Nava Mau's historic Emmy nomination makes her feel like she has a place in Hollywood
The Baby Reindeer star is the first trans actor to earn a nod for supporting actress in a limited series
When Nava Mau received the audition materials to play Teri in Baby Reindeer, she felt a connection to the character. But she had no idea that this audition would lead to her first-ever Emmy nomination.
Teri is the warm, confident girlfriend of the show's main character, Donny, who is being stalked by an unstable woman.
Baby Reindeer shows Donny and Teri falling in love, but also Donny hiding his queerness and his relationship with Teri, who's a trans woman. This is something that Mau related to as a trans woman herself.
"How could somebody else be writing a character that feels like maybe we've lived similar lives, if not the same life at times, maybe in a different timeline or a different universe?" she says in an interview with Q guest host Talia Schlanger.
But it wasn't necessarily easy for Mau to play Teri, who's self-assured and knows when to raise her voice. Mau describes herself as soft-spoken, so she practiced breathwork and trained her voice for the role.
"She never runs away from herself, so I could feel that — that I would have to rise to that challenge to portray her," Mau says of her character. "I had never yelled at anybody before."
Her hard work paid off. Mau's portrayal of Teri earned her an Emmy nod for outstanding supporting actress in a limited series, which makes her the first trans actor to be nominated in her category.
We exist everywhere in the world, so we should exist in every genre as well.- Nava Mau
Growing up in Mexico City, Mau didn't see many Latina women — much less trans women — on the screen. She remembers how excited she was to see Eva Longoria in Desperate Housewives and Sara Ramirez in Grey's Anatomy. She then started to see more trans women on TV, like Laverne Cox on Orange is the New Black and the leading women of Pose.
She says it took decades for her to even start to think that there was a place for her in Hollywood.
Mau received her big break in the high school drama Generation, which premiered in 2021. She was hustling to get jobs and an agent, but she didn't get cast in anything for 18 months. She thought maybe her Generation role was a "fluke."
"[In] 2022, I decided, no, I'm going to enjoy my life," she says. "The work will find me."
She returned to Mexico, journalled a bunch and wrote a series. She refused to chase work and that's when the Baby Reindeer audition came her way.
Now, Mau has her Emmy nomination and is featured in the fifth and final season of You. She's happy to see more trans representation on screen — and hopes to see more.
"Audiences are receiving trans characters on screen with glee, with love, with admiration and with a shared understanding of our humanity," she says. "I'm excited to see trans people in rom-coms, in sci-fi, historical fiction…. We exist everywhere in the world, so we should exist in every genre as well."
The full interview with Nava Mau is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Nava Mau produced by Lise Hosein.
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