New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
New Haven actress stars in ‘The Birch’ with tree monster
Jordyn DiNatale is a scaredy cat.
“I am actually pretty afraid of horror and horror movies,” says the New Haven native, who didn’t give her age.
But when the actress’s agent gave her the script for the second season of the Facebook Watch horror series “The Birch,” she was intrigued.
DiNatale has already amassed some impressive credits, including playing one of Robert De Niro’s daughters in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated opus “The Irishman.” “The Birch,” on the other hand, is about an evil tree monster.
DiNatale says despite the genre and the subject matter, she found the show, produced by Crypt TV, intriguing. “I saw that there was a first season and I had to go watch it,” she says. “I binge watched the whole first season. The tree monster has this magical element I was really intrigued by.”
So DiNatale signed on to play Rory, a seemingly shy and meek girl who gets fed up with being bullied by everyone in her life. She enlists the help of the Birch, the aforementioned tree monster, to settle the score. But, this being a horror series, things get dark quickly.
However, DiNatale says it’s the more human aspects of Rory’s character that spoke to her. “Her story has so much truth in it,” she says. “She’s reaching out for help, but she isn’t getting it.”
DiNatale’s story, so far, is a bit more upbeat. She became interested in acting as a child. Her parents performed in community theater productions, as did her brother. “I was pretty shy at the time, but I saw him doing that and said ‘I want to do that, mom!’”
So she began auditioning for plays, getting mostly chorus parts, until middle school. That’s when she was cast as the Scarecrow in a school production of The Wizard of Oz. “I think that’s when it kind of clicked,” DiNatale says. “That was my first time playing a character and not being
in a chorus.”
She then began traveling to New York City to get an agent and booked auditions. DiNatale also spent a few years studying at ACES Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven. Eventually, DiNatale found work in commercials, voiceovers and guest spots on TV.
It was “The Irishman” that gave her a big break. After auditioning for the film, she says that she tried not to focus too hard on whether she would get the part. “It was better to say ‘I felt good about that’ and move on,” DiNatale says. “When I got the call that I got the part, it was so amazing and exciting. That was a pinchme moment.”
Auditioning for “The Birch” was a much different experience, she says, because it was all done virtually, during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Everything was done virtually — the audition, callbacks,” DiNatale says.
Even the table read for the show, usually done with the cast gathered in person, was done online. “No one met each other before we started shooting,” DiNatale says.
Actually shooting the series also was a bizarre experience, though DiNatale says she always felt safe. Everyone who worked on the show had to quarantine upon arriving in Portland, Ore., where the show was filmed, and the cast and crew were tested regularly for Covid.
“We all felt really safe on set,” DiNatale says. “I felt so grateful to be working during a time when so many people are struggling.”
Moving forward, DiNatale says she would like to continue to working in television, but is mostly looking for strong and interesting characters to play.
“I love characters that have depth to them — that start out in one place and end up in another,” she says. “I love the idea of the audience going on a journey with the character. And we definitely go on a journey (with ‘The Birch’).”
Season two of “The Birch” drops Friday, March 26 on Facebook Watch. View it at www.facebook.com/TheBirchShow. New episodes post every week.