Natalia Tena, star of About a Boy, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones talks to William Gadsby Peet about her career so far and band Molotov Jukebox's upcoming performance at The Boileroom in Guildford.
A nice bland question to start with, how did you get in to acting?
“Basically I got caught smoking. In my boarding school we got punished if we were caught having a fag, you’d have to stay over the weekend, which ironically ended up with you smoking a lot more as there was nothing else to do!”
“I was coming out of a bush and my drama teacher caught me and basically because he liked me due to how much I loved theatre, instead of dobbing me in he said ‘just go in to the drama barn’ and I was like ‘ok…’”
“I walked in and there was a room full of loads of little boys around the age of 10 and I was like ‘What the f*** is this, babysitting?’ and it turned out to be an audition for About a Boy and that was my first role which got me an agent and its all gone on from there.”
What a hero of a drama teacher!
"Yea, Al Mule man, he’s awesome."
You seem to have a knack for ending up in film/TV that has a huge cult following, what’s it like to be part of the world of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones?
“It’s incredible, it’s amazing, I’ve been very f***ing lucky, and I hope my luck continues! It’s great to be a part of stuff that you really love and cherish, books that you’ve read and film/TV that you actually want to watch yourself.”
“On Sunday I’m going to a friends Thanksgiving celebration and after we’ve had a massive meal we’re going to watch Harry Potter, and I can’t wait for the next season of Game of Thrones, I’ve been binge watching it just like everyone else. It’s just amazing to be part of something you love.”
Absolutely! Harry Potter and Game of Thrones both have an intense following, what are the fans like?
“I actually do quite a few conventions where I meet a lot of the fans and talk about acting etc. I’ve just come back from Australia and they’re just so lovely and yes some are intense sometimes but quite often there is a story behind the intensity.”
“Miltos Yerolemou, the actor who plays Arya’s sword trainer Syrio, was telling me about this dude serving in Afghanistan who’d come up to him at a convention and told him that he’d say to the other troops in his regiment ‘What do we say to the god of death?’ And they’d shout back at him ‘Not today!’ Which is a quote from his character in Game of Thrones. It’s amazing that often the interest from fans is down to these stories you’re in as an actor that have helped them in moments of trouble.”
“I met a girl randomly who was the person looking after me at a convention and it turns out that she’d been diagnosed with cancer and her girlfriend had f***ing left her and she was like ‘I listened to your Molotov Dukebox albums and it actually really helped me get through that dark time’ and I was like f***, you never know what’s behind that intensity, the majority of fans are awesome. “
How did you end up getting cast for Tonks and Osha? I assume you didn’t get caught smoking again...
"Haha no you just do auditions and hopefully nail it ... or you don’t."
Didn’t you fall in to a table when you were auditioning for Tonks?
“No... well kind of. When I auditioned for Tonks the first time I kind of walked in to one because I was in a huge rush as I had to head back up to the North immediately after to perform in a tour of Brontë with an amazing company called Shared Experience.”
“I had to travel to the audition and then grab a train after to make it back to the theatre in time to warm up etc. before going on stage and so I was in a massive rush. I cycled in, it was really hot, I was boiling and I was just like aaaaah! I ran in to the audition room and was an absolute state, smashing in to s***. I hadn’t even read for the part at that point, hadn’t even read the books so I didn’t know who Tonks was or anything about Harry Potter.”
“It was a really s*** audition, I rang my agent straight after and told her it was the worst audition I’d ever done and she was like ‘No you always say that.’ And I was like ‘No I really mean it this time!’ She rang me back an hour later and said ‘You were right, it was really bad’ and I was like ‘I told you!’ But then she told me that the director, David Yates, wanted to meet me again to give me another chance and I thought ‘really?’”
“They gave me more leeway for the second audition, so I had a week to prepare and in that week I read the majority of the books and was like right I get it now, I understand what the language of this universe is.”
“At the second audition David had given me 3 hours to try and nail the part and when I got there, having read the books and done the research, it only took 2 or 3 takes before he was like ‘Right that’s it, that’s the one, done’ and then he sent it off to the producers so it’s amazing that dude had faith in me for some reason.”
You’ve already had an awesome career, who are some of your favorite people you’ve worked with?
“There’s almost too many to mention! Michelle Butterly was the very first person on stage that was like a mentor and guide to me. I’ve just done a film called As We Like and it was my second film with director Carlos Marques-Marcet and I love him, literally love him as a friend and a human in my life that I absolutely adore.”
“One of the actors, David Verdaguer, that I worked with in As We Like It is another, he’s a massive theatre actor and he also does a lot of stand up and working with him was amazing. In that same film I got to work wit Oona Chaplin who’s one of my closest friends in the world, she played my lesbian partner in it which was great because I love her, it’s coming out next year.”
