The truth is elusive in this based-on-a-true story exploration of an adoption gone terribly wrong
The real-life story of Natalia Grace is one that has been well documented in the three-season documentary series The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, but when Katie Robbins was asked to explore a scripted version of the young Ukrainian girl with dwarfism, who was adopted and subsequently abandoned by an American family, she felt there was more to the story — all depending on who you asked. “I was so struck by the fact that your perception of the story shifted so much depending on whose account you were reading,” she says. “That’s true no matter what — you always have to pay attention to who is telling the story — but it felt so much more acute with this. People’s opinions about it were so strong that it was almost like a Rorschach test.”
She decided on a Rashomon-style approach to Good American Family, where we meet Kristine and Michael Barnett (Ellen Pompeo and Mark Duplass), a seemingly lovely couple from Indiana who adopted Natalia Grace in 2010. “I really wanted to do it in a way that harnessed that experience, because the question of whose story gets to be told and whose story is believed, felt so palpably relevant in our time,” says Robbins. A year after adopting her, the Barnetts convinced a court that Natalia’s real age was 22, before leaving her to live on her own.
Robbins and co-showrunner Sarah Sutherland went through copious amounts of court documents and research to depict the true horrors of the story. “We had access to information that was above and beyond what was out there, and we took a lot of time to sit with the information and try to figure out what the emotional truth of the story was,” says Sutherland. “While this is a horrifying story in many ways, and it’s a thriller in terms of its tone, the most scary thing is that facts weren’t allowed to be treated as facts in Natalia’s case, both by the court of public opinion, but also by the court of Indiana.”
Duplass came into the series with limited knowledge of the case, but an implicit trust in the showrunners. “I’m like, ‘Why are we telling this story?’ And I had a great meeting with Katie and Sarah, and they were like, ‘We have an opportunity to really tell a story that makes people question why they judge people so quickly,” he says. Duplass was also eager to work with Pompeo, who in addition to playing the family matriarch is an executive producer on the show. “What I really appreciate about Ellen is the intense Boston-ness. It’s so beautiful because when you’re a woman in this business, you are basically told just say yes and agree with people because they’ll fire your ass and you’ll never work again,” he says. “Ellen is so hardcore, she’s just like, ‘Nope, this shot isn’t good enough. Nope, we deserve better than this.’ And she should because she’s a producer and she’s a phenomenal actress, and I so deeply respect that level of work acumen.”
That Pompeo was nervous about stepping out of the Grey’s Anatomy box was also evident to her co-star. “She had a really sweet vulnerability to her leadership quality, because she was scared — and she’ll be the first one to tell you — saying things like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this and even if I can, will people accept me?’ That strength, combined with that sweet vulnerability, it’s really good modeling for everybody else on the set.” This particularly applied to newcomer Imogen Faith Reed, the British actress who portrays Natalia Grace. “That girl is a miracle,” says Duplass. “Honestly, she had never done a speaking role on camera before, and her first role is a leading role. She is doing it in an accent that’s not her own, a physicality that’s not her own. She’s playing into the different belief systems of audience members that at any given time we might think she’s seven, we might think she’s 22. She’s got to play those plausibly and then manipulate the audience to thinking she’s older and then manipulate us back to thinking she’s younger. It’s this tightly woven chess game from a first-time performer and she’s just incredible.”
While Duplass hopes the series sparks debates about the truth between those near and dear to each other, co-star Christina Hendricks (who plays Natalia Grace’s safe harbour on the show), cautions viewers to strap in for the ride. “It is a mind-blowing story. That’s why this story has captivated so many people,” she says. “But, also, people have a lot of preconceived ideas of what they think the story is. They’re going to be very, very surprised.”
Good American Family, streaming Wednesday, April 23 on Disney+