<*> Continuing the talk from part one:<*>

"Other projects I've worked on? I met Harris Yulin (who directed DON JUAN IN HELL) who knew about me. They did the DON JUAN production with a rotating cast. I worked on it in 1994. David Warner, Judith Ivy -- who did the role I did, Bonnie Bedalia. The idea was to keep it an open project and people could come in and do what they do and have fun with it. I was very glad I did it, it was an interesting experience in every way. Kind of a concert performance staging. That's how it's usually done, it's a talking piece. I did it from time to time, we'd get together and go do it someplace."

"I did ANTIGONE, too, back in 1995. I worked with Goran (Gajic, her husband) who directed the play and wrote the adaptation. ANTIGONE had some elements we wanted to accentuate to mirror the Yugoslavian situation. The essence of Sophocles' play remained but it was an updated adaptation. We worked in what had happened in our war and our experience of the war. It was a successful production. Goran got the annual Dramalogue Award for Directing and I got a Dramalogue Award for the Best Performance of 1995 and the whole production got an award. I think it's really a powerful, smart, visceral and gritty production. Also, quickly paced and definitely not boring. I hate when people say theater is boring. What does that mean? Some theater is boring and some theater is incredibly exciting. We wanted to do something that was uniquely ours but just using the framework of Sophocles' work. As for the speed of the production, things are done quickly in L.A. We put it together in a couple of weeks once the script was done."

"Goran and I just finished working on a production -- a staged reading. Goran directed and I did some of the reading. It's a Polish play called "Hunting Cockroaches". It's a part of a big series of events that played in Los Angeles about exiles and immigrants. It was a huge exhibition at the County Museum of Art in Los Angeles which is called "Landscape of Exile". We were a part of the program with the German Goethe Institute which organized the series of readings and plays that deal with immigrant issues. I was very excited to be a part of that program."

"There were five rehearsals for the stage reading and then it was take the stage and praise the Lord -- then a beer on Monday to loosen the nerves. Another exciting and incredibly nerve-wracking and intense experience. Sometimes you ask yourself why anyone would want to do that and go through this incredible stage fright and go through the excitement and fear and expose yourself to the audience. Who knows what they think and want when they come to a theater production. It is a perverse kind of wish to do stage work. I shouldn't complain about it, I couldn't live without the stage work and its incredible high of accomplishment. I still know when working on the set of BABYLON 5 when a scene worked well but it isn't the same as the immediate reaction of the theater audience. If you reach that level of performance in TV you and everyone else on the set knows but then sometimes you don't have the perfect performance for the scene. That's just the nature of working on a series. You cannot be ideal all the time. These moments of high emotion are the best. That's why I enjoy doing it. But then you have to endure the lows. Even though I complain of the instability and the insecurity I'd probably go crazy without them. I've always needed the drama in my life. If it wasn't there, I would invent it."

"Now, I could have been spared the excitement of having my country fall apart. A colleague of mine remarked, "Now is the time to be there because it's so exciting, history's happening." I'm thinking, "Oh God, spare me that sort of excitement." Metaphorically, it happened that the big Wall broke down into hundreds of other small walls all over Eastern Europe. It multiplied itself on a smaller, more vicious scale."

"Working with my husband, Goran, is wonderful. We did a film together as his last project before we left Yugoslavia. I loved working with him over there and I love working with him here. He's a film director -- he never did theater in Yugoslavia. It kind of fell upon us ... we got the offer to do ANTIGONE. Goran was very reluctant to do it. I told him at that time -- and now he feels the same way -- that directing on stage or screen is the same thing. It doesn't matter which medium it is, it matters whether you have something to say. Then you just _do it_, in whatever medium you're working in at that time. Working with Goran is great because we know each other so well. We don't have to explain things. There's a lot of non-verbal communication between us. You might say, we are surfing the same wave ... on the same wavelength. It's incredibly helpful and easy. Goran has the passion a director should have for a project and I really, really enjoyed working with him."

