Nathan is so ridiculously casual, and I don’t even think that he knows it or thinks about it. The other Olympic nominees were just dressed to the nines and Nathan is just wearing black pants/jeans and his cooldown jacket, lol.
[…] This was reflected when he talked to reporters: very casual, unfazed, but also keeps the habit of looking down while talking, which is why I think it’s an unaffected air. There was such a contrast between him and the other athletes/professional press, both of the latter seemed to be a lot more practiced at projecting their charisma.
Nathan: I told Vera what the story of the programs are, I told her the character and how I wanted to portray it. I also told her I wanted something contemporary, something modern, something different, and she gave me a whole bunch of different ideas, bunch of different sketches. Kinda made some mock costumes as we went into (long? Log? August?). We decided that was the cool fit for the situation. I kind of let her creative mind take over, you know.
Question: With respect to Mao’s Last Dancer, does this costume fit it? Or it’s kind of less contemporary…
Nathan: Honestly, I would object to that and say it’s a little more contemporary.
As I mentioned before, the organizers only allocated 15 minutes to autographs and I think they had to turn away about 30-40 people still in line. [...] Nathan was definitely the last to leave the ice - people kept coming up to him even at the exit. He even signed a skate awkwardly with one shoe still on the ice. :luv17: It was obvious his handler was trying to move him along. I'm not entirely sure Nathan knows how to say "no" tbh.
That was his FS costume with a more subtle zipper. I wonder if we'll see something new (please don't be monstrous, please don't be something montrous) for the individual events. ... (Part of me was worried in January that cutting the curls would be a Samson-like issue, and while I don't think it's
actually true...
hwell: ).
(Is it gauche to quote yourself? I'm gonna do it anyways.)
I know many of us were joking and lamenting about the haircut and cursing Vera Wang (or not so jokingly), but I can't help but be haunted by one of my earlier in-person observations of him that he
doesn't know how to say "no." In that context, it was fans just wanting another moment of his time, but how does that play out in the management of his career?
The change of his image is particularly damning to me. He intimated that he likes the curly hair that his mother cut and that he would grow it back. If he liked it, why the change? Why the slightly fluffy hair now? Was he working on re-claiming himself since the cut and there is not enough time for him or the hair?
During my interview with him, he stated that he was provided with sketches of the costumes and talked it over with Vera; how much was his agreeing to whatever she put forward? I attributed it to “cool California boy” because I wanted to believe that he had people with experience at his back supporting him, NOT placing him into a mold of who they want him to be.
In his unscripted interviews, he says a lot of “honestly” – that had been a red-flag for my worry for a while. Sweetie, why is “honestly” your fall-back interjection, and how much media coaching have you received to need to clarify when you’re speaking from the heart and not the brain?
As much as I LOVE fluff and cute pieces and collectibles, I feel like there might have been a fundamental mismanagement of his obligations. His rising fame and hyper hype all happened so quickly and even small things like the size of venue and unprecedented access of the athletes at the Olympic send off events at US Nationals and Lakewood show how unprepared both USFSA and his local team were for the hoopla.
I personally made a ton of mistakes (mostly money and college related) at eighteen that haunted me for a while due to the naiveté of youth that everything would work out, so my heart aches that his are on such a huge stage. I also recognize that I desperately want someone to demonize, whether it be NBC, Americans only wanting winners, USFSA, the skate order, or even Raf, but I also know that it's none and all these things. What matters is how he responds. He already has come back strong from physical injuries, and every good story has a conflict before the climax; we might be still in the earlier phase instead of the latter.
--
There were a couple of younger girls in the audience at US Nationals that would yell out just before many performances, “Smile!”; I have to say that is all I really want now.
Please, Nathan, please just let us see you smile.
I think this has been a mixed of too much pressure\expectations placed on him, inexperience with dealing with such pressure and the constant change of layouts throughout the season that hasn't provided him with confidence in difficult moments.
