Too Much star ‘never felt out of place’ on set of Lena Dunham Netflix series

Queer Too Much star Alex Thomas-Smith has revealed that they “never felt out of place” on the set of Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series.

Too Much dropped on Thursday (10 July) and stars Megan Stalter as Jessica, who moves from New York to London to start a new life. There she meets Felix (Will Sharpe) and the two start a bumpy romance.

The show also features Alex Thomas-Smith who plays Jetta, the queer cousin of Felix’s friend. The trans femme non-binary actor, seen recently in What It Feels Like For A Girl, takes centre stage during a wedding reception.

Speaking exclusively to PinkNews ahead of the show’s premiere, Thomas-Smith said that, as a queer person, there was a difference between being in What It Feels Like For A Girl and starring in Too Much.

“I was not reserved but there’s a certain persona you may present when you’re going into a space that isn’t necessarily designed around you,” they said, but “never felt out of place”.

Thomas-Smith went on to say: “I never felt othered in any way. Lena pulled me to one side one day, and we stopped filming for 20 minutes while she told me about her wonderful experiences and I poured out my heart to her a little bit. She was so gracious.”

It was “really nice” to be in a supportive atmosphere, which wasn’t always the case on other sets or on stage.

“I’ve done West End shows where you have to be a certain type of product and if you can’t sell what essentially ‘the machine’ wants you to sell, then what are you going to do?”

Thomas-Smith was referring to how some shows want actors to essentially assimilate into a pre-determined role where they can put their mark on it but not create it from the ground up.

Returning to their conversation with Dunham, Thomas-Smith talked about possible future roles.

“I said to her: ‘I want to play a role where my identity isn’t the selling point’. I don’t know if we’re there, I don’t know if we’re gonna be there anytime soon, but the biggest hurdle I face is people needing to know where to put people and it’s usually so they know how to treat you.”

People need to know how someone identifies so they “know whether you are above them or below them, and how much respect they should give you”, added Thomas-Smith, whose “biggest dream” is that “we can just stop worrying so much about who people are and just [let] them tell their story”.

Too Much is streaming on Netflix now.

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