“Who else? Julie Waters is amazing, David Thewlis as well. So many of the people I’ve worked with are just lovely and inspiring.”
Nice. Talk to me about Molotov Jukebox, how did the group come about?
“So it came about after Sam [Apley] and I met in another band and decided ok we’re going to run away to start our own musical fun and then bit-by-bit we’ve sort of gathered other band members. Adam, our producer, is one of Sam’s oldest mates, they had their first band together which was called something s*** like Sub Sonic [Sub Solid, corrects Sam on the other end of the phone]. Ha! Sub Solid.”
“At our third gig somewhere in Camden our guitarist couldn’t make it and Sam was like ‘Oh my god my mate Adam lives just around the corner’, so we rang him, got him down and managed to teach him most of our songs in about 5 minutes and he’s been our guitarist ever since.”
“So it’s been quite a nice organic accumulation of musical talent and we’re currently all in the tour bus right now, en route to Sheffield after our first gig last night in Manchester. We love playing Manchester, it’s quite a lot like London in a way in that we get a good crowd and we actually recognize a lot of the faces which is lovely.”
How do you think the first gig went?
“It was ok, a bit scary. The last gig we’d played was in September at a Ukrainian festival set in a massive castle. It’s always a bit frightening the first gig in a while, you always feel a bit rusty and nervous about being on stage again, it takes a few gigs to get properly in the zone again.”
“But people were really nice and it was a great atmosphere. We have a nautical theme for these gigs as we recently finished filming the video for our song Just The Thrill, which Carlos Marques-Marcet directed for free, and it’s absolutely amazing. I’m a mermaid in it and it’s really hard to swim in a mermaid’s tale and the water was absolutely freezing but we got it in the can and it’s awesome so we’ve taken that theme and carried it on for this tour and it’s all very piratey.”
Yea I saw that video, very impressive mermaid outfit! I did think when I was watching it ‘I bet that was hard to film’.
“Yea it was! We didn’t actually have much time, the camera was in the water and we only had an hour to get the footage and I was in the water for the whole time. My lips turned blue and it was absolutely terrifying but we got the shots, so it was worth it.”
How would you describe your sound?
“We decided to name our last album after the genre as we thought let’s just call it what it is, so Tropical Gypsy is how we’d define ourselves. It’s a mix of Latin America and Eastern Europe sort of having a love child.”
Yea, when I was listening to your music to prep for this interview it was like drinking a tropical Rubicon, big fan! What can we look forward to your performance at The Boileroom on December 3rd?
“Lots of nautical fun! We’ve also got a great supporting act called The Hobbit who’s an unbelievable beat boxer and that will be followed by an absolute nautical madness with plenty of silliness and fun.”
“We really want people to dress up and we will be giving out prizes for people who have really got their mermaid or their pirate on. Hopefully everyone leaves with a big smile on their face dripping with sweat from lots of dancing.”
Before Jukebox Moltov, you busked on The Underground, how was that as an experience?
“Yea I did it for years. I went to boarding school at Bedales and so it was the only way to make some money for the weekend. I had other jobs like babysitting, dog walking and leafleting but from the age of 15 I did busking as well. I’d basically just play the same 4 songs for 3 hours or until I had enough money.”
“I kind of progressed from there and whilst I was waiting to go to Australia on a scholarship (which I actually never ended up taking because I fell in love and got an awesome theatre job), it was my only income and I actually made enough to live off of.”
“Around Christmas time it was great I remember making so much money I could actually buy people presents but then January was awful because everyone was broke, everyone has to pay their taxes and I was lucky to make enough money to get a sandwich each day.”
“It had its ups and downs but it was really useful and definitely gave me thicker skin as a musician as you’d get used to playing to an audience that was predominantly ignoring you. It helped you to be less precious about peoples opinions.”
If you had to choose between a career in acting or music, which would you choose?
“I often get asked this and I don’t think you really need to choose. It’s a bit like being asked sex or love, which one would you choose to keep in your life? Well sometimes you need one more than the other but generally we need both all of our lives.”
Final question, what would be your ideal line-up at a festival, alive or dead?
“F***! I’m going to ask the rest of the band for some help with this one. I’d definitely like to see Buenos Vista Social club, David Bowie, The Beatles obviously, Elvis, Otis Redding, a bit of Sam Cook, Papa Sugar and Ron Malkovic. There’s a lot of brilliant music, Bomba Estéreo, Amy Winehouse and I think that’s it for now. Oh wait Bob Marley! And definitely Major Lazer to finish the set off with a boogie.”
You can get tickets to see Molotov Jukebox at The Boileroom on December 3 at theboileroom.net
You can also check out the band's music at itunes.apple.com
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