Natasa Tapuskovic – Life is a miracle!
photo : Rade Kovač www.radekovac.com
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Just before her trip to Japan, where she’ll stand in front of the camera of South Korean film crew as a capricious and ambitious opera diva, a partner of a famous South Korean tenor, actress Natasa Tapuskovic has spoken for Ego. She has talked about herself, her own soul’s vibrations, her loving attitude towards life, exposing of her being… About her genuine belief that life is really a miracle…
You have recently returned from South Korea, where you made a movie about the famous South Korean tenor. What are your impressions of this country?
I spent an exciting week in Daegu. Their oldest opera is in this city, and we filmed one of the most important scenes in the film there. I had really enough time to meet their culture in many different ways, their everyday life, and especially humans. What really surprised me are the immediacy, warmth and openness that characterize them. I spent one day in Seoul, which is really fascinating, Asian New York… Certainly. Collaboration with director Kim Sang Man, and the entire film crew was really an incredible gift.
In the movie The Tenor – Lirico Spinto you play capricious, overly ambitious opera diva, the partner of the main character. Were you surprised because the director recognized in you, gentle and subtle actress, a capacity for a role that requires a special inner strength?
I may look fragile, but that certainly doesn’t deny my inner strength. Especially not acting one, this is able to turn a stone into a flower with imagination… and vice versa. That’s why the most inspiring thing to me in the film and theater work is the courage and intelligence of the director when choosing actors for roles not to be literal and practical in interpretation of this new reality we will donate to the audience. It always indicates that director’s rich and varied inner world doesn’t want to underestimate the audience, and therefore us, the actors. For me, the opportunity to win the character as Melina is the greatest joy… She’s everything that scares me in the art, and probably it was the time to get over myself through her, and relativize a little my experience of reality for the umpteenth time.
After Belgrade and South Korea the shooting will continue in Japan. Are you looking forward to going to the distant world?
I love Japanese cinematography, Japanese food, culture, aesthetics… Now, I’ll have an opportunity to be on source of all of this… I can’t imagine anything better!
You are successful and accomplished actress today and one time you said that you were sick when you first saw yourself on the big screen. It was after the screening of the film “Barking at the Stars”. How would you describe your acting path?
My acting path was completely atypical. The first encounter with myself on the big screen… The close-up which I still remember so vividly had totally shocked me. It is hard to explain. It is an irrational matter. I think my subconscious recognized start of its own disclosure then. It was the first film, the first step on the road that appeared after. My extreme introversion has received confirmation that the desired transformation begins… It was a great inner turmoil. Soon, the work in the theater started, and just when everything seemed fine I ran away to Italy to think about it. After a one year break, which is always kind of a risk, I came back and continued to work in theater, as a member of the JDP. Shortly after, Kusturica… Incredible art and life experience. It lasted a year. Then Cannes… And when offers arrived from France, I ran away again, estimating I still didn’t have the strength for everything such life could bring. And then, logically, I found a way to gain that power, in my own way. And then the gift happened, the greatest of all, and it was Djurdja… (Of course, Vuk arrived before, so all this was possible later). After that another pause of two and a half years, I have returned to the theater and film, newborn, with a newfound strength, born of an awareness that everything is just as it should be. My runaways seemed non-constructive to a practical eye, and to me they were the only possible approach to myself. A little later Dana arrived. Another absence for training my own, but also my acting being… And here I am, ready and I guess strong enough, waiting for everything that expects me in my artistic path.
What did you expect from a profession which you found in, as you said, almost by coincidence? What did you expect from yourself?
I never expect anything. I just listen to myself, to the moment, to the world around… To the reality of art and its changes. I expect constant moving and self-improvement from myself.
What in the acting or in the art attracts you most? I believe that the awards, fame and power are only the outer parts of your call, and it is actually an opportunity for realization of own being what the actor tends to.
What excites me most in the art is the possibility of other reality. Life within it, which is just as real and intense. Often even more intense than our everyday lives. Then, the opportunity to share my experience of the world with the audience… With so many of them. That already alleviates loneliness, so characteristic for the time we live in. And when I add to this the necessity to awaken my emotions continuously…
You give yourself to the audience completely. You are one of those actresses who are exposed to a variety of emotional wear and tear. We can see you on television, in theater, in film. How do you manage to keep yourself, your reality and energy to continue?