"Joe always surprises me with his knowledge of how politics screws up peoples' lives. Sometimes his awareness of what propaganda does and how do totalitarian regimes work really surprises me. Although he never lived in one, he knows how to make it seem realistic. By observing, by understanding things that are happening on B5, you can understand what's happening all over the world and what has happened in history. That's what Joe does and I really admire that. So sometimes I'm totally surprised with how he handles these political issues. I'm sometimes struck with, "My God ... I _know_ that! I lived that!". But Joe didn't and he can still create the reality. He's a clever man, he understands the politics and the social structure from the inside. Joe's critical mindset is the aspect I like most about BABYLON 5."

"I've been working as Delenn for the longest time so somehow slipping into the character became very easy at some point, sometimes too easy. I rely on my instincts. When I did the audition for Delenn, when I didn't know anything about the show or about the role, about anything, I somehow chose to do it in a way that I was able recreate very easily all the time. Somehow, I immediately felt like I had found the core of the character. Some kind of fullness in Delenn yet a detached, spiritual feeling to the character. I always believe that the first impression you get from something is the way you should go. How something strikes you the first time you read it before you get too involved to see all the aspects and to judge it.

"When doing stage work it's a more sustained concentration than working in television or film. Shorter and maybe deeper periods of concentration are needed for film work. On stage you have to stay in the whole arc of the story for an hour, hour-and-a-half. You cannot exit and enter, you have to stay in the moment ... have it all on your mind. In film there's also the weird connection with the camera as your audience. In a way I feel much more protected and have a much more intimate relationship with the camera than with a live theater audience. I always wonder about the theater audiences, "Who are those people? What do they really think?". I don't pose these questions when I'm shooting since I feel protected. I have this insulated detachment from the actual audience and I kind of like that, it allows complete focus on the work."

"I did some interesting BABYLON 5 episodes recently. Lots of flashbacks to Delenn's previous life and all kinds of secrets pop out and we see the other side of her. We solve all kinds of problems on Minbar -- fight a couple of wars, win a couple of wars. Just kidding! But that's what I like with what Joe is doing with BABYLON 5. You would expect once the Shadow war was won, everything would go well and we're done but actually, nothing is solved. As Joe says ... I'm paraphrasing ... "There are always new wars to be fought -- against darkness." And that's so true, it never ends."

"The person I work with who always, always surprises me, who is just unbelievable with how alive everything becomes when he's in front of the camera -- is Andreas [Katsulas]. I'm always amazed at the freedom and boldness of his choices. I really feel that I am honored to work with him and would like to work more with him. He really awakens something in me. His openness and boldness with his performance -- his imagination is incredible -- his choices are interesting and never the easier ones. It's really amazing to watch him. I like working with the other people, too, it's just that Andreas brings out my best every time. I respect Bruce's [Boxleitner] talent as an actor and enjoy working on scenes with him. I love Peter Jurasik. I would like to do something else completely different with him after B5. It's great working with Claudia [Christian] and I love the easiness of Jerry's [Doyle] style. That's the great thing about acting, meeting other people who come from a totally different place and trying to see what works well together. Richard Biggs is a wonderful actor -- I think we have a great cast all around. I love working with Billy [Mumy] and he's become my friend. The whole cast likes working together and giving our best."

"My favorite episodes are "Comes the Inquisitor" -- it was really wonderful working with Wayne Alexander [Sebastian] -- "Confessions and Lamentations" and "Severed Dreams". Those were the episodes where I feel I show my best work. More recently, I enjoyed working on "Atonement" and going back in time in Delenn's story. I just watched it a few days ago and have to watch that one again. Working with Tony Dow as director on that episode was nice. He's such a gentle, guiding director. Though I have to catch up on that TV show he worked on years ago. "Leave it to Beaver" wasn't one of the shows that made it to Europe from America."

"Working on a science fiction show you get a feeling of whatever you do it doesn't really matter in terms of the "industry" watching it and that's incredibly frustrating. I did some pretty good work in Yugoslavia, too, and the people in the L.A. film industry couldn't care less what I did there. The movies are with subtitles, they're kind of slow, the production values don't exist. Their imagination cannot open up and see the work_ that is in those films. That is the state of things. You could go crazy or you could be completely defeated by the thing. You still want to do the best you can in the framework that's given to you. That goes for a small show in a local theater. Most people in Los Angeles don't go to theater. It seems like a total drag -- nobody wants to drive -- nobody could care less. You're surrounded by indifference. Indifference really bothers me. This cynical, arrogant world of agents,managers, producers who are impressed by only Names ... and nothing else exists in their universe. These are all annoying aspects to the work. I had other frustrations in Yugoslavia and now, it's just a continuation with different frustrations. I think I found something that binds my two lives together -- frustrating aspects of the work."

