No hiding under the mask

Actress Natalie Alyn Lind talks about her bad-ass role in the new Marvel TV series The Gifted with Team Viva

All of 19, American actress Natalie Alyn Lind is already known for her recurring roles as Dana Caldwell in The Goldbergs and Silver St. Cloud in Gotham, and for her starring role as Lauren Strucker in The Gifted. In her latest show, which revolves  around two parents who discover their children are mutants and consequently go on the run from the government, she will play one of the lead characters. The show is part of the X-men world of the Marvel Comic Universe.

When we first meet Lauren, what state does the audience find her in?

She is living the perfect life, her family is perfect family and then you figure out that everything isn’t fine. She has been hiding this secret that she is a mutant. And in this universe, mutants are illegal, they’re kind of disrespected and nobody really looks at them as real people. So she hides this secret for her entire life until something happens where her brother takes out an entire high-school gym. Then, she has to reveal her true self to save her family.

How does she react to having to reveal her identity?

Well, I think that incident is probably the best thing and the worst thing that has ever happened to her because she doesn’t have to hide anymore. She doesn’t have to hide who she really is, which is really great and she’s much happier now. But at the same time, she has to leave behind the world that she has always known. She will never see her house again, she’ll never see her friends or her boyfriend again. So I think there’s also a very sad aspect to it.

Do you think the parents are going to be more upset because she has been hiding that she’s a mutant?

One of the interesting things about this storyline is that the father is a mutant prosecutor and he’s against mutants. So, I think one of the biggest reasons that she doesn’t come out and tell her family that she is a mutant is that her father might put her in jail or might never see her the same way again. And I think it’s a pleasant surprise for her when she realises that no matter what, blood is thicker than water and that her family will stay by her no matter what.

Could you tell us what how that role is relevant to the real world?

This story is very relevant to what’s happening right now. In life a lot of people, especially my age, will hide who they really are in order to fit to society’s expectations. And that’s sickening and everybody should be who they really are. That being who you are is really cool, because genuinely you’re pretty much cooler than anything you pretend to be.

How exciting is it for you to be a part of Marvel Universe?

I am such a Marvel fan. Stan Lee is one of my biggest inspirations in life. I think that he’s incredible and meeting him was life changing. The X-men movies are iconic. I grew up watching these movies and to be a part of the Marvel legacy, it’s kind of surreal. It’s very, very surreal actually.

What does your character do once she gets to the underground centre? How does she get out?

In the pilot, you see that my character is motherly and takes her younger brother under her wing but as the series progresses and she goes underground, you see her developing as a character and taking care of all the refugees and wanting to protect everybody.  She’s a protector and a lot of our characters, our powers are relevant to our personalities.

I  get to open a script every week and learn what my powers are and I think that’s very cool. Because personally I don’t know where my powers are going to go. But that’s one of the cool aspects of it is, not really knowing exactly what I can do, but building into it.

Are there any differences between like, female mutants and male mutants?

Oh, the females are way more bad-ass. Just kidding. It’s not even a male or female aspect. Everybody on the show is extremely different, everybody has their own power and that that’s what makes it so interesting.  The person I relate to the most is my brother on the show, Andy Strucker, who is played by Percy Hynes White, as the series continues you learn that our characters actually work together. Together we’re more powerful, we can use our powers together and work as one, so that’s a very cool development for me.

How did you prepare for the shooting?

A lot of the stuff that you see in the pilot is pretty much real. The last three months I’ve been parkour training. So I’ve been training to be able to do any stunt. And I think that that’s one of my favourite aspects of this entire show is being able to do these bad-ass fight-scenes. Within the X-men, bad-ass cool explosions, there’s definitely a heart-felt storyline there. And that’s super important.

Which is your favourite TV show?

My favourite show is Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story. I’m obsessed!

How did you meet Stan Lee?

We actually met him at Comic-Con. He also has a very special appearance in our pilot.

Did he tell you anything that stuck with you about your character?

There’s not really much he can say about the characters at this point because we’re kind of still growing into them. And it’s very important that our characters are young and will eventually grow into what people expect from the comic books. I have all my trust in Matt Nixon that he’ll make sure the characters will develop into the same great characters that he wrote for the comic books. So yeah, I mean I’m personally excited to see it grow too, you know what I mean?

What do you think about the gender-based stereotypes and how to break those?

Everybody has the same heart. Male, female, everybody at the core, we all have beating hearts, we all have the same skeleton body. It’s important to make sure you stay genuine to yourself and everybody’s equal.

Is your character one of the most grounded characters in the show?

There are a lot of grounded characters in the show. And I’d like to think that I’m very grounded and that’s how I want to create this character. I want younger girls and guys, or even older people to be able to look at my character and see somebody, even though she’s going through all these traumatic events, who stays grounded and makes sure that she knows what’s right. That is what is important about my character is that she’s not on the human side, she’s not on the mutant side, she’s on the ‘what’s right’ side.

Nowadays we’ve got social media and there’s a lot of feedback even before the show airs. Does it make you nervous?

Yeah I know. Oh my God! I’m not going to lie, it makes me very nervous. I am very confident of our show and think that it’s a very good show with a good heart.

The Gifted premieres in India on Star World on July 26 at 9 PM