Baby Reindeer’s Nava Mau on the Deleted Scene That Provides Closure for Teri, Donny

While Baby Reindeer ended on an ambiguous note, star Nava Mau says there’s a deleted scene that would have provided some closure for her character, Teri. 

On the Netflix limited series based on writer, producer and star Richard Gadd’s own real-life experiences dealing with a female stalker (played by Jessica Gunning) and coming to terms with being sexually assaulted by a successful TV writer (played by Tom Goodman-Hill), Mau portrays a transgender woman who has a turbulent romance with a struggling comedian named Donny (Gadd). 

After first meeting on a trans dating site and overcoming a bumpy start to their relationship, Donny and Teri eventually form a loving bond with one another. However, things start to fall apart after Donny’s stalker’s antics begin to ramp up. Their relationship ends with an argument that could have potentially been resolved, leaving little closure for audiences before the end of the series. 

While speaking to British GQ about working on Baby Reindeer, Mau, 31, revealed that there was a scene deleted from the final cut that would have picked up on their relationship months later, showing what ended up happening to Teri after their breakup. 

“There actually was one more piece of Teri and Donny’s relationship in the script, and I performed it,” Mau said. “Teri leaves Donny a voicemail five months later. So I think, for me, I got closure because Teri did too.” 

“That’s what gave me so much comfort, knowing that they found peace with regards to their relationship,” she continued. “Teri got her happy ending, you know? Teri found a new man, she didn’t lose her friends, she didn’t lose her job, she didn’t lose her smile. She’s good. And I think that is remarkable, because so often we’ve seen stories of trans people that end with them broken.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Mau explained why the show’s portrayal of a trans character was so revolutionary. “What felt very different to me about Baby Reindeer is that Teri is a trans character who’s written from a starting point of reality,” she said. 

Mau added, “She’s based on a real person, Richard had a relationship with a trans woman that inspired the story and so I think that allowed for a level of nuance and intricacy that still feels groundbreaking.”

“I was transfixed by the writing because I had never read anything like it before,” she said, before later recommending that viewers should also watch the Netflix documentary, Disclosure.

“It’s required education for everyone and I think it does a fantastic job of laying out the way that, historically, trans people have been represented on screen from a place of imagination and conjecture,” the breakout star continued. “And we see how that imagined characterization of trans people has often been violent and demeaning and dehumanizing.” 

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Baby Reindeer is now streaming on Netflix. 

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.