Meet Mia, the Best Supporting Canine in Lena Dunham’s Netflix Series “Too Much”

When fame finally arrived at her doorstep, Mia Nicholson was getting on in years. She was spending the winter of her life in the mid-sized city of Peterborough, England, working at her family’s pet store by day and dozing alongside them in the evenings. It was a quiet life, and she seemed content.

So when her agent called to say that a new Netflix series would be filming in London, and writer/director Lena Dunham wanted to meet, how could she have known what to expect? Mia is a senior Chinese crested dog who had no acting experience, after all. And it’s hard to explain to even the most brilliant of our canine friends what “acting” for the “camera” is.

And yet Mia, with her wisps of grey hair and wobbly back legs, managed to become the breakout star of Too Much in the role of Astrid, the 13-year-old pet dog of the wayward Jessica (Meg Stalter). She was, according to her owner Bev Nicholson, a natural.

A star is born 

When she answered Netflix’s call, Bev thought she was taking Mia—along with Mia’s brother Muppet—to an audition for the show. She didn’t expect much. Urban Paws Agency, a talent agency for animals based in Liverpool, had signed Mia many years prior, but no work had ever come her way. So when Bev wheeled the two aging dogs over in a stroller to where the show’s execs were meeting, Dunham’s enthusiasm surprised her. “She flew outside and just scooped her up and went, ‘This is Astrid.’”

In Too Much, Jessica is a Brit Box–obsessed thirty-something who moves to London after her life in New York stalls out. She almost immediately meets Felix (Will Sharpe), a chatty musician at a bar. Together, they embark on a romantic journey that would be familiar to Jane Austen, and also make her blush. Without spoiling any of the ample drama, Astrid is an essential character in Jessica and Felix’s relationship and also a bellwether: in the logic of the show, those who are nice to dogs are basically good, and those who aren’t nice to dogs are not so good (one of the show’s most accurate observations, of course). 

Bev did have to bring in a trainer to get Mia up to speed on the technical aspects of acting. (“She’s just a pet,” Bev laughed. “She could sit for a treat.”) But Mia carried it all off better than she could have expected. Muppet was on hand as Mia’s “stunt double,” Bev jokes, but the production never needed to sub him in. She was a pro. There was a scene where the dog had to look at a phone and, no matter what the trainers tried—like putting peanut butter on the screen—she wouldn’t do the move as it was blocked in the script. But once the cameras started rolling, Mia nailed it on the first take. 

A true multi-hyphenate 

Mia’s previous jobs prepared her to make small-screen magic with people. She regularly goes to work with her mom and dog siblings at their pet store and groomer, Mutt’s Nutts, in Peterborough. And she took a turn as a therapy dog, mostly with children, in her younger years.

“Children absolutely love her, I think, because she’s different and a lot of them can relate,” Bev said. “So we did a lot of things where children at schools [would] come and read to her. These kids can’t read in the classroom, but [I’d say], ‘Mia doesn’t know this story, and she’d really like to hear it,’ and [they’d] sit with their book and storm through it.”

And Mia had one more advantage that helped her get into character without too much effort: She was already used to wearing elaborate outfits. Astrid’s wardrobe rivals Jessica’s, which is big and bright. More often than not, they’re dressed in clothes that match. Chinese crested dogs are sensitive to cold weather because a dominant hair-follicle trait leaves them hairless. (Powderpuff Chinese cresteds have hair all over. Hairless and powderpuff Chinese cresteds can even be born in the same litter. But if they have hair, that’s an expression of a recessive trait.)

“[Mia] can’t regulate her own temperature,” Bev said, so she’s been wearing clothes since at least the moment she came into the Nicholson family. 

For the most part, though, Mia got to do on set what she loves to do in life: curl up in a blanket. “Most of the time they had her scooped up in a blanket running around with [Jessica] or in bed in a blanket, and she loves the blanket,” Bev said.

In one scene, Felix, who wore a leather jacket for much of the show, had to pick Mia up. But she didn’t enjoy the chill of the leather, and kept jumping from his arms. To make her comfortable, the crew stuck a hot water bottle down his shirt—and she cozied up to him. 

From rescue to riches 

Chinese cresteds tend to be strong competitors in “ugliest dog” contests. The breed is generally hairless except for wisps on either end of their body. Their tongues often fall out of their mouths and lag about—because they’re too large for the oral cavity, their jaw bone doesn’t support the tongue, they have missing teeth, or all of the above. None of these features indicate a health problem, but, when combined with hairlessness, they give dogs an effect that seems to charm and repel in equal measure. In fact, another of Bev’s Chinese crested pups, Mugly, was the winner of a “World’s Ugliest Dog” competition at a California fair in 2012. 

For a reminder that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, just recall Mia’s adoption story. She first came to Bev because a family had returned the dog at 15 months to the breeder. “They said, ‘She didn’t grow any hair like you said she would and she’s really ugly, so we can’t take her out, and she pees her bed,’ apparently,” Bev said, adding, “Though she’s never done that with me.” 

The breeder sent the dog to a rescue, who sent a photo to Bev—knowing that they had their mark, since she had rescued similar dogs before. 

“They were crafty, really,” she said. 

In the show, Stalter’s Jessica shares Bev’s love for these odd-looking creatures. Jessica cares for her dog in the same way that she wants to be cared for—so-called flaws and all. When she first meets Astrid/Mia, she squeals, “Oh my god, she’s so beautiful,” followed quickly by, “You are naked. You need jeans.”

After the spotlight 

Now, Mia has returned to her quiet life in Peterborough. Her brother Muppet sadly passed around the time that the show premiered in mid-July, but she’s still one of three dogs in the household. 

Bev recognizes that Mia is now 13, and her days on camera are probably over. But she still “works” in the family store. Head into Mutt’s Nutts most days of the week, and you’ll find a rescue-turned-actress turned back into local shop dog, curled up around her siblings. Maybe she’ll be dreaming of the lights, the action, the cameras, the fittings, the red carpets. Or maybe she’ll just be dreaming about dinner.