You are listening to the we need to Talk About Asker podcast, and this is our conversation with Lana Gora, star of the Eastern Gate.

Because if I don't feel that I have tremendous and total respect to the director, producer, actors, and we all feel the same way, then you find each other and you happily give each other whatever that space that is for everybody to create their work.

Otherwise you're in a rub with each other, and that's boring.

So it was awesome because when I was leaving that training and then going to learn Russian, which I also got to learn over time, and not just my lines, I had Russian classes, too, so generally understand the language.

Then when it comes to the set, you're already so much that person, you know, so then it was just about the words.

First of all, Lena, thank you so, so much for taking the time.

Yeah, pleasure.

Of course, there would have been, I don't know, a hopeful anticipation to chatting in the middle of the uncertainty of whether the series continues, but I'm actually really glad that you are here to talk.

With the fact that the Eastern Gate is renewed for season two as somewhat of a wallpaper for a conversation.

As for season one, and yeah, the topics it explores and where and when it's set, it's pretty much as timely and real as it gets.

And it's one thing when a film or a TV show is set in, let's say, 50 or 100 years earlier, and yet it feels grand.

But 2021 is so damn recent, even by today's standards, in 25.

And by the way, when did you sh.

We shot it?

Well, it was two years later, so 2023.

I see.

And yeah, as for the weight of reality, obviously taking on a role like this comes with substantial responsibility and a toll on both an emotional and physical level.

Is distancing yourself from it to a point, even an option?

Good question.

That I ask myself all the time.

And I would like to say.

I would like to know.

And I don't.

And.

And I.

And I swim between trying to feel really hopeful about the future and about the world, going into more whole and wholesome and together and just healthy place, while at the same time, when I'm just, you know, an actress doing my job, I jump into making movies like.

Like this one.

That suddenly also jumps on me when I come back home from the TV and I don't realize where it is that I finish work and that I start watching tv, you know, so it's both of these things.

I hope we're not gonna have to be worried about what Eva had to be worried about soon.

I'd really like to spend some time with the double life lived aspect of the story.

As in how secret agents situation might to an extent compared to an actor's.

As in playing someone whose line of work is somewhat similar to acting in terms of it being the art of deception.

But the huge difference is that I get awards, you know, hotel rooms and claps and she gets, they get nothing ever.

No secret agent is ever clapped or, you know, they can't know.

No one will know.

And that that concept alone as the difference between me and her had been the really the real reason why I wanted to do this.

And exciting for me.

My first question regarding this is, yeah, pretty much in connection with this scene.

Does this similarity in playing this role lead you to being more self conscious and fearing, I don't know, being found out?

Or is it more of a comfortable, even familiar position to be in?

No, of course not.

And I, you know, I, I think.

But this is one of the things that I didn't want Eva to be to, to diff to different from me because we both wouldn't do that in such an obvious way.

I mean it's, we're not even worried about.

It's like am I being found out by the viewer whether my acting choices are authentic?

Right.

Like I'm not worried about it because just being worried about it would take me away from the truth of it, from the being focused on it.

And it's the same thing with her.

I don't.

She doesn't care think or consider what could happen.

She's so like mathematically connected and focused on her work was like a core element of creating her.

Fascinating.

And yeah, just like on a.

Once again comparing the two.

But on a special operation on a set, you need trust in your co stars, directors, cinematographers, camera operators and so on and on and on.

It's a big question, but what is it that you consider as the key to developing great relationships with different roles and people on those different roles and personalities on a film set?

Oh, it just depends.

But it's a really important quality to develop as an artist because it's second part of this job.

You know, we create art and we are co workers and coworkers that are often artists and often very, you know, in need of their own way to perform that work.

So I think for me most important is that we work with a big level of respect to one another.

And I don't choose projects in which I won't feel that way anymore.

And thank God I.

I don't.

Because if I don't feel that I have tremendous and total respect to the director, producer, actors, and we all feel the same way, then you find each other and you happily give each other whatever that space that is for everybody to create their work.

Otherwise you're in a rub with each other and that's boring, not fun.

I promise you this is the last comparison.

But another facet to the story is whether you're allowed to not only have but show feelings, allowed to be human.

Since the wider public tends to expect actors or any type of performers when they come to fame, to endure pretty much everything and mistake professionalism and kindness for genuine openness.

How have you learned to.

And have you learned to point how to handle the public and yeah, your perception of in the limelight.

I deal with that in a way that it doesn't shift for me.

I try to be doing this for some kind of other greater reason than just ego or career off it, but actually telling the story and supporting filmmakers and storytellers all over the world who are telling great stories and we can tell them together.

And within that there's just so much.

It's so amazing to be able to do that.

And so whatever else it takes, like, you know, putting great.

Putting a dress on and high heels and going out or doing an interview, it's just part of serving the art of it all, which is not important, but, you know, doable.

And something that has always been incredibly fascinating to me, the relationship between different roles, whether they be lead or supporting, on the TV side of things, we can call them regulars or recurring.