My spending and exposure just renew and encourage me. I keep myself and my reality, especially my own freedom, in a way I do not sell a single piece of me for anything in the world. There is no loan or role which can bring sacredness of the freedom to question.
Acting involves internal and external exposing. Which of those processes is easier for you to pass through?
Internal exposing is no longer a problem. I can be completely naked there… But the other one, in my case, it’s always a great torment.
How do you go in the character you play? Is makeup and costume significant support?
Costume and makeup complement and assist me to express as more expressive and accurate a foundation that is primarily inside me, and to find its manifestation. My process always goes from the inside out…
Do you ever get tired of someone else’s words, thoughts, actions?
Other people’s words and actions can be incredibly healing, if they are dealing with big issues. With the issues that always rock, and also devise our lives. Such literature and its characters offer endless comfort, as to the audience, so to us, the actors who interpret these characters. These thoughts inspire our existence, both personal and acting. Superficiality, banality and lack of generosity always trouble me, and that always leads me when I choose the project to work on.
You walked down the red carpet. “Life is a Miracle” of Emir Kusturica, which you played the female lead in, took you to Cannes. How much this recognition was important to you, since you were very young?
Everything was in harmony… For me, it was the confirmation that life is indeed a miracle!
You’ve stated once that theater is an elusive thing for you. Why?
The theater is elusive in the sense that you can never know what kind of the audience will come and be your partner throughout the show. You cannot say with certainty what your performance as an actor will be like. In addition to the usual preparation and repetition of text, every day is completely different regarding the energy, physical, mental and psychological resources… The text is the same, the scenery, the motion in the scene or the mise-en-scene, the relations of the characters are known, but the delicate frequencies of each actor and his harmony with the whole ensemble… And then another harmonization of these on stage with those in the audience. So, isn’t it the complete roulette and gambling? You never know who will survive!
What do you find happiness in? The point?
I think happiness is a consequence of the sense. The sense depends on the dedication, continuous effort, the courage to divest ourselves of egocentrism, empathy we have for the world and people around us. Once you open that door, the sense cannot go away, but only increase and expand with the time.
You often speak in public about your family, about your husband and two daughters. I believe that the roles of wife and mother are far ahead of all others. Are Vuk, Djurdja and Dana your mover in life?
My family is my biggest support, mover and source of meaning… It enriches my stage breathing and makes me courageous in every sense. Only now I have the audacity to exist and move in the coordinates that I have always sensed they really belong to me.
U zdravom životu?
Healthy living includes a lot of things. First of all, avoid bad company, food, music, pointless conversations, daily newspapers and TV. Perhaps healthy life is mostly compliance with yourself, but with the deepest, most intimate own vibrations.
Is homeopathy in that corpus?
Homeopathy is an amazing discovery for me. For years I confirm its advantage over conventional medicine. It’s delicate and it treats our problems more comprehensive. It is also in accordance with the time we live in. We can no longer rely on such crude and unrefined diagnoses that standard medicine relies on.
Astrology? Why?
Astrology is another way to understand more of myself, the world, the universe, love. A famous astrologer wrote once, when asked why he studied astrology, that he, in fact, within each birth chart asks for what is philosophical in the being… This is the main channel that will allow all potential living within a horoscope, and therefore within certain individual, to reach its own fullness. This is so true… What is philosophical in us wants to find the sense, God, to give up the passion, materialism… I’m terribly curious regarding all of this.
Music accompanying your life and work presentation on the official website is Tom Waits’ “All the World is Green”. Was this your choice?
It was just my choice, because Tom Waits is magical.
Dance. Your great love.
Dance is just like poetry… The highest sky from Earth… Freedom and salvation are in dance and poetry!
Love. Your guiding light.
I have already spoken about it so much… Anyway, my attitude to life is primarily loving. I give myself to it completely.
Religion. God. Just in case you want to share with us.
God is like infinite love and freedom, our only connection with eternity. The divine Eros and longing that each of us longs for. Awakening of this desire is already a step up to the entry into a new empire… Although on the ground, this newfound paradise is full of comfort and meaning. It is also full of suffering.
Ego. What would you say about your own?
I watch over him constantly. Sometimes my guard is in vain, its mechanisms are so sophisticated.
Alter ego. Is it sometimes related with acting?
It’s possible it is. It is a bit “higher” ego. A better me that is looking for its fulfillment just through the art.
