Adam Patla
Heavy is the head that wears the headband.
Amid the chaos and cacophony of Netflix’s comedy series Big Mistakes is the prim and proper Natalie, played with surgical precision by Abby Quinn. As Natalie’s older siblings Nicky (Dan Levy) and Morgan (Taylor Ortega) tumble into the world of organized crime, Natalie attempts to keep her family, or at least the image of it, together.
“As soon as I put on all the headbands, that was very informative as well,” Quinn divulges with a laugh.
Her performance as Natalie is a hidden gem of the series, presenting us with someone who is so specific and detailed you can’t imagine anyone else in the role. The joy of Quinn’s performance is that Natalie remains consistent in her idiosyncratic behaviors from start to finish while still completely transforming and subverting audience expectation. It’s a complicated duality to pull off, but Quinn understood her right away.
“I love Dan and his writing is so brilliant,” she says. “I think sometimes in preparing for an audition I can second guess my instincts a lot and then it takes me like 5 hours to film a tape because by the end I’ve finally found the character. And with this I just for whatever reason I found her kind of immediately. The audition for me was my very first scene and then my very last scene which is this monologue and that monologue really helped me figure out where she goes and what she’s capable of and she’s kind of, I think, quietly chaotic….”
A lot of Natalie’s screen time is shared with her mother Linda (Laurie Metcalf) as they maneuver her mayoral campaign. It’s clear immediately that Natalie is the golden child and Linda has poured every dream into her and the unspoken chemistry between Metcalf and Quinn elevates that beautifully.
“I think Laurie really informed my performance as well,” Quinn explains. “It’s hard not to just be watching her as a person in a scene with her and to like step out of character for a second. Her performance is just brilliant and it only made sense because my character’s main motivation is to please my mom and to be her mini-me and my entire life centers around her so I think naturally some of my mannerisms and some of our tones…it all ended up seeming pretty similar. But I think that’s because I was really chasing that and informing my performance off of Laurie, maybe subconsciously.”
In one of Linda and Natalie’s scenes, though, we start to see Natalie’s facade falter a little bit as she pushes her mother to stay in the mayoral race and push harder. With a shocked expression, Linda replies, “I never should have weaponized you with an education.”
“It’s maybe one of the only times that Natalie is challenging Laurie’s character but she’s still so timid about it,” Quinn says about the scene. “I don’t think she wants to cross into a different territory and become an enemy of her mom. So she’s trying her hardest to stay in her good graces but also knows… ‘Okay I have the ability, I’m smart enough to keep up with Linda’. I think it also informed there is more to Natalie but she is kind of holding back. She isn’t showing all of her cards. She’s very selective when she does.”
Throughout Big Mistakes, Natalie unravels little by little, only to reveal she’s just as chaotic as the siblings she tries to distance herself from.
“I think the first couple of episodes…she is seemingly calm and has everything in control and then the minute that there are any kind of wrenches thrown into her perfect plan she starts to lose it left and right. By the end monologue…my thought for that entire final episode is that she is actually just losing it…. She just is becoming a different person altogether.”
While Big Mistakes hasn’t officially been renewed as of our interview, Quinn is excited for Natalie’s possibilities.
“I see it all,” she says. “I know she’s lost it but… I feel like her life is going to go in a drastically different direction. I don’t know if that’s a big shakeup in her relationship or if she does somehow get involved. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen to her but my hope is that she leans more into the unraveling and then maybe that’ll just crack open a whole Natalie and then people will have to live with this new version. I feel like she’s maybe going to find some kind of confidence too. I feel like a lot of her snippiness and…sucking up to her mom is coming from a place of deep insecurity. So I’m hoping that maybe she finds some kind of confidence even if it’s gonna be in a crazy way. But I am hoping she steps into a new version of herself. Maybe she has an affair, I don’t know! Maybe she takes her headband out!”
You can catch Abby Quinn‘s hilarious work as Natalie on Big Mistakes on Netflix. Big Mistakes is now streaming in its entirety on Netflix! Be sure to check out our full interview with Abby below.
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