalia as a child, and also it brought light to that episode. I really, really did love playing with Natalia’s playfulness.

Disney / Ser Baffo

As you say, it goes back to dark very quickly afterward with Ellen as Kristine with the first time we see her physically being abusive to Natalia. It bookends the intro where Kristine’s saying the things that she wants Natalia to say, and she’s reinforcing it with physical harm. How difficult was it for you to go there in that moment?

Yeah, it was hard. Really difficult. I mean, really difficult for Ellen and I, and it was so stressful for the both of us because doing a scene like that was just horrendous, and playing opposite Ellen in that scene was horrendous because I love Ellen so much. But like I say, the support was amazing that day. And I think in that scene, Natalia is just desperate to do whatever Kristine wants… “I’ll do whatever you want.” Because this is still her mum, so she just wants to cling on to her mum, and no matter how abusive she is towards her, you know, that’s that bond that she has now. And yeah, that scene was so intense, but the support was amazing. Everybody was incredible, and, yeah, it’s gonna be hard I think for viewers to watch. But the support we had was really special.

Looking at social media reactions to the show so far, a lot of them are very in the camp of Kristine at this point, and that’s by design. But I wonder if you have a message for fans as the series gets into this next chapter?

As we swiftly move on to my POV,  I don’t think fans know the story, and they don’t know what’s going to hit them, and that’s gonna be so confusing for them, I think. Just to stay on the ride and just keep going. Mark and Ellen put it so amazingly when we’ve done press together — Ellen, I remember said me and Ellen could watch something and have completely different views on what we’ve just watched, and I think that’s what our show does so well. But I think the one takeaway from my POV is just not to judge somebody so quickly and to be open. And we are so lucky to tell such unique stories, and it’s amazing that we were able to do a show that really showcases inclusivity.

Good American Family, Wednesdays, Hulu

If you or someone you know is the victim of child abuse, contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453). If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.