With the second season of Emmy and Golden Globe winning Amazon series Transparent about to drop on 11 December, new cast member Hari Nef has revealed how she got her part on the show and some details of her character in a new NYT profile.
“Faith Soloway, Jill’s sister, who writes for the show, was my camp counselor at Charles River Creative Arts Program in Dover, [Massachusetts],” Nef says, explaining that, “Jill was in New York being honored at a gala, and she emailed me out of the blue, ‘Do you want to be my date to this thing?’ So I showed up, we hit it off, and she wrote me a part”.
Nef jokes that she basically willed herself into an acting career: “I was saying it in my Instagram profile long before I was getting any work as an actress or a model,” she says, adding, “My best friend has a phrase: In New York City, if you shout something loud and long enough, it will become true”.
The character she plays is called Tanta Gittel, who was mentioned in Season 1 as a relative who dies in the holocaust, leaving behind an heirloom ring. “The family doesn’t know that Gittel was born Gershon and that she lived her life as a [cross-dresser]* in Berlin,” Nef reveals, adding that, “Season 2 of Transparent sheds light on the previous generation of Pfeffermans: sibling intimacy boundary issues and gender dysphoria”. Rather than a love interest for Gaby Hoffmann’s character Ali, it seems she is her ancestor.
Other new names joining the cast list include Anjelica Huston and Petra Collins.
*cross-dresser used in square brackets by the NYT.
Credits
Text Charlotte Gush
Photography Alasdair McLellan.
Styling Max Clark.
Hair Pierpaolo Lai at Julian Watson Agency.
Make-up Lotten Holmqvist at Julian Watson Agency Estée Lauder.