Baby Reindeer star Nava Mau may be a transgender role model after the success of the Netflix drama and her Emmy nomination for her work on the show, but the actress isn't ready to call herself an “activist.”
“I’m really afraid to use that word because I think activists are often involved in organizing and I have a lot of respect for that work,” Mao told me Friday at the Television Academy’s Artists Nominations celebration at The Wallis in Beverly Hills. “I tend to call myself an advocate.”
Mao's nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology or Movie makes her the first transgender woman to be nominated in that category.
She gets emotional when she talks about hearing from transgender youth who thank her for coming out. “It makes me cry a little bit,” Mao says.
“It made me think about the reality of transgender people, that we have to face and break so many barriers just to survive,” Mao recalls being honored at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month with the CMF Barrier Breaker Award. “For us, achieving our dreams is something amazing and innovative.”
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Asked to list some of her inspirations and influences for transitioning, Mao mentioned the cast of “Pose,” Jamie Clayton in “Sense 8,” indie actress and director Rain Valdez, and the 2016 web series “Her Story,” starring Angelica Ross and Jane Richards. “All of these pieces are pieces of me,” Mao explained.
Mao also said that her dream role is to play a witch.
Good witch or evil witch? Mao smiled and said, “They’re not all good or all evil, are they?”
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