Having worked for many years in Yugoslavia, Mira Furlan had to leave behind a body of work when she fled her disintegrating homeland. As she builds a new collection of work in America, she still remembers her home.

"I went to the Theater and Film Academy in Zagreb which was at the level of college or university -- enrolled in the Department of Acting, a very old- fashioned way of starting a career. I started working professionally after my first year of school. What I can say is that everything I know about acting, I learned through actual work. The Academy was helpful on a couple of points but acting is something nobody can teach you. You sort of have to find your own way. Everybody has to find his or her own way of entering one's soul. At the Academy, we spent so much time learning the process of acting, doing it in a very preserved and isolated environment. It had nothing to do with business or building of a career. It was devoted to just the essentials of acting, which had no connection to the reality of getting an acting job. So I went from this environment of pure art and was just thrown into the world to learn the practical things. Nobody really teaches you how to do it. Then, I was thrown into another world when I came to America."

"I had been to America a few times before and I fell in love with the intensity and energy of the city of New York. My generation was brought up on American literature and American rock-and-roll and many other items and ideas of American culture. America was close to my heart in many ways. But it's different to visit someplace as a tourist and then to come and try to make a living in another country. You see the harsh realities, the other side. It's a country you can intensely love and hate at the same time -- much like I feel about my own country."

"Before I left Yugoslavia, I worked for many years and created a large body of work. There was much of my work that was lost as a result of the war and the whole new history that's being created in the former Yugoslavia. I've got the feeling -- objective as well as subjective -- that that whole period of our lives is erased. That what went on -- the cross-culturization -- was wrong, was evil in the new historical reality that's being created now. I was part of the old Yugoslavian ways, living and working in whatever part of the country I could perform in. That aspect of the country I liked most of all. Not the regime, not the political system, but the multiculturalism of the former Yugoslavia which is now being presented as a big mistake. In that way, I feel like my work and my life is lost. But I know I'm not the only one -- Goran and I succeeded in creating a new life -- many other people cannot do that. They don't have the means, they don't speak the language, their life is _there_. To uproot them and send them somewhere else because their ethnicity is not right according to the new maps that are being drawn is a crime. I don't consider myself to be a big loser in this whole thing -- I feel hurt and loss, don't get me wrong -- but I see how small my case is. I was able to salvage some things out of this -- everything wasn't destroyed -- I kept what was important."

"Leaving your country is a huge deal and after I went through this experience I wouldn t recommend it to _anybody_. It's the last thing you should do. You lose your context, all the reference points in your life, when you leave your native culture. To orient yourself in a spiritual space, where you feel comfortable, is a process you go through when you build the net of your life. Your relationships, your work, your culture create this thing that is _you_ and when that is all lost and you're basically stripped naked, there is nothing but the bare bones of your personality. The whole idea of reinventing yourself is needed and I think there is only one country in which you can do it and that's America. Though there are people against immigration, the myth of America -- of people coming here and starting a new life -- is still there, is still possible. And I'm proof of that."

"Reinventing oneself seems to be the norm in America. It's not that accepted in other cultures. Europe functions in different ways. You start your life doing something and then that's it. You live your life in your parents' apartment and you die there. You're incredibly connected with all the furniture that your grandmother had. I've always liked the independence of the American families. I'm an individualist by nature, so I can understand wanting to get out on one's own. On the other hand, I see the bad side of it. The whole thing with relationships with people. Very open on the surface but somehow you cannot cross that border, that shell -- at a certain point they stop. People are very self-oriented, self-centered. It's a selfish culture at the same time as being open. This individualism turns into greed, obsession with oneself ... the bad things about the culture. I've lived in two totally different systems --socialism and the most cruel of the capitalist systems, Hollywood. Both have their faults but I'm grateful to have had the experience to live in them both."

"Everything changes you. What is an actor? You try to be in touch with your emotions ... with your experience. I can't really define it. Everything you go through changes you as a person, which changes you as an actor. If you as an actor are in touch with you as a person -- which I'm trying to be -- you have to have that internal connection, otherwise there is no truthfulness in your work at all. I guess my experiences in Yugoslavia changed me but I don't think I had to go through those events to bring something extra to the character. I don't think an actor has to go through the actual experience to portray something a certain way. That's why people have imagination. That's why you just feel instinctively about something, and why you don't have to go through the actual events. In my films and on stage I've died -- how do you learn that? You use your imagination. If the war didn't happen, the character of Delenn wouldn't be possible to play? No, I'm an actress, I'm a professional -- you bring the character to life. I think JMS likes to play with parallels in the actors' lives. For me, that makes my character very interesting. I enjoy it."

