Aussie actress Nathalie Kelley has described her new Stan show The Baker and the Beauty as ‘groundbreaking’.
The 34-year-old beauty said she chose to audition for the role with her Australian accent to show she was ‘different’ despite her own Latin heritage, and it paid off.
Nathalie says the diversity in the program was a testament to how things in Hollywood have changed over the past two decades.
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EXCLUSIVE ‘This wouldn’t have happened 15 years ago’: Australian actress Nathalie Kelley praises diverse casting in new show Baker And the Beauty – available on Stan from April 14 – and why she plays an Aussie celebrity on the series
‘It felt pretty groundbreaking, because diversity is very important and this would not have happened 15 years ago!’ Nathalie told Daily Mail Australia.
Nathalie, who has Latin roots and ancestry, added: ‘It’s really important to have authentic representations of what society actually looks like on screen.’
The Australian actress was born in Peru, but left her birth country when she was two years old.
‘Sometimes it feels weird when people just check “the diversity boxes”… but the opposite happened with this show [Baker And The Beauty]. They actually just cast the best people for the job.’
She continued: ‘It felt pretty groundbreaking to be honest, like it wasn’t intentional that it was an all Latin cast, but that’s how it ended up.’
‘It’s really important to have authentic representations of what society actually looks like on screen’: Nathalie said it wasn’t intentional that the show had an all Latin cast, but ‘that’s how it ended up’
Love story: The show is about two people, Nathalie’s celebrity character Noa Hamilton and actor Victor Rasuk’s (left) character of Cuban baker Daniel Garcia, who are falling love while overcoming cultural barriers
The show is centered on Nathalie’s celebrity character, Noa Hamilton, and Cuban baker Daniel Garcia (played by Victor Rasuk), who fall love while overcoming cultural barriers.
‘What they were looking for in Noa was that she should be anything but Latin, because they were trying to play on the cultural difference,’ she said.
However, Nathalie said she chose to audition for the role with her Australian accent to show she was ‘different’ despite her Latin heritage, and it paid off.
‘I had the foresight to see that maybe doing an American accent would make them think that I was not that different to him, but I came in myself and that’s the choice I made with my Australian accent and they liked it and we kept it.
‘So that’s really speaking to the fact that even though I have Latin ancestry, culturally growing up in Australia, Nathalie and Noa are very different from the world of Little Havana, and Dan’s Cuban family, and so there was a big cultural divide for them to overcome.’
‘Even though I have Latin ancestry, culturally growing up in Australia, Nathalie and Noa are very different from the world of Little Havana, and Dan’s Cuban family’: Nathalie said she chose to audition for the role with her Aussie accent to show she was ‘different’ to her love interest
‘It was a dream cast’: Despite the U.S. show, which is an adaptation of the Israeli series Beauty and the Baker, being based in Miami, it was actually filmed in Puerto Rico
Despite the U.S. show, which is an adaptation of the Israeli romantic-comedy series Beauty and the Baker, being based in Miami, it was actually filmed in Puerto Rico.
Nathalie said the show had a ‘dream cast’, adding: ‘the love we [the cast] had for each other off screen translated on screen.’
‘It was just one big love fest and you when you sprinkle a lot of salsa and Latin dancing on to that – you have the recipe for a lot of fun.’
Nathalie has held prominent roles in Dynasty, The Vampire Diaries and Unreal, and played Neela in the 2006 action film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
The Baker and the Beauty premieres on April 15 at 5pm on Stan, with new episodes weekly – same day as the U.S.
The Baker and the Beauty premieres on April 15 at 5pm on Stan, with new episodes weekly – same day as the U.S.