Mira Furlan

Author: Callum Noble
Email: callum@thedreammachineDELETEME.freeserve.co.uk (Callum Noble)
Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 14:29:06 GMT
Forums: alt.fan.mira-furlan
Message-ID: <37ac405a.20877789@news.freeserve.net>

Mira Furlan is an extraordinarily gifted and talented actress who is now well respected in America and on a lesser scale here in the UK for her role as Ambassador Delenn in the popular science fiction saga Babylon 5. The story of Mira's travel from Zagreb, Croatia to Los Angeles, California is relatively unknown story of amazing courage and one woman's stand for what she believed in.

From an early age Mira's childhood was filled with various aspects of the arts, languages and Yugoslavian literature. Her retired father once taught child psychology at the University of Zagreb. He translated many books on psychology into Mira's native tongue of Serbo-Croat from English and Russian. Her now dead mother was, like her father good with languages and was a professor of French and Yugoslav literature. In her childhood Mira was often taken by her to see plays, Mira was and feels that she still is very close to her mother: "If I have any talent, emotional depth, passion, or capacity for love, it definitely comes from her."

Her grandmother was also a linguist and spent a lot of time with the young Mira passing on her knowledge of languages to her. The high school that Mira attended used English as the main language but also focused on the study of other languages. This was Mira's main exposure to the English language in Croatia and these skills have benefited her greatly. Mira feels that her exposure to languages from this young age has helped her greatly in her chosen profession of acting.

She first realised that acting was the profession that she wanted to follow for the rest of her life when she was in high school. Mira was performing a play that she had been rehearsing for a whole year. Looking back she still sees this as a pivotal moment in her life, "in those moments when I entered the stage, trembling with stage fright and excitement, under those spotlights, I felt that I'd found the one thing that I wanted to do in my life. Nothing could match that flow of adrenaline!"

After graduating from High School she attended the University of Zagreb to study English and French. She also went to Zagreb's academy for Theatre, Film and Television. At the academy she enrolled in the Department of acting. This was considered to be an old-fashioned way of starting a career. From her second year in the academy she was landing parts in TV movies and theatre plays and a few films. In fact her first film role earned her a Golden Arena Award for best supporting actress this would be the equivalent of an American Oscar! Mira feels that she learnt everything that she knows about acting through doing actual work. At the academy she was just taught how to act and not anything to do with how to start a career. Once she had graduated she was just "thrown into the world to learn the practical things". This represented a large change in the way that she had to organise her time because up until then she had been getting work given to her. Now she had to start a career for her self.

Mira's career took off as she got the opportunity to work with the country's already established and respected actors and directors. By landing herself many roles in film, theatre, and television she managed to create a successful career. She felt that she was loved by her Yugoslavian audience and that they really knew her. However her fans did not respect her, instead she was treated as an icon. While she felt that she was "giving a piece of her soul" to the people sitting at home watching her. They were not involved with her. They were not exposed as she was. Mira has said that it was like being owned by them.

One extreme case of this was before she had met her husband and was living alone. She had been receiving letters for nine years from some individual. One night he came to her door and Mira did the only thing she thought she could do, speak to him. She said: "Please, go away! Could you please go away". This, she found out later was the wrong thing to do. She had made contact with him and involved herself. This happened a few more times and eventually she called the police. The police were a perfect example of how the general population treated her. They "came like three macho guys" it seemed that they enjoyed being in a famous actress's apartment and said things like "Well, you have to be ready for stuff like that, you're a beautiful woman!" They liked her, but they did not respect her.

Then she met her husband Goran Gajic, a Serbian film director. She met him while trying her hand at being in a band because her was directing a video of the band that was being produced. Mira's stalker got to hear about Goran and got the crazy idea that he was being paid by the government to keep him and Mira apart! He sent her letters, twenty page letters, letters Mira could not read. The last letter that she received from the fan was from a mental institute that he was at. The letter contained these words: "This is what I did for you; this is all because of you." This shows the way that she was first loved by him and then hated and blamed. He could not find a reason for the way that he behaved and so he made the simple action of turning round and blaming Mira.

