“Away” Netflix Original Series Nadia Hatta Boosts Diversity in Hollywood

Nadia Hatta recently guest-starred in Netflix original series, Away portraying a Chinese CapCom, Mei Chen working in NASA. The series follows Commander Emma Green (Hillary Swank) leading an international group of astronauts on the first manned expedition to Mars. The Netflix show quickly gained popularity and became the number one show on the platform bumping out Cobra Kai. It remained at the top for over two weeks and was the third most watched show in September.

Mei’s story comes front-and-center when her surreptitious romantic relationship with one of the astronauts, Lu Wang (Vivian Wu) is revealed. Lu represents China on the mission, and is in a picturesque relationship with her husband and son back home. The national response to this discovery, was to sweep it under the rug to avoid any public embarrassment, and removed Mei from her post to prevent further contact for the during the mission.

We learn about how their relationship came to be through a series of flashbacks. Episode three presented scenes of how they met and how their friendship evolved into a romance “that never was.” With the government monitoring all ship communication, Commander Green managed to arranged an off-the-record phone call for the two to say their final goodbyes before never hearing from each other again.

Hatta’s standout performance propelled their story to acquire a devoted following of its own, and praised for its authentic portrayal of its multiculturalism and multi-dimensional character. It gave the audience a fresh take on forbidden love. As a queer love story, the LGBTQ+ community has spoken and demand more from this story in season two. For the queer Asian community, there has been an outpour of love and gratitude to for the rare chance of proper representation in media.

In an interview on the Bellissimo Files, Hatta recounts her experience and feeling nothing but gratitude for the opportunity to portray an iconic character. She is especially thankful to the Away team for writing Mei in a way to allow her to portray her without the Asian stereotypes or “tokenism” seen in Western media.

Season two of Away has yet to be announced, but judging from the numbers and audience reception, a renewal of the show should be on its way.

Away is streaming on Netflix and can be watched everywhere the platform is available.

*Photo credit: Netflix

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