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Born the daughter of Natalie Wood and the stepdaughter of Robert Wagner, Natasha Gregson Wagner is one of many second generation actors active in Hollywood. She can currently be seen in the new James Toback film, "Two Girls And A Guy," confronting her unfaithful boyfriend, played by Robert Downey, Jr., in tandem with the equally wronged character played by Heather Graham.Growing up in a show business family, one might suspect that Natasha had little choice but to become an actress. Her visual and vocal similarity to her late mother is often startling. But Natasha, now 27, insists that she was actually discouraged from taking up acting.
"The choice in my family was don't become an actress," she reports. "My family really wanted us to be as normal as possible, wanted to give us as normal a childhood as possible. It was a choice I came to absolutely on my own."
Natasha attended college in Boston, but it was in New York City where the bug bit her, thanks to an acting teacher who introduced her to Shakespeare and Chekhov.
"He made it about acting for me, Natasha, my own self, not about anything else," she recalls. "I thought, Wow, this is cool. I want to explore this because I've always been interested in human emotions. In high school I thought maybe I'd become a psychologist or something like that. I thought this is a very creative way to deal with human emotions."
Of course, some of the most complicated human emotions involve the relationships with one's parents. The fact that Natasha's glamorous mother died in an infamous drowning incident when she was 11 years old and she grew up with a step-father and a father playing major roles in her life only complicated things.
"I love being the daughter of my mom and both my dads," she maintains. "It's been excellent."
Still, Natasha acknowledges that being "the daughter of Natalie Wood" is a tag she will always wear. But she accepts it gracefully.
"How could my mom's work not have an impact on people?" she asks. "She was an amazing talent, and so honest in the way she lived her life. So I hope it does impact people. I hope people in generations to come will know who she was. But for me it's a source of inspiration and strength. It doesn't freak me out at all. Like if my mom is watching right now, she'd be like, `Excellent! Go! You're you and I'm me. We're mother and daughter, but that's okay. We're still separate beings.'"
Natasha also recognizes that her relationship to her mother is still evolving. As yet, she feels little connection to Mom as an actress.
"I think I will realize that connection at some point, but for me mostly my connection with her has been just as my Mom. Like my dog got hit by a car the other day. He's okay, but that made me say to my dad, `God, remember my mom was so protective of me. She was so worried about anything ever happening to me.' I can relate to that. So I think of her more in that way. I think in time I will think of her more as the actress, but she's had more of an impact on me as my mom."
