Interview: Ana Ularu (Locarno and TIFF’s Outbound)

The 63rd edition of Locarno Film Festival (the first curated by Cannes’ Olivier Père) happended to be a great one for Romanian cinema. Marian Crișan’s first feature – Morgen, claimed three awards receiving the Premio speciale della giuria (Special Jury Prize), Ecumenical Prize and the FICC / IFFS Don Quijote Prize and Ana Ularu, the thesp profiled below, received the Prix Boccalino de la Presse – the Swiss press award for Best Actress for her role in Bogdan George Apetri’s Periferic (Outbound – which will receive it’s North American premiere at the Toronto Int. Film Festival).

Ularu plays Matilda, a young woman who, after two years spent in prison for prostitution, is granted a 24-hour temporary release. Variety calls the film “a natural fest item likely to benefit from the attention paid to new Romanian cinema,” and mentions that “Ularu’s intense steely glare could use some modulation, but her near-constant physical tension captures Matilda’s foolhardy defiance and misguided determination.” 

Bucharest born Ularu, might only be 25 years of age, but she has managed to confirm her status as a leading, talented actress in Napoleon Helmis’ Italiencele, Radu Muntean’s The Paper Will Be Blue, and now, Apetri’s Periferic (Outbound). Here is a post Locarno, pre-TIFF interview I conducted with the actress.

Marin Apostol: You played many characters in your short career, but which one is your favorite?
Ana Ularu: It’s kind of hard for me to choose, because I invested so much in each of them. But, of course, there are characters I love more, characters that challenged me more and made things more interesting. One character like this was Tatiana from Cristi Mungiu’s Turkey Girl (which was part of 2005’s Lost and Found). The way she’s constructed, the method of analysis and how the character reveals herself is something I’ve kept in my mind as an essential stage in my career. And then, after only two months, there was Bucharest-Berlin, and another character I cherish much, while the Periferic (Outbound) experience represents one of the dearest. First, for the chance that I was given: to win a casting for a character that I was far away from, regarding the age; and, second, because the real work asked for a great responsibility from my side, awakening my imagination to a certain direction. I’m very grateful to Bogdan, Mimi, Andi and Ioana, and all the children that made from our collaboration something beautiful, interesting and funny.

Apostol: What made you decide to become an actress?
Ularu: Honestly, I can’t remember. I was too young. All I know is that this is what I always wanted to do. I’ve never wanted to use nice words to present something so intimate. It’s a tough job which you choose for life, and you fight with your own anger and surfeit. But it’s something that I can honestly say is my own.

Apostol: …and what would you like more: theater or film?
Ularu: Florin Zamfirescu had the best answer for this: “It’s like you’d ask me what I like more: to walk with my right foot or with my left one”. They are two totally different things that give a beautiful and terrible addiction to an actor, once you start working with their instruments and start discovering them.

Apostol: How do you prepare your part? Only reading the screenplay is enough?
Ularu: Of course not. I don’t think there is an actor who could say it’s enough. I try to gather as much information I can about the character, I talk to the director and my colleagues, because there, among them, the truth and logic start to become more and more evident. It’s kind of hard to explain. It’s different for each project.

Apostol: Could you say that you’ll never play a certain type of character?
Ularu: I don’t think so. I’m interested in any type of character, I’m only at the beginning and I want to learn as much as I can, to test myself, to imagine things… As long as the story is a well-written and a powerful one…

Apostol: This is a great time for Romanian cinema. At least, if we look at the results from many film festivals from around the world. Otherwise, Romanian films still fail to bring people to the cinemas. Do you think a change in the screenwriters and directors attitude is necessary? Should they make more films for the wider public and less for the festivals?
Ularu: I don’t think Romanian filmmakers should sacrifice their wishes, ideas and imagination for box-office. We don’t have an industry of thousands of movies, to support hundreds of “crowd pleasers” among them. People should start educating themselves not to judge a movie before they see it. They should learn to enjoy what happens around them. At a film festival, many spectators are not critics or filmmakers and they really enjoy a Romanian movie. So we’re not speaking of movies made only for an exclusivist public. If there are many people who pay a ticket to see a foreign film and they acclaim it at the end I don’t understand why in our country there is some kind of reserve when we speak about a Romanian film?

Apostol: Have you seen Avatar? What do you think of this direction the cinema has taken lately. It’s more and more about entertainment and less about art.
Ularu: I might be taking a risk here by declaring that I profoundly disliked Avatar. While its predictable structure and standard script didn’t disgust me, it overwhelmed me on a visual level. It’s not snobbishness. I want to lose myself completely in a movie and to become a child again (I’ve seen the Pirates of the Caribbean films and during the entire movie I felt like an 8 year-old girl). But when I see the expensive visual effects, which are cold and empty, I feel betrayed, like I’m asked to justify, next to other millions of people, the movie’s big budget.

Apostol: What can you tell about this award you received at Locarno?
Ularu: I’m very happy and enthusiastic about it, first because the movie has been really loved at Locarno. It’s been shown in a theater with 3000 people inside. It’s great to visit a foreign city and to be congratulated in the most unusual places for something you worked so hard. This award made me happy because, after a long time, I felt acclaimed and appreciated.

Apostol: What do you think of Matilda?
Ularu: Matilda is a woman created from my imagination, Bogdan’s imagination, from other characters reactions towards her and, also, from Marius Panduru’s look, from the constant development of the story and from our solutions we found with each step in order to build our ideas. Matilda is a tired person, aged before her time, who doesn’t trust anybody and whom nobody trusts either. She’s one of the most loneliest people in the history of cinema. She has no excuses. At one point, I called her “an infamous broad”. But we were only at the middle of the movie. In fact, Matilda is just a person who denied herself and whom others forbidden usual human necessities. She’s always asked questions with double meanings, nobody is happy to see her, she must ask for something she doesn’t want, she has to keep her mouth shut… nobody offers her kindness and nobody says “yes” to her.

Apostol: Usually do you try to judge your characters? There are times when you tell the director that the character you play couldn’t say or couldn’t do a certain thing?
Ularu: There are moments, indeed, when I talk to director about the character’s attitude. We must pay attention not to betray the original idea. A simple gesture or an word could destroy the entire scene.

Apostol: What kind of movies do you watch? Can you tell me your Top 5 movies?
Ularu: It’s veeeery hard! I watch many movies and all the places would be with ex-aequo-s. It’s more easy to tell you the directors I like: Woody Allen, Wilder, Jarmusch, Fellini, Bergman, Park Chan-wook, Miike, Van Sant, Lumet… now, can you see why is so hard for me to make a top 5?!

Outbound is playing at the 2010 Toronto Int. Film Festival.

Saturday September 11 3:00:00 PM AMC 3
Thursday September 16 9:15:00 PM AMC 3
Saturday September 18 9:30:00 AM SCOTIABANK THEATRE 3

Images provided by Saga Film.