And even though there are multiple more than notable characters in the series, I don't think that it is by any means an overstatement to say that you are quite clearly the lead here, which means that you have to interact with pretty much all actors and the characters they play throughout a season, bouncing off of each other's performances and actions.

And as someone who is also quite familiar with writing, I guess there is a different level of consideration that goes into how characters interact with one another on the page and then as an actor, how that translates into your performance.

So what I'm curious about is when the script is not your own, what goes into bridging the gap between the two, as in the script and the performance?

Listening, really listening.

Deciding that I respect my director and his vision fully and going to serve it, you know, and then just it's listening to what he or she wants.

And it's amazing.

It's a really Giving thing to do.

I love it.

And when you have written your script, on the contrary, it's very different because even if you're not the director, which in both Roving Woman and Imago, I wasn't, but I wrote those stories, it feels really personal and then it's listening to a lot of things besides just the director or director female, you know, so it's different.

But both of these things are incredibly freeing and wonderful to be able to be doing for a living.

So I'm so lucky.

Yeah.

And on the other hand, when you're involved in the writing process, I don't know how answerable this is, but how do you avoid it being or becoming self serving?

Yeah, just.

Just by.

By feeling that as an artist we're sort of obliged to perform our art because we somehow know how to do it.

And so therefore it's not about me.

You know, it's always had been there since the Greeks and the Romans and cathartic nature of art had been there to just be of service.

So on the technical side of things, there is, for example, the verbal part of it speaking multiple languages.

How different is it for you in terms of live delivery, whether you have to speak Polish, Russian or even English?

Yeah, it's different.

It's really interesting.

Each language has a different rhythm and that just really shifts you and changes you more importantly than just like learning the actual words, the whole energy around it.

So switching and shifting.

And now I'm working in, in English, so that had been a switch too.

So I sort of travel in the language world a lot and that's, that's a trip.

And as for the physical part of it, for example, I don't know the different fight sequences and stuff like that, and yet finding the synchronicity between those and the emotions, how much of a difference does it make when it's.

It has to be in the same scene?

To me, it's just like all of these things just makes up for makeup, make up for a human.

So, you know, the fact that she does that physically, it's like, okay, great.

That's her physicality.

And then the fact that she speaks like this, you know, so I'm okay, that's her speech and then that just builds her.

And switching, switching between those is usually easy or difficult as switching between, you know, soft emotions.

It just needs to be based in truth.

And so I think I've really was lucky enough here for having three months of preparation before even beginning to shoot that I got to really prepare.

Not only physically studied jujitsu craft, maga, boxing, you know, just really went for it with trainers.

Seven, how many hours?

I did it three times, four hours, 12 hours a week for two months, you know, so it was awesome because when I was leaving and that training and then going to learn Russian, which I also got to learn over time and not just my lines, I had Russian classes too.

So generally understand the language was so gift.

Because then when you come to the set, you're already so much that person, you know, so then it was just about the words.

And Google what sticks with you more, the physical training or the verbal in for example, foreign languages.

Physical is more fun.

Verbal is like you want to shoot yourself because you constantly feel that you're not doing it justice.

And it's so important, you know, especially now, out of respect.

I would really love not.

I would really hate for anyone who is Russian to feel that this is bad job because that's unfair.

And I'd love to show a really honest, you know, we're talking, we're, we're doing a portrait of people.

So the honesty of it is really important.

So I just really needed to make sure it's good.

And I got told from Russian journalists and people and people on set, actors that I did it, that did it good.

So thank God.

Yeah, that's exactly the feedback you are looking for.

Yeah, it's so important.

It'll be so awful otherwise.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Finally, I truly hope you'll get to reconnect sooner rather than later.

But I'd still have to ask you one quick question about an upcoming project of yours, Eruption or last one, Directed by Peto, starring Charlie Axiac.

Opposite you.

Even though to my knowledge you've lived in the US for the past one and a half decades.

As someone from East Central Europe, what's it like to shoot a US production, micro budget, but still on native soil.

As in it's coming to you, not you going to it.

You know, it was great to shoot an American film in Poland.

That's how we shot Roving Woman, which was a Polish film in America.

Yeah.

And you know, with Roving woman was a 100 fully Polish filmmakers behind camera.

And we made a 100American film with John Hawks and Chris Hanley and you know, American Rose of Joshua Tree.

And it was the Polish eye making an American film.

And this was exactly the opposite, which is American eye of Pedos making a Polish film, very local to Warsaw with myself and Charlie xcx.

So it was really fun.

I think it's going to be a really fresh point of view at so many things.

I don't think anyone had told the story of Poland this way.

And lately Jesse Eisenberg also decided that it's a good idea to make Polish films.

So that.

So smart.

Because Poland is awesome.

So.

And I think Pedos did an even more of a current and modern job version of the of Warsaw with, you know, incredible Charlie and myself.

So I'm excited for people to see this.

Absolutely.

Same.

Yeah.

Cannot wait.

And.

Yeah.

Elena, once again, thank you so, so much for your time.

This was a pleasure.

Lovely, lovely.

Thank you.