Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Amazon’s bewitching new drama The Collection boasts an impressive ensemble cast, but at the center of it all is the beguiling Nina, a seamstress hiding a whole lot of secrets. Even though Nina is told to keep her head down, she can’t help but to attract the attention of the artists and power players around her. Soon she is thrust into the role of muse for the Sabine family’s fashion house.
Nina is played by Belgian-born French actress Jenna Thiam. The twenty-six-year-old model-turned-actress made a huge splash in Europe starring in the atmospheric French drama, The Returned. (Yes, it’s been remade in America, but you can watch the original French version with Thiam on Netflix by clicking here.) The Collection marks Thiam’s first big English-language project and she runs away with the show like a thief in the night. From the moment she’s introduced, she’s vulnerable, beautiful, and downright haunting. Thiam’s natural je ne sais quoi gives Nina a dazzling allure that hooks everyone on the show from Max Deacon’s American photographer Billy Novak to Tom Riley’s homosexual designer Claude Sabine.
Riley told us, “The stuff with Claude, they’ve got such a weird, close sort of messed up relationship of un-reciprocated love. Unrequited love on her part. He does love her but as a friend and he’s unable to give her what she needs. Yet he kind of wants to and they have a weird sexual chemistry despite his sexuality. That for me is the most complex and interesting relationship in the show and working with Jenna was just a ball. She’s the most French person I’ve ever met in my life.”
What specifically makes Thiam “so French?” It’s not necessarily her background. Thiam told an English interviewer that even though she’s “a real Parisienne,” she’s half Belgian and half Armenian on her mother’s side, and part Senegalese and English on her father’s. Riley was specifically talking about Thiam’s approach to acting: “Jenna approaches it in this very French, kind of natural real way so she really feels the scene. She’s genuinely upset when she’s upset. You have to be very sensitive and tender around her.”
Thiam started out as a child model and is currently signed with IMG. However, she’s putting acting way ahead of her would-be modeling career — or even international movie stardom. A French magazine reports that Thiam turned down a role in the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie to finish up her acting training. Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine that she won’t be conquering Hollywood in the very near future.
Season one of The Collection is now streaming on Prime Video.
