Someday, I’ll watch Hannah Montana and Lizzie Maguire again with my kids. These are wholesome movies that pre-teens truly appreciate as much as, say, Taylor Swift. Wasn’t Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” part of the Hannah Montana soundtrack?
What else was part of Hannah Montana: The Movie? You probably didn’t notice her there – Hilary Duff was the face of Hannah Montana if it had been an advertising campaign – but a young actress named Natalia Dyer had her film debut as Clarissa Granger in the 2009 film.
Looking at Natalia Dyer – you’d expect her to actually belong in a Disney movie. She was born in 1997, so it means she was just 12 years old in Hannah Montana, and oh, how she’s grown. Not too much though, she’s still very pixie-like at a mere 5’3” and reportedly weighing in at just barely 120 pounds.
Two years after her Disney debut, in 2011, Natalia would be on the big screen again, co-starring with Brooke Shields and Aidan Quinn in The Greening of Whitney Brown. Her first starring role, however, was for an indie film in 2014 called I Believe in Unicorns – which received raves from publications like the Village Voice and Variety. Natalia herself had wanted that role, stating in an interview that the script “hit me in the face, in the best way possible” and that she wanted to put everything she had into the part.
Maybe that’s the key – giving her all into the part – as to why she’s garnered praise as well for her role as Nancy Wheeler in the Netflix series, Stranger Things.
Natalia’s character in Stranger Things is someone you may be familiar with, depending on the number of series of this kind (small town, mysterious goings-on – you know the drill) that you’ve watched. She’s the studious high school student minding her own business, with her boyfriend. She also has a friend, Barbara, who’s obviously the “have-not” (meaning unpopular) type just as Nancy finds herself becoming part of the more popular people in school.
But, before you think she’s only just portraying nerdy, boring student in the background in Stranger Things, she actually has her fair share of screen time that gives her character some rich background. And unlike the nerds we’ve been accustomed to, she gets herself in a lot of saucy scenarios that border on the risque considering her age. She gets to show off some skin and display that even nerds know how to have some fun in the bedroom too.
Check out the almost too real portrayal of what really goes on with teens in schools everywhere. Yes, that girl next door type you see in your neighborhood might be getting in the same situations as Natalia Dyer’s character in Stranger Things too! And who can blame kids today for engaging in stuff like these?
Move along, move along, nothing to see here just some kids fooling around in the ladies room.
How to make study time more fun…
So basically, Stranger Things has the kind of typical plot that easily engages teens and aged twenty-something viewers (and older ones, too) and Natalia Dyer’s performance in it has been praised. Lest we forget, she’s only 19 — or 20 at the most: With people noticing her now, what can audiences expect when she’s matured so much more as an actress?
For more pictures of her, check out her infinite scroll: Natalia Dyer Pictures