For Mira and for that matter the whole country money was at a shortage. This gave actors a greater sense of freedom because money was not the greatest concern. This absence of money made for more freedom to be able to, for instance, shoot a scene multiple times until it was just right. There was also an increase time available compared to the arts in the US, which are motivated by money. Long shots on movies could be done over and over until perfected and plays in Theatres were rehearsed, in the words of Mira, "forever". Mira was often bored by this but she realises that this meant that there was more time to enjoy and explore the creative process. This was all soon to change.

The war broke out in the country. Forces based in Belgrade targeted Zagreb. Mira, who is a pacifist, did not feel it her place to comment on "the question of nationality, nation, belonging, you know -- blood." Not responding to these things proved unpopular. Mira tried to keep communication between these two warring cities by performing a play in each city on alternate nights, each night travelling hundreds of miles to get to the other city and the next night retracing her steps. When questioned about her reasons for this she released a statement that showed how she felt, that it was the "duty of our profession, to build bridges. To never give up on co-operation and community. The professional community, the human community. And even when things are at their very worst, as they are now, we must insist to our last breath on building and sustaining a bond between people. This is how we pledge to the future. And one day it will come." Mira was persecuted greatly by the general population and, just as her stalker had turned to hate her because she was there, and so easy to blame, the people turned against her. In one of the last conversations that Mira had with her best friend she was told this "'They hate you so much because they loved you so much." Again this was love, the wrong kind of love, a love that is more about possession than letting someone be who they are, and this love turned to hate because the population could not possess her any longer. The "possessive attitude" that Mira had previously felt as being dangerous had now become a very real threat. Mira has said that it felt like "the audience in my country had slapped me in the face, after many years' work."

On the 15th of November Mira and her husband left Yugoslavia. After being persecuted for standing up for what they believed and trying to keep a nation together in a time of suffering. But she was hated for it. Mira left behind a large body of work, a lot of which was lost during the war. Both literally, and metaphorically a whole period of her life was erased. Before she left her war-torn homeland she released a letter to the press which showed how she felt about all that had happened to her since she made a stand against the break-up of her country. The letter was written on September the 31st and was published on the 1st of November in many national newspapers. After parts of her letter were used in a short story "An Actress Who Lost Her Homeland," she released the Letter in full and signed it feeling that she was regaining a "right to her own words and her own life". The letter ended with these words:

"I am sending this letter into a void, into darkness, without an inkling of who will read it and how, or how many different ways it will be misused or abused. Chances are it will serve as food for the eternally hungry propaganda beast. Perhaps someone with a pure heart will read it after all.
I will be grateful to that someone."

Mira has succeeded in making and new life for herself in America, where she moved to in 1991 after leaving her homeland for the last time. Mira had been to America a few times before and she felt that American culture was something that she could easily relate t o because her "generation had been brought up on American literature and American rock-and-roll". Mira understands however that it is a very different thing to be a tourist in a place and then trying to make a living there. She can see that her feelings about the country are partially contradictory because she feels that she likes the country because of the new opportunities that it can offer. She dislikes it plainly because she had to leave her home to get there and when she thinks about why she is in the country there is a harsh reminder of home.

A great advantage to Mira was her ability to speak fluent English and because of this and of course her superb talents in the field of acting she was able to make a career in acting for herself in America. For Mira acting in English is quite an exciting and interesting task because every day she is learning more and more about the language. She has not acted in her own language in over six years and it is now the language that she knows best in terms of acting. Mira has found it quite easy to start a career for herself because that is exactly what she had to do in Croatia when she was living there. Mira feels that there are a lot of differences in the way that filming is carried out in America compared to what she was used to in Yugoslavia. When in Yugoslavia there was no money but a lot of time it is the exact opposite in America where there is money in the industry and there is no time wasted getting a finished scene filmed. The work that Mira had done previous to coming to America is mostly ignored by people who have an interest in hiring her for a film or play because they are not able to look behind the low budgets of the films and see the good work that lies there. Now Mira feels that she has discovered one thing that links her to lives of work from both countries together: the "frustrating aspects"!

