Interview: Luna Pilić, actress

„Kid is the best actress I have ever worked with!" - these were the words of Slavko Sobin when I mentioned his colleague Luna Pilić. „She is spectacular!“, he continued. I reminded him that some years back I asked him to stop by Jantar and meet a girl who had an ambition to become an actress and who worshiped Slavko, but he could not find time for my silly requests. 

This girl was, naturally, Luna Pilić herself, who was finishing her English C2 course at Jantar, and preparing to take Cambridge C2 Proficiency exam. I remember her as cheerful and outgoing person, a student who loved to chit-chat every time she would stop by the office. Today Luna studies drama at the academy in Belgrade and recently became well-known for her part as Slavko's girlfriend in TV series Crno-bijeli svijet (Black-and-White World). She was able to come home for Christmas break, so we caught her for a short interview, which she started by sending warm regards to her teachers Vesna and Ante. 

I remember you wanted to study acting. If I remember correctly, your father was not the happiest with the idea. This was five years ago, when you also graduated from Jantar. Tell me a bit about how you managed to fulfill your dream and got your first major part.

Well, my father wasn't the happiest about the idea, but he gave me all the support I needed. Both of my parents gave me a lot of support straight out of high school, but since I failed to enroll the academy during that first year, they insisted that I should find an alternative. Apart for acting, I also always enjoyed literature, so I enrolled an undergraduate program in Russian language and comparative literature. However, my interest was with Russian literature, not really Russian language. A month after I started my studies, I found myself in a situation that I was studying something just because it was expected of me, not because I liked it.

At that point, I switched to comparative literature program only. My father was furious - he told me that such degree would not give me many options in life. But I pushed on, completed my studies within the deadline, while at the same time I never gave up attempts to enroll acting academy. I managed to enter the second round of enrollments in Zagreb twice, once in Sarajevo. One year I went for enrollments in Zagreb, Belgrade, Novi Sad and Sarajevo. My father took a vacation to be able to drive me all over the place, which tells you that he was in fact very supportive. When I was down, he would find ways to encourage me and keep me going.

Then I found out about the academy where Goran Jevtić was doing the recruiting. Academy in Serbia functions a bit differently - over there, a class of students is hand-picked by a specific teacher, and you spend most of your time with that particular teacher. That's why with Serbian actors, you often see a title "Class of such and such". It is considered that this teacher will leave his mark on his students, and that we pick up a bit of his personal acting style. 

I knew a girl from Split who studied with Jevtić. After meeting her, I decided to go to Belgrade for individual consultations. I met Jevtić and fell in love with him! Went to the preliminary enrollment period in May and got in. My entire world turned around. That summer was the most carefree summer I've ever had. This was back in 2019, and now I'm doing my second year at the academy. At one point, we got a new teacher - an actor, Bojan Žirović. That turned out great! It was his first teaching gig so he ended up giving us everything he had. And he turned out to be an amazing teacher!

A nice and motivating story, but something about it bothers me a bit. When I spoke to Slavko, he had nothing but praises on account of your talent and acting skills. I can see that he openly praises you on various portals and forums. As an educator, I wonder how it is possible that your peers recognize your talents immediately, but you struggled with enrolling the academy.  

Listen, art is very subjective. Maybe at the moment I wasn't what they were looking for. Maybe the tone of my voice wasn't right. Maybe I had too much of Dalmatian accent. Maybe I was too cheerful for them. Maybe they just didn't see a potential for molding me into something they needed at the time. For example, my second attempt to audition in Zagreb, one of the teachers told me that I was a lot more "naive" during my first audition. In other words, at my second audition they already thought that my character was formed to an extent, and that it will be more difficult to mold me into something else. 

OK, but shouldn't the academy be able to take any talented individual and turn them into a good actor, not rely on their students being "unformed"?  

Unfortunately, academies do not cherish actor's individuality enough. But who knows where I would be today if I actually managed to enroll the academy at my first attempt. Even Mira Karanović, the greatest actress from this part of the world ever, enrolled the academy after her third audition - that tells you everything. 

On the other hand, Jevtić is known for seeking relatively formed characters. For example, one of my peers is a 32-year-old history teacher who spent last 13 years working as customs officer at the border. Now he's studying acting. 

Second year and you're shooting a TV show. How is that working out? 

While I was trying to get into the academy, I was going to drama workshops and various castings. It was all unpaid projects, but I simply wanted to work. At one point I went to a casting ran by Kaja Šišmanović, whom I did not know at the time. Didn't even know who she was, all I knew was that she was working on a project of her own and looking for an actress. I called her producent and asked it my accent was a problem (considering project was taking place in Zagreb) and she said it wasnt. So I went to casting and got "it was good but your Dalmatian accent is a problem, producent was wrong, sorry but I really need a girl from Zagreb". 

Some time later I start watching CBS and saw Kaja on TV. I thought "awesome, I went to this girl's casting". Three years later Kaja calls me out of the blue and says "Hey, I have a role for a Split girl - are you interested?" I sent my casting on a tape from Belgrade and got a call to do a live one with Slavko. And I got the part...

And ended up with Slavko...

Yes! Lol!

And how was it, working with Slavko?

Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful. First of all, he is an amazing actor. He is also an unbelievable partner, and that's something that really matters in acting. There are actors who like to be alone on stage, do monodramas, stand-up and things like that. But most of us are into live interaction on the set and that's something that can only happen between you and me. When we're both there. That's what you keep coming back to as an actor.

Slavko is amazing in that way. I was surprised with the amount of attention he gave me during filming, how he took care of me. You're his brother so you know him well, but for most of us he is simply a star. And then you realize he is also a good man.

General impression of CBS? Filming in Zagreb and studying in Belgrade? Fourth season? 

Filming was difficult. For a while I was chauffeured back and forth between the two countries. I would literally walk into the classroom with my suitcase quite often. But that's not uncommon in this line of work. 

As far as the show is concerned, I haven't read anything from the fourth season apart from my own lines. I wanted to enjoy the viewer's experience. I watched the show with my dad and it was a great experience because it kept bringing him back to his youth. He would explain some things that I missed and we ended up bonding even more through the show. I have to admit that I found the first season a bit slow, but then everyone loosened up and became more natural, and that's how show became great. 

Yes, I agree. From viewer's perspective, I find it that everything about the show kept evolving, especially actors. 

That's nice to hear. That means that the project grew "organically". Show keeps evolving from seasons to season and becomes better across the board. That's not always the case - more often than not it comes down to spitting out season after season, which is not the case with CBS. 

I generally find CBS first Croatian production where acting occurs naturally. One thing I dislike about Croatian cinematography is the language used by actors - nobody really talks that way in real life. Serbian cinematography is quite different in that regard. 

Yes, but you have to understand the background of it. It is a concept introduced a long time ago by Branko Gavella (theater Gavella in Zagreb bears his name). His intent was to make sure that theatre is in charge of preservation of Croatian language. The problem is that language naturally evolved over time, while theatre language remains the same, despite the fact that no one really talks that way anymore. Academies are generally stern institutions, not really prone to changes. They believe they are in charge of preserving traditions and cultural heritage. Therefore, actors at Croatian academies are trained to speak that way. As an actor, you HAVE TO speak in a certain way in theater, and that's transferred to television as well. 

In Serbia, they take slightly different approach. They teach you to speak throughout the scene, making sure you are heard all the way through, and that there are no speech impairments. There is no accent on specific melody of the language, no one tells you that "sentence must sound like this..." That is why their actors appear more natural on the stage, language freedom allows them to be more spontaneous.