Natasia Demetriou Interview

Why did you sign up to The Big Flower Fight?

I just really loved the idea of it. I’ve got a little tiny balcony and I’ve recently gone insane with flowers out there. Although since I’ve been away filming this show, it has turned into a morgue, which is sad.

I was nervous because I’ve only done acting and to be myself was a bit ‘ooh’. The big clincher for me was Vic being the co-host. To dance around a field with him was just too exciting. I’m such a fan and I’m always getting him to do the voices of characters I loved.

I just thought it would be a really fun job. It’s a subject matter that I really love, and I really believe in the healing powers of plants. I wrote a whole sketch about cacti once. I love a cactus.

The sustainability element was really appealing to me. It’s not wasteful. It’s not like, ‘Best Plastic Toy Maker’.

What are your credentials?

Oh, none, I’m just an enthusiastic Saturday garden centre shopper. I’m just the one that walks around going, ‘Oh, these are pretty’, and then you get to the till and go, ‘Would this be good on a balcony?’, and they go, ‘No’.

I do like being outside. My family has dogs and so we go out walking a lot.
We all love gardens, though, don’t we? Pruning our rose bush and chatting to the neighbours. It’s very British.

I used to be a nanny and a lot of the parents had quite high-powered jobs, and they would always be in the garden at the weekend to chill out. It’s like our sanctuary.

Houseplants have become a gigantic business too haven’t they, recently? I think we’re all so achingly aware of the climate and sustainability and the ability to grow your own stuff is soothing for your soul when you’re so unbelievably anxious about everything else.

Is the conservation message of The Flower Fight important to you?

Yes. Of course. I think it should be the most important thing to everybody. Enough is enough. We’ve had our fun. We have to start reversing what is happening now. I think nature is real-life magic. When you look at a bee going up to a beautiful flower and taking pollen you’re like, ‘how is that happening?’ It blows your mind.

We’re filming this in a beautiful area of Kent and we’ve seen so many birds and insects and it’s incredible. It would be nice if we could be more excited about birds than man-made stuff.

I think from working with children so much and reading so many picture books, you realise they are all about animals. And you look at these elephants in the book and think, ‘Is this only going to exist in drawings one day?’

What do you think of the contestants?

I don’t want to sound fake, but I genuinely love them. You get to know them so well. They’re all amazing, and lovely, and funny, and different, and weird. They’re an amazing bunch of humans.

Even when I’m not on camera I peer in to see how they’re doing. I want to get involved SO much. I’d like to get stuck in more, but I’m always wearing a nice dress so I can’t!

I’ve asked for a side table so I can do my own little project but they were like, ‘Um, we’ve got enough on our plate’.

I do find it so soothing, doing something creative, especially in this world of phones and laptops. It sends me into a trance of relaxation.

Is it your role to be funny, or empathetic?

I really just wanted to come into this as myself. There’s no plan. Sometimes I feel sad, sometimes we mess about. I just react honestly, how I would feel if there was no camera.

Have there been any dramatic moments?

There have been some wobbles. One of the teams felt really out of their depth one week. There was a lot of thieving for a couple of weeks! It’s legit a competition. You’d go in sometimes and there’d be real tension in the room. A couple of structures have fallen apart. That’s hard after 14 hours of working on something.

They’re not fake people that Netflix made. They’re not robots. They’re real people who put blood, sweat and tears into their work, and they want this. There’s genuine jeopardy, and I feel it.

How do you enjoy working with Vic?

It’s a dream come true. Within a second of meeting him, he was making me laugh. He’s the kindest, most chilled, funny man. A lot of the stuff we joke about will never be shown because it’s too stupid and too puerile. I could work with him forever.

I told him I love his art work and he made me a painting and left it in my dressing room. It was a picture of my shoes. He’s an amazing artist. Whenever he’s got some downtime he’s in his room painting. He’s a lovely, wonderful, generous man.

How do the two of you work: is it mainly scripted or off-the-cuff?

Very off-the-cuff. You do have to script some stuff because you do have to tell the audience a lot of information, as I am learning! But we are given a lot of freedom. When we chat to the contestants, we just chat. It feels very natural. We just roam around the dome picking up whatever we can find and turning into a comedy prop or a wig. I’ve used too many flowers as pretend microphones.

Interviews supplied by Netflix