On one of her first jobs in the states Mira felt like she was not allowed to make even one mistake but she feels that she is more relaxed now. Mira's first audition was for a pilot of a new science fiction series Babylon5. She got the part but she knew the statistics for shows continuing after the pilots in the America, only around 1% managed to become proper TV series. Babylon5 succeeded and became a series and Mira landed herself her first long-term job in this new land.

Working on Babylon5 for Mira as the character Delenn she has been shocked by the characters past history compared to her own because they are so similar. Joe Straczynski, the creator and main scriptwriter for Babylon 5 didn't know anything of her history when she was cast for the character. Joe has been so understanding towards Mira in writing scripts that often parody her past life. She feels that the character would have been possible to play without having gone through her past experiences but because she has, she feels that she can offer even more to the character and that experience makes the whole business of acting Delenn even more interesting. Mira now finds it easy slipping into the character of Delenn after acting her for so long. She relies on her instincts on how the character would behave and so because of this she feels that this is one of the best characters that she has had the chance to act to date. There is however an element that Mira misses in acting for TV as supposed to for the stage, this is the reaction that is given when a scene works well. This is because she does not particularly like having the camera as her audience but she does admit that there is a feeling of protection because she 'can know who the camera is'.

The science fiction fans are totally different to the fans of her work that Mira left behind in Yugoslavia. She has a relatively large following on the Internet. Although she sometimes enters chat sessions with fans, one of which I have been privileged to attend, she would rather not know what the fans are saying about her. This is because she is just not interested in people's opinions of her past work as she feels that because they have already been done she can't change anything about them. She has her own newsgroup on the Internet alt.fan.mira-furlan which it is alleged her husband subscribes to. He has reportedly been sometimes known to call her to the computer to show her what the fans have written but she is not particularly bothered. There are also quite a few Internet websites that are dedicated to Mira or have something about her on them. These sites do not intimidate her as fans dedicated to other actors do to actors who read them. She feels that because she was a victim of a stalker in her home country she can see the respect that the science fiction fans give her.

Even though Mira and Goran have succeeded in creating a new life for themselves and leaving their country they feel that they would not wish it on anyone because of the difficulties and the emotional stress of it. Mira has said that when she moved to America she felt she was stripped naked because you have no history or reference points to which others can relate. She also goes on to say that it is still possible to 'reinvent' your self and integrate into a new culture, especially in northern America because it is the normal thing to do there. On the point of immigration to America and people who are against it because it does not work Mira has said, "it is still possible. And I'm proof if that."

In a fourth season episode of Babylon 5, Between the Darkness and the Light: Delenn is trying to end a civil war between the different castes of her race. To do this she prepares to sacrifice herself putting her own life on the line to help stop the civil war and to restore piece to her planet. This is just fiction and it is easy to write a fictional character to do something like this but we must not forget that this was exactly what Mira did not that many years previously. Mira understands that science fiction fans must not forget that it is just fiction that they are watching on television, but also says that it is important to remember that some of these fictional situations have their roots deep in reality. Science Fiction, I mean proper SF like Babylon 5 has story lines that are the events of today or possible events translated into something that contains a little more fantasy. If Mira's comments on acting in science fiction have taught me one thing it is to remember that even though it may be presented as fiction we must learn to separate the fiction from the fact. Then we can find the hidden meaning which, in this case would be that people have and will defend their beliefs to their death because they know no other way.

I sincerely hope that if the situation ever arises where I may have to sacrifice all that I have, even my life, to stand up for what I believe I would be able to what Mira did and risk all for my beliefs.

 

* The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to

-- Callum Noble: callum@thedreammachine.freeserve.co.uk
The Dream Machine: http://www.thedreammachine.freeserve.co.uk/