During this interview, it became clear that Mira Furlan is a deep and thoughtful woman, who embraces her life and her art with a singular philosophy: to be open to everything life and art have to give you. And to become an instrument through which those experiences can transform you.

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"I clearly remember opening night..."says Mira Furlan of her first stage appearance. "When the lights came up, I was thinking, 'Now disaster is going to happen, and everything is going to fall down, The audience is going to go out or throw eggs'".

"And none of that happened! I felt the silence in the audience and I felt how mesmerized they were - and the whole transfer of energy and the magic really, really, really changed something in me, and I thought, 'That's it!' I was hooked."

So began Mira's journey to professional actor. Her parents, both college professors, raised Mira in Zagreb in the former Yugoslavia. Thanks to her mother, Mira was indoctrinated into theatre at an early age.

"I think I was two when I went to the theatre to see a puppet show," she says. "I freaked out, and my mom was incredibly disappointed that my first theatre experience was such a traumatic experience for me! As soon as the lights went down, I got incredibly scared. And they played an overture in the dark! My mom said , 'They shouldn't do this stuff - play overtures in the dark - when there are little ones in the audience!' But as soon as the lights came up and the action began, I became a part of it, and I was THERE, an avid observer of the action!"

But it was a while before Mira ventured into that first onstage performance, Thanks to a high school teacher - "an Englishman, a young guy fresh from Oxford, educated, sweet and wonderful, and full of energy and ideas," she says - Mira took the plunge.

"He talked about literature. Everybody loved him. We had him once a week, and it was always a revelation," she says. "And then, he decided to do a play with us. I was 16. We rehearsed this play in English for one year, because it was only over the weekends that we could get together. The play was called Live Like Pigs by an English author, John Arden. [It] described the low life, the marginal people in British society - old sailors and prostitutes (I played one of those!)."

"The school began making problems about it," she says, because they wanted the teacher to do a show that was "tidy and sweet." But even though the teacher was threatened with being fired, the cast managed one performance. And in Mira, an actor was born.

After high school, Mira enrolled in the University of Zagreb, studying languages , and in the Academy of Theatre, Film and Television. Once she started getting jobs in acting, language studies fell by the wayside. "It became just too much," says Mira.

The academy was "very eclectic and there were a lot of different teachers who were all actors and directors who had their own approaches," says Mira. "You had to choose and see what worked for you. We had performances at the end of each semester - from Greek classics to Shakespeare to modern plays, including Strindberg, Pirandello and so on - and little pieces of film that we did."

Mira started finding work in the theatre early. In her first year of study at the academy, a local avant garde theatre company called her to fill in for an actor.

"I was replacing somebody in a wonderful, fantastic performance that adored and that I went to see like 10 times when I was in high school, so it made me very proud that I was in that," she says. "It was Stoppard's play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and I was Ophelia"

"They called me and said 'Can you do that?'" she says. "I said , 'Well , I saw the performance 10 times - of course I can do that!' [They said] 'Can you do it without rehearsal? ...Can you do it tomorrow?!?' So that was my first paid gig."

But Mira cites her role in Alpha-Beta by Whitehead as the first significant role - the one that made people notice what she did. "It's a beautiful play, " she says, "just two people, a marriage drama. I was much to young for that part, but it helped me discover many things that I still value. Because when I first started acting, it was all about play and having fun and being a child again. In that play, I discovered drama, the depth of emotions, the levels of getting into your own psyche, so it meant a lot to me."

Upon Graduation, Mira went to work for the Croatian National Theatre Company, where she did such roles as Judith in Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, Anabella in Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Yvette in Brecht's Mother Courage. The company was a national theatre, similar to the National Theatre in London.

"I was not really happy there," says Mira, "and I always wanted to escape and do other stuff. It was kind of stifling."

So she found other stuff. She was cast as the lead in the film Cyclops, for which she won the Golden Arena - the Yugoslavian version of the U.S. Oscar.

"The movie kind of changed it all," she says. "Then, you know how it goes, they label you. From an exclusively stage actress, I became an exclusively film actress, and the theatre people all at once became suspicious, You have to fight for acceptance all the time!"

Still, Mira managed to juggle theatre and film roles throughout her years in Zagreb and, later, Belgrade, occasionally mixing in television roles. But when the political situation in her former homeland turned the country upside down, and she and her husband Goran, began receiving death threats, they decided to start over in the United States.

"My first job when I came here was Yerma [Garcia Lorca] in Indianapolis. That, I have to say, shocked me," she says, "because people in the audience were cheering the characters! The were behaving as if we were on the screen - there was no real awareness of where they were!"

