"Becoming" Zippy was not easy, but Natalie loved the experience. A dialogue coach/actor came to tutor her at the hotel. But he helped her with more than just her accent. "He came as a package," Natalie said. Besides reading through the scenes, he told her about the history behind "Dreams in The Golden Country." "He knew everything and was very inspiring, and was so engaging; you automatically listened to him." He was helpful to the entire cast and crew. One weekend before they started shooting, he brought a traditional Jewish dessert for everyone. And Natalie had a little help at home. "My half brother and his dad are Jewish, so I've been exposed to Jewish traditions and customs." But her relationships with her family also made playing Zippy more challenging. "Because it is so different from me. It was hard to be so distant from my mother [in the story] because my mom and me are so open and so close. It felt weird to feel like I had something to say [and the person that was playing] my mom wouldn't accept it." Natalie didn't have to adjust to nearly as much makeup, hairstyling, and costuming as Heather, who played Zippy's sister, Tovah. "Heather had to wear the corset and the fancy shoes, and a wig. My hair they just put half back, no fancy up-do, because I was playing a kid. At one point I had to wear a handkerchief on my head. I wasn't so crazy about that. But that was the only thing that was different." But she did have to wear bloomers and several layers of skirts. "I ripped quite a few things. One dress was really tight, and I wasn't careful with it. It was long, and I always got it caught. They were authentic period dresses, actually old, not made. So they were really delicate, easy to rip." In the final scene though, it was a totally different story. Natalie had to wear Egyptian sandals and an elaborate wrap-around dress. The whole costume was one piece. "The headpiece thing wrapped around my head and attached to my dress. It was so hard to move around on stage, I kept thinking everything was going to fall off my shoulder." The makeup was pretty exotic in that scene too. In keeping with old-fashioned theater, and the culture of Egyptian dress, the makeup artist put black dots around her eyes (on the bridge of her nose) to make them stand out. Natalie couldn't say enough nice things about her co-workers. Josh Peace, who played Sean, "has a smile that lights up the room." Director Shawn Levy, with whom she had worked before "doesn't make you nervous. He's easy-going, tells jokes, has perfect timing, doesn't put pressure on you, and works with you if you have a feeling about something." Heather Brown, who played Zippy's sister, is exceptionally nice, and fun to hang out with off the camera. Heather had a role in Natalie's favorite childhood TV show Road to Avonlea. When they first met on the set of Dreams in the Golden Country, Natalie knew she recognized her but couldn't immediately place how. Natalie speaks most enthusiastically about her "instant click, instant bond" with Dov Tiefenbach, who played Yitzy. That relationship helped on screen. "It made everything more real and comfortable. He brings you up with him. He is exactly like his character. Everyone loves him. He does this Kramer imitation that is the funniest thing you've ever seen." On the whole, cast members were very supportive of one another. For example, during the scene when Zippy and her mother had to cry, Maggie Hucklak (Mama) gave it her all even when the camera wasn't on her. "Everyone took it very seriously, which made it a lot easier to get into it." Natalie and the crew found humor in a surprising place... In the crowded rush of the factory fire scene, one woman had fallen, and it wasn't in the script. It turned out that she had tripped on Yitzy! No one really knew about it until all the actors and the directors watched the dailies, or all the scenes they had filmed that day. "Shawn [the director] kept rewinding it over and over to see how Dov tried to keep going. We were crying we were laughing so hard. The look on his face was just such utter shock." In the final cut, we see the woman fall, but we don't see how it happened, or how Yitzy reacted. The scene that was the most fun to film also involved Yitzy. When Zippy and Yitzy first meet out in the crowded market place, Dov had to do a lot of things at once: snatching the apple, talking to Zippy, talking to neighbors, bumping into things, and constantly turning around. Dov had to ad-lib some things, because it was just so much to handle and remember. Everything he made up, the director loved, and would say "keep that in, remember what you did!" Natalie spent her time off-camera with her tutor, and sneaking away from her tutor. "The tutor was really great, but still, it's school...." So if no one was looking she snuck off to hang out with Dov and Heather, until her mom or an Assistant Director caught her and dragged her back to the tutor. Natalie is used to missing school for both long and short shoots. "Dreams in the Golden Country" took only five days, "When it's a short shoot, day by day, school wants you to catch up on every little thing." But it was well worth the school work she had to make up. Acting keeps Natalie pretty busy, but she has time to dream about other activities. "I love to fashion design. I love photography too. My mom has the best camera -- you could take pictures of the ugliest thing and they'll come out nice. I want to go to fashion design college in LA. That's my big dream. I'd like to stay in acting too... maybe write and direct." Natalie also starred in the teen sitcom series Big Wolf on Campus. In the show, she played the younger sister of a Goth teen character enlisted by one of the most popular kids in school to help him incorporate his new werewolf identity into his otherwise hunky life. Natalie thinks the show is really great -- "just pairing the jock and the Goth is funny."