Natalia Tena has crafted a career out of playing odd tertiary characters. From playing Tonks in the Harry Potter films to giving life to Osha in Game of Thrones, she’s known for her involvement with geek culture mainstays. But strip away the fluctuating neon hair and the dirty Wildling face and Tena is a true beauty and a massive talent – a fact proven by her absolutely knockout performance in Carlos Marques-Marcet’s superb 10,000 KM [review here].

Join us as we talk her reaction to watching herself in movies, winning the SXSW jury award for acting, working with Carlos Marques-Marcet, technology’s role in relationships, her love of film and her favorite recent flick and speculation about Osha and Rickon from Game of Thrones.

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What was your reaction to the film the first time that you watched the finished product?

Natalia Tena: I was absolutely terrified, because there’s no big special effects or anything. I’m just kind of there. I mean I couldn’t really watch, I couldn’t really take it in to be honest. I was just so kind of blushing at it, in general. I got so nervous watching it, I asked for a frozen margarita. I was fucking terrified. I’ve watched it another time since then and kind of allowed it to sink in but it’s just very hard to look at your own face for a long period of time.

The film is very much predicated on like these two massive, human performances at its center. So how is it for you to switch gears between playing smaller roles and in more fantastical larger-than-life blockbuster type features? Do you prefer role that’s much more prolific and human albeit in a much smaller film?

NT: Well because I came from that before, it wasn’t that big a change. It’s kind of harder to go to the bigger ones. That’s actually something I’m much more comfortable with. And then I had to do it in Spanish. I’ve never learned my lines in Spanish, it was quite scary.

How did you go about transitioning to do that? Did you just start taking lessons when you knew you were doing the film?

NT: No, no. I’m Spanish. I speak Spanish but I’ve never learned lines, I’ve never learned scripts. I didn’t go to school in Spanish. That was much harder to get good at. Every single night, David helped me go through my lines time and time and time again until I was happy with it and that’s a very generous actor cause you know that’s not always the case.

Speaking of you and David, last year at SXSW, you guys won the Special Jury Prize for best acting duo.

NT: Um, it was amazing. I couldn’t believe it.

The performances are really phenomenal; they really are. It’s so honest and so lovely. Have you seen any positive ripples coming out of that? Do you see more offers coming in or has it not really changed much of your career at this point?

NT: I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how much it effects anything. I don’t know what the reasons are for me going up for certain jobs. Maybe they’ve seen you in something else. You never really know. I’m still getting some really cool auditions though. I don’t know if I’m getting more auditions but I’m definitely in the running for some amazing stuff so that’s so amazing and I’m happy and good.

You were not originally cast for the role of Alex, rather you came in kind of last minute to replace Barbara Linnie. When I was talking with Carlos, he was telling me that you and David and him did a couple weeks of rehearsal to create kind of a feeling of camaraderie and intimacy as if this relationship has already been developed. Can you tell me a little bit like what you spent your time doing during those weeks of prep?

NT: Well when we rehearsed, we were asked to pick ten songs that would mean something to the character. Obviously, we hadn’t set up what those are yet entirely. So on the weekends, we’d catch up and really be in that universe. David picked one song, “Gigolo” by Nick Cannon. He said we needed to build a physical history. And then he made us do a strip tease for each other, which was interesting. And then he made us kind of improvise the key moments of them, like meeting for the first time or the first time she tells him something, or like the first time they think about having a kid. These key moments, we’d just improvise and see what happened.

So did any of that improvisation go on to effect the film’s script or make its way into the film?

NT: No the script was very much done. He did rewrite it when he decided on David and me, and he was completely open to suggestions to things. But then he obviously had to construct scenes from the script and obviously because we didn’t know if it was perfect when we were improvising them. We kind of worked our way through it because we knew the through line; we knew what the scene was meant to do; but we weren’t doing it perfectly. Things came out of that really; filling in the gaps ourselves. It created bits of different language sometimes.

So what was it like working with Carlos? Compared to other directors, how would you classify him? What kind of director is he?

NT: He’s someone that I basically wanted to be my friend and he literally-I knew I wanted to work with someone like that. He’s excited and enthusiastic and patient. There’s just some people you’re on the same frequency with and that’s how you become close friends and he’s one of them.

