Fans of Jane the Virgin have to admire the female partner of Michael, Nadine Hansan, for her tenacity with the case and with how she has maintained her relationship with him through all the crazy. We were lucky enough to chat with her portrayor, Azie Tesfai, about the show and so much more.

We were so happy to chat with Azie, and she gave us so much to write about that we had to split the interview into two parts! Read below for part one of a two-part interview with Tesfai, who portrays Nadine on the show!

Just to start off, I started watching the show recently just after Gina Rodriquez won the Golden Globe, do people compare it a lot to Ugly Betty because it shares the same telenovela origins and having the same critical acclaim?

Yeah! And also, one of our EP’s was a part of bringing Ugly Betty to the United States, so we share an executive producer. So I think that definitely has a lot to do with it and our lead women being such brilliant actresses, Gina and America Ferrera. But yeah, they do get compared a lot. It is different.

Yeah, your show is more grounded in reality while still having those heightened swings, back and forth to the extreme, I think.

Yeah, and that was one of the biggest things of the show, that I know for me personally, was that the show really be grounded with the storylines being out there and the telenovela themes. I have seen Ugly Betty, but it was a long time ago and the family dynamics are similar and that murders. Haha.

That would definitely be a good comparison. Now since you mention women, I just recently wrote an article for Hypable (which you can read here.) about the women on the show, how there are so many women characters on the show and they fulfill both roles of being the heroes, which is you and Jane and her family, and then the villains are mostly women when it gets down to it. I was wondering what your take on that is.

I think it’s incredible. I think we have a brilliant show runner, who is a woman, and most of our directors and writers are women, which is why I think the Golden Globe nomination and all the accolades are so incredible because it just shows people how capable these women are and talented they are when given the chance in this industry. One of the things I love about the show is outside of Jane, every character is very blurry; we all have our good moments and bad moments and even a character like Petra, you hear her story and you start to empathize with what she does and it’s really beautiful because it’s true to life and every person has a good and bad side. We all try the best with what we have and what we know.

That is what I thought about Petra too. I said that she is a villain by circumstance.

She’s trying to do well, but things keep happening to her. I am a fan of Petra’s character. I don’t know what that says about me personally, haha, but I see that she is just trying to survive and she’s not trying to hurt anybody in a real way. It’s interesting to see all the characters evolve in that sense.

Now since you’ve worked with Petra’s character for the most part, will Nadine and Jane ever have any interactions coming up?

They had one scene that was real quick, but I don’t think so. Not in the immediate future; the storylines are pretty separate in terms of investing these murders, and while people think they know who did it, you’ll find out that it’s not so clean. It’s a very complicated case and there a lot of twists and turns Michael, Nadine, and the audience won’t see coming. The next little bit, Nadine is pretty focused on solving this case and staying in that world. I think that the relationship between Nadine and Michael is back-burner; her whole focus is on Sin Rostro right now.

Watch Jane the Virgin this upcoming Monday and then check back here for a recap and the second part of our interview!