Actor Tanzyn Crawford has a knack for pulling it off. Her latest feat? A leading role in the Game of Thrones spin-off, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. What she can’t do, at this point, feels like the more interesting question.

It’s midday when messages from the team start rolling in: “She’s so fab”, “She’s so lovely”, and then, randomly, “She was doing handstands!” There’snothing on aWonderlandset that would require someone to be upside-down – not yet, anyway – but it feels entirely on brand for 25-year-oldAustralian actor Tanzyn Crawford.

Growing up in Perth, movement was her language. Gymnastics, volleyball, netball – you name it, she probably tried it. What stayed the longest was dance. “I was the kind of dancer that would have a dead-straight face on stage – no emotions – I would just be doing the moves,” she laughs. When dance ran its course, she turned to modelling, an area where restraint reads more as professionalism. “I was quite shy as a child, more reserved, with a smaller personality,” she shares. “I had the same modelling agent for a long time, but I wouldn’t like commercials, where you have to go in and show your personality. It wasn’t fun for me. It was just awkward. I was hiding behind my mum’s legs as a kid.” Now, being front-and-center is something she’s getting used to.

It’s the third Saturday in January, and Tanzyn is nestled into an armchair at The Mayfair Townhouse having just wrapped her Wonderland shoot. Tight, springy black curls frame her dewy face as she sits cross-legged by the window, calmly mapping out the rest of her day: a walkthrough the city, a gallery visit, a stop at the Glossier store in Covent Garden (“because I went there the last time I was here and it was really cool.”) Otherwise, she’s tempted to “get on a train and just see where it goes.”

It’s not a dissimilar approach to how she got into acting. She fell in love with film, first and foremost, and with the women she saw on screen. Spice World. Josie and the Pussycats. Demi Lovato. But it was watching Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids that sharpened something. “I was like, this is the most sophisticated comedy I’ve ever seen,” she laughs. “She put out a bunch of movies; Skeleton Twins, which is in my top five movies of all time,Imogen, and Welcome To Me, is super good too. I loved that she was known to be this hilarious comedic actor, and then on the side, she had these gut wrenching independent films.” Oh, and then there’s Rachel Weisz. “I love her. I saw her in The Mummy, when I was seven, and was like, ‘Wait, women are so pretty’,” she laughs. But the final push arrived almost by chance. “One of my friends asked me to audition for acting school with him, so, I mean, it was just an accident.” Surprise: she got in. “I’m a Scorpio 100%, so what I want, I get. If people stand in my way, I hassle them until it happens,” she says with a cheeky smile. “By the time I finished acting school, I was like, ‘I’m going to at least really try [and] really, really give it a go. Otherwise, I’ll regret it.” So far, it’s worked.

Following in the footsteps of Kristen – the actor who made her believe she could do it all – Tanzyn landed Tiny Beautiful Things, Hulu’s drama mini-series. Playing (Rae) Frankie, the daughter of a strained advice columnist, her convincing performance as a 16-year-old navigating her sexuality, finding confidence in her identity, and well, dealing with her mum, drew in quite the praise. “I loved the character right away,” she says. “It’s rare that I get a character that is specifically mixed [race]… really, I don’t see it that much.”

And when Tanzyn loves a character, she’ll journal about them – as was the case for Frankie. “I was sitting, and writing and writing and writing – I probably filled out like 10 pages on this,” she says. The experience was “basically acting school all over again. I learned so much about how to advocate for your character and yourself, and how to deal with intimacy – you always have control.”

”Now, starring as Tanselle in the latest Game of Thrones prequel, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, she’s tightening the reins on the stories she gets to be a part of. Naturally, she was quite nervous about joining the franchise – one that, in its final season, brought in 30million views every episode – and with that comes somewhat unpleasant ‘feedback’. “It was intimidating to step into something that people are soconnected to, love so much, and have a lot of opinions about,” she says. “I definitely did get some negativity around race, but at the end of the day, I’m employed – and I’m following my dreams.”

Naysayers mean nothing when the show’s creator tells you: “You’re exactly what I pictured [for Tanselle],” she recalls from a conversation with George R.R. Martin. Slender, beautiful, ‘taller than most women’, according to a GOTWiki profile (Tanzyn stands at six foot tall), she is charming and poised, speaking in a twinkling British accent, against a backdrop of armoury and macho finesse. “The beauty of Tanselle in this series is she’s a softer outlet. The rest of the show is very manly, quite harsh, and brutal,” she says. “I think she’s self-confident, and has her own little passions and worlds that are very separate from everyone else. Of course, her storyline involves Dunk (played by Peter Claffey), but she has her own thing going on.” And next up, she’s joining Assassin’s Creed as a show regular on the live-action series – it’s set to be a high-stakes thriller where we can assume she will be putting that athleticism to the ultimate test.

Earlier on – not just in her career but life more broadly – she felt a constant need to prove herself. “I suppose I had this very idyllic view of acting and things happening. I was trying to prove to people that I was good.” Now, that urgency has steadied. “What I bring in my personality and my interpretation of things is the most authentic and best version thatI can bring.” That desire to impress is long gone, given way to a quieter confidence – one that’s unmistakably her own.

Photography by Guy Lowndes
Styling by Abigail Hazard
Words by Aswan Magumbe
Hair by Aminata Kamara at The Only Agency
Make-up by Harriot Babin at The Only Agency
Fashion Intern Lauryn Doherty
Special Thanks to the Mayfair Townhouse