In terms of creating the character you have stuff that’s written on the page to go on but you’re forced to bring your own element to it. Is there any person or relationship that you had in your life that you used for creating the basis of your character Alex?

NT: Yes, in my mind I thought of my little cousin in Spain. She is studying History of Art and she’s such an amazing woman. She’s quite extroverted and quite loud and strange; an incredible observer. She’s not shy though. She’s not shy like her dad or extroverted like her mom; she’s just an incredible young woman that notices details and takes in the bigger picture and is happy to watch the world go by and at the same time doesn’t exclude herself from groups. I don’t know how to describe it. She’s incredible and I love her hugely and I thought that’s kind of Alex as a photographer. Like why she picked this job and that visual thing and something about her energy was my cousin’s. I kind of borrowed her.

Your character in the film is a photographer. Is photography something that you have done or something you learned about for the film and familiarized yourself with?

NT: Carlos gave me a book of photography that I read. I just thought I could kind of learn what makes a good picture good and people’s different definitions of that. But I know nothing about photography, like at all. I learned a bit back when I was doing and I really enjoyed these books but it’s not my thing. Obviously, I get affected by a photo like everyone else but it’s not something I can do well.

One of the reasons I think the film is as potent as it is able to tap into the universality of growing apart from someone that you’ve once been very close with and loved very deeply. For you, was there any particular scene or emotion that you found difficult to portray?

NT: The hardest bit was actually the end because it was the end of the shoot and I just really sad. We shoot chronologically so it was the end. On the weekends, I came back and forth I went away again to work and that ended. That was September and we were shooting in the evening in Barcelona. It was a night shoot and it was just completely over. It was certainly a massive sadness and the way I deal with sadness is, I just I can’t cry and I kind of shut off a little bit. It’s a bit hard as an actress, you have to battle against that.

When I was talking with Carlos, we discussed how technology is really changing the plane of intimacy. He said that nothing will ever be able to replace the real thing, the real thing being physical closeness. And I’m wondering, where do you fall in terms of like people’s relationship with technology in terms of their ability to remain close with each other while at a physical distance. Do you think that the trend towards technology as a bridge for closeness is positive or do you think it will inevitably lead to human relationships crumbling?

NT: I don’t really know! It’s so dependent on people. I’ve got people I love dearly and they’re brilliant. They’re amazing. I have family in Brazil and some that live in London and I think with things like parents and friends, it’s incredible that we’ve got this technology that can allow us to connect. But you still need to touch each other and that’s not going to go away. Especially with sexual relationships, much more than your friends. I might want a lark with my mates but the whole point of it being sexual is the physical aspect of it. Maybe in the future, it’ll develop even more and you can feel like you’re touching someone. Maybe that will change everything as well but to me I think the real deal is still the real deal.

So you’re probably known by most people for your roles in pop-geek culture material the likes of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. Do you find that having roles in stuff like this have led to you having more exposure or do you think that it kind of puts you in some kind of nerdcore box?

NT: I have no idea. I really don’t know. I don’t know. I can still just do incredible jobs with really nice people and be employed

Is there one that you prefer to the other; big productions or small indie fare? Or do you like having a mix of the two?

NT: You know, it’s like with life and all that. It’s good to have a mix of everything really. So much is who you’re doing it with really and the quality of it.

So I’m always amazed when I talk to people, particularly actors, who say like I don’t really watch that many movies. So do you see yourself as a fan of cinema and if so can you tell me about some of your all-time favorites?

NT: I fucking love films. I literally – if I could I’d sit around, so much of my life would be reading books and watching films happily. That and jogging and seeing my friends. It’s time dependent and that’s sort of the problem. I recommend people watch Wild Tales [review here]. It’s absolutely fucking amazing and that wedding scene is unbelievable.

M: Fantastic. It’s so good. In Game of Thrones, Osha (the character who you play) has been tasked with the great duty of caring for Rickon Stark but we haven’t seen either of them in a couple of years. I know that you – even if you did know what was going on with them – wouldn’t be able to tell me about it. Rather, I’ll ask you what do you imagine that the two of them have been up to in the past few years?

NT: I mean I’m hoping that she taught them to be a fucking epic warrior. Like he’s growing up and I hope she’s training him up. That’s what’s been happening. Sort of medieval boot camp. It’s a big bad world, Westeros.

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