Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Natasha Träger. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Natasha, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Earlier this spring I graduation from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York where I also completed the schools third year program which is like being in a theatre company for a year. We did four full blown theatre productions and several intensives. It was a great year full of important lessons and fun experiences.

Before going to drama school I thought that “maybe I don’t need to study acting, if I wanna do film, studying acting will only make me exaggerate everything.”. But oh boy was I wrong. Going to acting school has been absolutely essential for me to be able to work as an actress.

Growing up I spend most of my time in dance studios as a student of the Royal Swedish Ballet School in Stockholm, Sweden. In classical ballet you work hard, you stay focused, you respect your teachers and you work towards perfection. As you may know, you rarely use your voice and you never speak during ballet class. While that taught me valuable lessons, it also became what I needed to work on as an acting student.

When I studied drama I had a chance to practice being outside of my comfort zone. Because a lot that you do as an actor can make you feel awkward or at unease, so learning being okay with that, feeling good about using my voice and not working towards an unreachable perfection was vital for me. And I think everyone has some sort of barrier that need to be explored to be able to reach as far as possible as an artist.

Growing up in the artistic world also allowed me to see a lot of different types of productions. And though most of it was dance I think it taught me a lot subconsciously. Seeing many different types of work is a great way to open up your imagination and better understand the creative world.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Well first: Hey! I’m Natasha and I was born and raised in Sweden. I studied at The Royal Swedish Ballet School in Stockholm during my childhood and graduated when I was 18. So a lot of time have been spend hanging out in the locker room and in the schools dance studios. But we also got to participate in shows at the Royal Swedish Opera House so I now know the valuable lesson of how hard green face paint is to have removed.

Me and several of my classmates got the important mission of being trees in the ballet Alice Adventures in Wonderland. So while I had my green painted face sticking out of a large plastic cone (the tree) and my proud parents in the audience I got to observe how hard the professional ballet dancers worked and while it might not have been what I envisioned when deciding to study ballet at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, I believe it taught me a lot about resilience and work ethics. We did get to do other dance parts in the ballets but somehow I believe that having to be a tree taught me a lot of the mentality that goes in to the hard work creatives and especially classical ballet dancers do.

After graduating ballet school I went to New York and soon enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I had never really done theatre before and while it felt new and somewhat intimidating. I soon felt as though I was at Hogwarts studying magic. One of my lovely acting teachers, Maggie Low, even called the people out on the streets muggles. I’ve never loved school as much as during my years at the Academy.

I thought about studying acting for several years before actually going for it. I was 12 when Hunger Games came out as a movie and Katniss Everdeen showed me how badass one can be! I wanted to be like her and I think that’s when I realized that Jennifer Lawrence was the actor playing Katniss and an actor would be something I could be. It sparked my interest. And now I’ve found a love for characters and acting in general.

I love being able to use what I learned while at Ballet School in my acting work. How does this character move? Is one of my favorite questions to ask myself when taking on a new project. There’s so much you can tell by a person from how they behave in space.

I now have three years of conservatory drama training under my belt and several plays and short- and indifilms. One of my favorite plays that I’ve worked on so far is “Napoli, Brooklyn” written by Meghan Kennedy. I got to work with an amazing director, Lisa Milinazzo, who together with the actors creates the world of the play so magnificently which lets you fully live it and believe in it. She also shows that she trusts you as an artist while pushing you to grow. In this particular play my character Tina Muscolino has a big emotional journey and she evolves a lot as a person. I got to be very raw in it, in a way I hadn’t experienced live on stage before and I learned a lot as an actor. Without Lisa I’m not sure if I had been able to go there, she taught me how important the directors role really is and the production gave me new tools that will help me in future projects. The last line of the play is “Do you know what you are? You are a woman, and you are free.”, which I think it beautiful.

When I’m not working on my craft you might find me out in the countryside horseback riding or in Stockholms Archipelago at sea, if you ever were to visit Sweden that’s where I think you should go. It’s absolutely gorgeous. I love nature and animals, that’s where I find my inspiration and that’s where I go to find peace.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

During drama school I learned to love to observe human behavior. It’s fascinating and really helpful when brought into character development. When working on characters it’s important not to judge the character. Most people don’t think what they’re doing is wrong, therefore the character will not think what they’re doing is wrong. It’s important to find the understanding in why the character are doing what they’re doing and this in turn gives me as an actor a greater understanding and empathy for others, which I see as rewarding. Then there’s the aspect of learning about the most arbitrary subjects depending on what year your character was born to what their profession is.
The whole process of working as an actor gives me a huge creative outlet and I’m excited when I get a chance to expand my comfort zone with new challenges.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

As I’ve written about before, classical ballet is about perfection. You learn every step of a choreography by heart and you learn how you are supposed to do each step and you learn how to push your body with tiny muscles to get the exact line you want.

There’s none of that in acting. My teachers often told us to do really detailed preparation work but as soon as you step into the scene you have to leave it all behind and live truthfully and spontaneously under imaginary circumstances in the moment. It took me a while to understand what this meant. Not only in my head but in my body as well.

For the first year in drama school I worked towards perfection. But what I had to learn was that perfection doesn’t exist. And I think I had to experience that for being able to relearn what I had learned in ballet.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.natashatrager.com/

Image Credits
Johannes Hjorth – Studio & Dance pictures
Bronwen Sharp – Stage Photo