"You find things when you need to put your life back together again. Some things are better on some levels. As I've put my new life together, it's wonderful and it's good but some levels there is a feeling of loss and a certain displacement. I don't know if it's ever going to change. This world of Hollywood is one of much change and instability. When you come from a event of extreme change and disruption in your life -- then come to Hollywood, of all places -- to try to make a career, it gives a feeling of being doubly insecure. We are trying to fight it, trying to see what's really essential in our lives and who we are. Not regarding all those outside aspects of our lives -- the systems we live in, the cities we live in, the language we speak. But sometimes it's really hard, sometimes you feel like you're losing yourself."

"I've been learning English for a long time but it's definitely a learned language. I'm adopting English -- like an adopted child. It's a new means of expression. It's fun to try to function in another language. You have this constant feeling of false progress because you are learning so much every day. You learn new words, new expressions, new slang. It's fun to enter that whole new world. At the same time, the deepest, more subtle expressions ... it's a big question whether one can express those in another language. I don't know. I haven't acted in my own language for five years already. That would be a whole different experience now. After doing it in _only_ the English language for some time."

"My first job in America was in a play at the Indiana Rep in Indianapolis. I did YERMA by Garcia Lorca, the Spanish poet. That was like fighting a war. Theater is definitely the most difficult medium for an actor. I definitely feel that way -- you have to do it _then_ . There is no stop and correct stuff in the next take. You have to carry the play from the beginning to the end. Yerma was on stage without a break. It's poetry, also. There's no, "That wasn't any good. Get me a cup of coffee, please." The play was complicated poetry and would be very hard to do in my own language -- it's rarely produced and it's a hard play in every way. So in that way it was like a war. Who will get whom? Will I eat the play or will the play eat me? It was a battle, but I think I won. It was a great feeling, a feeling of liberation that it's working, that you can open up in the new language. I always thought that about acting -- that it's not about language and words -- it's about something else, peoples' hearts. It's about charisma, personality, heart, strength, passion. It's about all these things, that some actors can emote and others can't. The language is the device of your expression and the more you know the language, the more you can feel it really deeply."

"Nothing outstanding with the way I got to BABYLON 5. The process of auditioning. I was sent to an audition by my agent and they liked me. No mysteries there. As for my make-up: Nothing has changed in terms of the hours I spend in the make-up chair. Now, I have this very subtle piece where a lot of time is spent blending the edges of the bone into my skin. It's a different kind of make-up. It requires the same time, if not more, because it's such a subtle intervention into my face. Then there's the hair and other details. It still takes three hours to do. Sometimes I'm there at 4:15AM. Oops, there's my call!" <G>:

"Looking at the conditions between the way films and TV were done between the US and Yugoslavia -- Yugoslavian filmmaking was very anarchic. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it was a nightmare. Depended on what kind of director you had and what you played. When you are in love with a role and with the project, everything was fine. You could endure the anarchic aspects of the production. There were no rules, no unions protecting you. No trailers or catering. It was real rough production. You could not be spoiled. Even if you were in the peak of your career, even if you were a star. I'm enjoying the perks you get in the American film industry -- trailers, food, transportation. On the other hand, we had time to work on the production. It's the whole question of time vs. money. You don't have money but you have time and that's very precious. I see that in every aspect of life, how precious it was to have the time to rehearse a scene. In terms of filmmaking and doing television, you had time to rehearse, to play with things, to try it this way and that way. Here, you rarely have time. On big, huge films I guess you have longer to rehearse. BABYLON shocked me at first with it's quickness of production. In Yugoslavia I did want things to move quicker -- sometimes there was lots of waiting around. Here on the BABYLON set, it s enjoyable and we take our time with our craft. We're so comfortable in our roles that I don't feel pressured. When I did the pilot, I kind of felt, "I have to function, I'm not allowed to make a mistake." I feel much more relaxed now. That's a good feeling. But again, you shouldn't be too relaxed. It's always about finding a balance."

"The theater scene in Yugoslavia was really leisurely. You'd rehearse a play for two or three months. Then you would stage the play from time-to- time. We had repertory theaters all over the country. Then you'd do a film in between the handful of stage performances we did in a month. There was definitely a leisurely approach to theater in Yugoslavia. Money was never an issue in Yugoslavia. The money came from a cultural fund and so we had the time to perfect the work. We abandoned any schedules and time concerns. Which actually was really bad if you wanted to do other stuff. If you wanted to do a film, you could never find out what your schedule was. The schedule would always change. Nobody was in a hurry. Time didn't equal money. Why hurry when you couldn't get any more money from hurrying? That's probably why socialism collapsed. To much drinking coffee and taking siestas. I know it's a superficial theory but it might explain part of the problem socialism had. Though I do miss those leisurely aspects of our former life now that they are gone forever. The whole idea of socialism collapsed. The feeling that you can take a vacation, go to an island and stay there for a month. Here in the US, even if you're incredibly successful you still cannot do it. There are so many thing happening in your life you have to constantly catch up on them. You can't leave things unattended. You have to oversee and take part in that machine all the time. If you step out of it for any length of time you pay the price."

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