Interview April 2005

All in a day's work

She has played, Nela, Ulysses' wife, Amalia Frunzetti, and the Virgin Mary in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. The audience saw Maia Morgenstern on the stages of the Youth Theatre in Piatra Neamt, then the Jewish Theatre, the Bucharest National Theatre, and the Odeon Theatre. Now, her name is closely linked to the Bulandra Theatre, where she will soon appear in Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello, a play directed by Liviu Ciulei. One afternoon before rehearsals, Maia Morgenstern shared her thoughts on some of her more recent career developments with Cristina Tanase.

April 2005

Vivid: What does success mean to you?
Maia Morgenstern: It means bringing joy to the people who come to see you on the stage or in a film. It means bringing joy to people who need you. After all, success means motivating your existence as an artist in front of your public.
Unfortunately, art seems to have been reduced recently to what ‘gongs’ one receives, what competitions you have competed in, and who your competitors are. It is as if medicine is created just so that its creators can go to congresses. These meetings can be very important, and we find out new things there, discoveries are made, but medicine is made to save peoples’ lives, not to spend time in congresses and conferences.

Do you remember the first play you saw?
It was Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Would you often go to the theatre as a child?
Yes, my parents used to take me to the theatre despite everybody else’s opinions that I would not understand much as a child, as - they would say - you cannot trust a child’s capacity to understand a complex drama. But a real masterpiece has meaning for each and every level of understanding: from children to grown-ups.

How did you discover your passion for acting?
Actually, I discovered it rather late. My father encouraged me a great deal. I’m not sure that I would have had the courage to act, but my father would tell me that if I wanted to act, I needed courage. I had to take it seriously and prepare. And that is exactly what I did.

What did this courage imply in your case?
It was about assuming the desire to become an actress. I didn’t even have the courage to admit this desire to myself. Maybe it’s said too often, but I do believe this means assuming an artistic destiny.

How would you define a good communication with the public?
It is about the way the audience listens and reacts to you, it is a sort of understanding with the audience that goes far beyond any simple demonstration that I can make. It is about an exchange of energy, just like when you communicate with a child or with a person you love, just like when you fight with somebody with whom you really share something and you know that something has to leave from you and, at the same time, it has to reach him.

You talked about the Budapest premiere of The Passion of the Christ as a great one, saying that you were given an almost regal welcome there. Did you feel the same about the Romanian premiere?
No, not at all. The feeling that I felt surrounding this whole story was, “So what is the big deal about our Romanian actress starring in this movie?” This feeling came especially from a group of critics that I had respected and which had been a reference point for me up to then. Their criticism had nothing to do with art, nor did they stand as aesthetic or ethical objections. It was as if they were saying, “Let’s put the boot into her, because there is already too much fuss about it the film.”

So was it about a resistance movement?
I couldn’t even speak about resistance, it’s too much. It was about ‘so what?’ From the public’s point of view, the feedback was just like everywhere else in the world. I permanently received their feedback. I still do now, a year since the premiere of the movie.

Your name became renowned worldwide due to this role. What about the satisfaction you had as a human being?
I had the chance to act in a beautiful role. I had the chance to meet wonderful people and make real friends. Everything is, however, related to the professional side of my role.

Another thing you appreciated about the Budapest premiere was the opportunity of dialogue with “people who did not fall into the director’s adoration or my adoration”. How important is it for an actor to have a genuine, real balance between those who praise his performance and those who criticise?
This balance doesn’t concern me. In my profession there have been moments that I cherish and think of with much fondness. There were productions that I loved being involved in, but that went largely unnoticed. And there are other productions that were critically acclaimed, but which didn’t teach me anything.
Re the Budapest premiere, there were people who were not seduced: people with whom I could speak objectively, people who were not victims of the movie business, people open to dialogue. They were willing not to impose their opinion forcefully, although they spoke with great confidence and authority. They just didn’t feel the need to impose their views aggressively, as someone not very confident in his opinions would probably do.

How did you prepare for the role of Mary?
I read and spoke the lines repeatedly for months – months! I worked on the text, the pronunciation, I worked with Aramaic professors – one lady professor from Italy and one professor from the United States. I was also very interested to know about the historical period. So I read as much as I could.

There is one opinion you expressed about this movie: the universality of its message. What did this universality mean for your role?
I conceived the character that I interpreted as the universal mother, the mother whose skin colour or socio-cultural background doesn’t matter; I conceived it as the loving mother who suffers for her child, who fully trusts her child. This, I believe, is the universal mother.

There is one critic on the official site of the film that says, “The movie is not anti-Semitic, but anti-Semites might feel motivated by it.” Would you agree with this assertion?
No, no way. It is a film with a very strong social and political message - I would say a staggeringly strong message - because it talks about manipulation, about how easily a conquered people can be manipulated. It talks about how easy this manipulation operates upon a starving, poor people; it also talks about how easily conceptions and opinions can be changed.

What did you try to bring to the character of Mary that was new?
I wasn’t preoccupied by bringing something new. To be honest - I am telling you with or without modesty - I didn’t compare my acting to anyone else’s interpretation of Mary. The message that the screenplay conveyed to me was the dignity of the mother’s suffering, of women’s suffering in general.

How much of yourself do you invest in a character, and what personality traits do you from the character?
An actor will transfer his personality upon that character, he will lend him his voice, his body. I do believe this is true. At the same time, I believe that the character can also leave its trail in the actor’s mind.
Whether I am Medea who kills her children or Mary, Jesus’ mother, I am called to do this job. And I thank my destiny and those who trusted me for this calling.

Another much discussed point of The Passion of the Christ was related to the violence of the images in spite of a more historical perspective. How much can art be made responsible for this?
It is just the same thing as with nudity. We are so sensitive and get involved right away and admire paintings that present nudity, but it’s the end of the world if a man or woman appears nude in a picture: he or she is condemned right away. But in fact these men are painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The biggest travesty was when they tried to cover it up: some house painters were told to cover Michelangelo’s masterpiece because it seemed that their nudity was offensive. The same thing happens with our mind and our prejudices.

You will have a role in the movie Love is a Survivor, a Holocaust story and its anti-Semitic implications. Is the acceptance of this role your way to combat anti-Semitism?
Yes, it is. Not only anti-Semitism, but also any form of totalitarism, xenophobia and racism.

Could we speak about anti-Semitic attitudes in Romania?
Certainly there are instances of anti-Semitism, but what is much more of a problem are anti-Roma attitudes, which are endemic. Sometimes I see a nice, pretty mother with her child in the park, who scolds the child and advises him what he should or should not do by saying, “Don’t behave like a gypsy.” That truly hurts me.

Would it be hurting to ask you to name one character from those played by now that marked you profoundly?
I think it would be Marguerite Gautier. I loved the way I worked with Razvan Mazilu on the stage of the National Theatre in The Lady of the Camellias.