But US audiences were a joy compared to some of the audiences in the former Yugoslavia. "I had so many horrible experiences in Yugoslavia," she says. "We would do a tour in little towns and cities, and people in the audience would be so loud that you couldn't hear your own partner on the stage. I remember, we were doing Moliere's Misanthrope, and I played Celimene. All of a sudden, I feel this pain, and what is it? It's a safety pin! I mean, they were throwing safety pins - OPEN safety pins - at us!"

"It's the only time that I actually interrupted the performance and said, 'You know what? This is just not working.' These are probably the guys who are now shooting," she says wryly. "Maybe it all began with safety pins at a performance of Misanthrope!"

Soon after Indianapolis came Babylon 5 and Delenn. "What's wonderful in the character is the complexity," Mira says. "I mean, the fact that Delenn can be everything: she can be incredibly tough, sensitive. She's vulnerable, emotional. But she can also be this militaristic, tough leader. The complexity is what made her unique. In writing female characters everywhere, it's the same old sexist thing that rules the world, so this was a wonderful surprise and a great thing."

The show, she says was special because of how many good and different types of actors there were in the ensemble. "It was such an extraordinary cast - different people with totally different backgrounds coming to work together," she says.

And how was working with Pat?

"She's been wonderful!" says Mira. "She's a HUMAN BEING, a real mensch, which is so rare, you know? It was always easy, and she helps you. She gives you stuff to work with, and she's not a solo player. I loved working with her!"

In discussing what she feels was some of her best work on Babylon 5, Mira reflects a moment and then says, "Comes the Inquisitor. I still remember that episode. I thought it was food. And Bruce and I also had some very emotional moment that I really liked."

So how does Mira approach a character like Delenn, or any of the other characters she's portrayed? "I don't really have a philosophy of acting," she says. "I think it's going into yourself, somehow letting the material touch you and move you and really observe how and what it does to you. And then, somehow, to dig it."

"You have to be open to input," she adds. "It's a complicated process. But you're not alone. You have other actors, and that's the greatest beauty in acting, when you work with other actors who give you material. And then you just open yourself up - open your ears and eyes, and you're THERE. No intellectual concept comes into play because it's just organic. It happens. The best thing is when it happens. But you have to be open to it - you have to be this instrument that lets it happen."

What's next theatrically? Mira says she's always wanted to perform in shows by Anton Chekhov. "I'm trying to persuade Goran to do a production of Three Sisters, but a totally modern version." She says. "And then there's Uncle Vanya. We've reached that age where we start thinking like those characters. And nobody writes it better than Chekhov."

But first Mira and Goran are taking time to enjoy "new roles," those of mom and dad. With their first child due in December, both have developed a formerly foreign "nesting" instinct. "I notice that you develop this need to be alone in your house," says expectant mom Mira. "You think about, you know, what kind of carpet you are going to put in the baby's room, and so on. I can't say that I'm a domestic person, and I can't say Goran is either, but now we are really obsessed with putting the house together!"

Pregnancy "definitely changes your perspective , particularly concerning the professional frustration," she says. "Somehow, it's not that important. There's always the worry - the worry about money, about survival, The worries are there, but for at least a couple of months, the baby will probably take all these outside worldly worries away."

"I've been enjoying the state of pregnancy very, very much," she says. "It has been extremely fulfilling and wonderful and interesting and miraculous, and I'm just observing every moment. It's just a miracle, and you can't believe that it's happening to you! I still can't believe it, that I'm the vehicle!"

Will Mira and Goran have an artistic child? "Likely, but who knows? says Mira. "Maybe we'll have a business person ... a little Republican! A stockbroker! You never know how the youth rebellion can turn a kid around!"

But no matter, Mira says the most important thing she hopes her child will learn is to ask questions. "What can you teach a child? What do you know? I think [the important thing is] teaching them to ask questions," she says. "I think the more question you have, the truer you are to yourself and to life."

And about the naysayers who tell Mira and Goran that "everything will change" in a negative way after their child is born, Mira adopts a practical philosophy.

"Everything has ALREADY changed!" she exclaims. "We were constantly changing our lives, and that's how one should live, I think. We were ready to leave everything behind - I mean EVERYTHING: our career, our whole life with all its aspects, everything we owned, everything we were. So it's just another change."

"And you know," she adds, "I believe that when the relationship is stable and really, really good, it will be an enrichment."

An instrument for change. An instrument for life. Mira Furlan is definitely open to life and the possibilities presented by each day as she looks to the transformation that lies ahead. What a wonder-filled foundation for a child!

Not to be reprinted without permission.

copyright 1998