"Finding out about science fiction fandom was pretty incredible. That's a beautiful aspect of being on a science fiction show. You get this devotion, you get this real respect and real understanding. It's not just people complementing you and being impressed and being enchanted by my hair or eyes. They really understand the layers of the characters and stories. It's an educated audience that's not brainwashed and pretty open-minded. That's a real gift as a performer. You lose something (the professional accolades), you gain something (SF fandom's dedication and appreciation) -- that's life.

"I've done a few SF conventions -- when time and schedule allows. I would like to do them more but I do them whenever they come up. The scheduling is strange but it's enjoyable because of the fans. You get some kind of feedback, you get some kind of feel that you aren't working in a vacuum and that nobody actually sees the show. You get proof that people care and people understand and people really do watch it and appreciate what you do. It's really a great feeling. It seems like there are more BABYLON fans at the conventions but in television, they are more impressed by the numbers, the ratings. I have no idea how that aspect works. BABYLON 5 also has this handicap of being syndicated and unusual scheduling -- nobody knows when the show is on. I always hear that from the fans, too. Conventions are fun but then frustration rules when the fans complain of the air times and the reruns."

"I don't watch the show in broadcast. I usually get the tape from Babylonian. I work long hours so I'm not at home much. I can watch the episode without commercials and enjoy the story without interruption, not be bothered by these things that happen in-between. It's a big problem for me to watch things with commercials. It disrupts my concentration in the flow of the story."

"In an ideal career after BABYLON 5 I would love to do interesting, quality film work. I would love to do theater but theater leaves me with even bigger frustrations than other things. It has such a marginal position in this country. There are so many great, interesting independent filmmakers in this country. That's what I would like to have happen after BABYLON 5. How will it go -- who knows?"

A partial quote from the ANTIGONE playbill written by Mira and Goran:

"That's why there is a need in those of us who come from the late Yugoslavia to let our voice be heard through this eternal story. That is our little way to say: Stop it! Think of people, not of states. Think of people, not of nations. Think of people, not of allies and enemies. Think of people, not of maps. Think of bridges, not of borders.

Our voice is almost silent, there is just a handful of us scattered around the world, some are dead, others dead spiritually, but we have to keep that tiny voice alive. This performance is our attempt to do that."

Some of Mira's TV and movie credits:

My Antonia (1995) (TV)
"Babylon 5" (1993- ) TV Series ... as Delenn
Dear Video (1991)
"Tudjinac" (mini) TV Series (1990)
Braca po materi (1990)...aka Maternal Halfbrothers (1990)
Bunker Palace Hotel (1989)
"Putovanje u Vucjak" (1986) (mini) TV Series
Lepota Poroka (1986) ... aka The Beauty of Sin (1986)
Vucjak (1986) ... as Eva ... aka Horvatov izbor (1986)
Otac Na Sluzbenom Putu (1985) ... played Ankica ... aka Papa est en voyage d'affaires (1985) ... aka When Father Was Away on Business (1985)
Za srecu je potrebno troje (1985) ... as Zdenka ... aka Three for Happiness (1985)
U raljama zivota (1984) ... aka In the Jaws of Life (1984)
Zadarski memento (1984)
Kiklop (1982) .... as Enka
"Nepokoreni grad" (1981) (mini) TV Series
"Velo misto" (1981) (mini) TV Series .... as Kate
Totstellen (1975) (TV) ... aka The Condemned (1975)(TV)
.

Notable Voiceover Appearances:

"Spider-Man" (1995), as Silver Sable; "Black Kites" animated short feature, directed by Jo Andres (1995).


For more information about Mira and her career, stop by these interesting web sites:

The Mira Furlan Fan Club home page:
http://www.geocities.com/~mira_furlan/
The Mira Furlan reference page:
http://www.odyssee.net/~shaka/mf/