At the last Egg(s)Hell performance, there was an announcement for the "Favorite Actor of the Season," and based on audience votes, you were the winner. Were you surprised?

- I didn’t expect it at all. My family, friends, and former colleagues rarely get to watch me live, as they live in Transylvania, but they were really happy with the little video that appeared on Facebook. Many wrote to me, saying they were proud of me and cheering me on. Some of them voted for me, and it seems that here in Budapest, too, many people like me.

- When you thanked for the award, you said that you didn’t think you’d be so well-liked in your “new home.” Is your story a “little prince” tale?

- There’s something in that. Since we’re talking about folk tales, I did indeed set out to conquer the world, and I ended up here in Budapest. This isn’t my home, but the theater can be a kind of home, and that’s exactly why I came here. Winning the love of the audience and people in a foreign land feels like a double victory.

- What does the Maladype "human actor" philosophy mean to you today?

- Maladype is very different from other theaters, especially from the traditional ones. Even the reading rehearsal looks different – we don’t get to know a play with pre-written situations, pre-designated actions, but we read without any prior signs. We read, unfold, look into it, add our own thoughts and experiences, and in the end, it comes together. The director’s concept can also include my own interpretation. Despite Zoli having his ideas, I can still unfold a role in such a way that I feel everything happening is something I’m discovering here and now. He can guide my attention in such a way that I, like a little child, end up realizing what he wants me to realize. For me, it’s important to search, to investigate, and the most wonderful thing is when my opinion about something changes – when, at the beginning of a rehearsal, I’m convinced the branch is green, and by the end, I realize it’s actually blue, but it’s still a branch.

- Has the kind of "stripping down" that human acting requires ever frightened you?

- When, in 2010, my first year with Maladype, we had to go out on the street and promote Platonov in subway stations, that was tough. We had to write a speech and perform it for people in the subway, while someone filmed it with a camera. Starting here, in Budapest, it wasn’t pleasant. I had to stand there, my face was red, I thought about my parents, wondering what they would think if they saw me doing this... It wasn’t just a professional, but a personal "stripping down." But these battles had to be fought, so now I can say I’ve learned something.

- Many people consider you a strong woman. Do you see yourself that way?

- I don’t feel particularly strong because I’ve always had many people standing by my side. I’d only feel truly strong if everyone had been working against me, and yet I was still here. I’m lucky because many good people have steered my life in a positive direction, and I’ve never really experienced true evil. Or if I have, I’d have to say I could take even more.

- You also handle physical strain well. Did that develop at Maladype?

- No. In Timișoara, the rehearsals and choreography we had to do were also very tough. Many different directors came through there, and some of them were real eccentrics... I think people consider me strong because when I commit to something, I try to do it with all my strength. But that was also the case back home when we were collecting coal. We did it until it was done, or until it got dark.

- You meet many young people in camps, at public meetings, and in schools. Has anyone ever asked you for advice?

- When we held a class for the theater students of Károli Gáspár Protestant University, Zoli asked me to tell them the pros and cons of acting. I burst into tears because when you’re in rehearsals, you don’t think much about yourself, about where you are in life, but when you’re confronted with a question like that, you realize what this profession entails. Sometimes I feel like I let people down, and I’m terrified that one day I’ll be left alone. I think that’s the biggest danger of this profession. On the other hand, there’s so much joy, the feeling that you’ve shown something that makes people clap with joy, and the development you notice in yourself every day.

- What do you remember most fondly from last season?

- One beautiful memory is the three-week rehearsal process in Italy, when we worked on Macbeth/Anatomy in a theater converted from a monastery. It was a concentrated effort, with only the last day left for rest. I walked 10 kilometers to get to the neighboring village, just to release the tension and "process" all the experiences I had during the 20 days spent in Fara Sabina. Another fond memory is from the Platonov revival, when Sasha spoke for the first time after two years... It was surprising that I didn’t pick up from where I left off. I said the same things, but from a different perspective, and it was the voice of a more mature person.

- Apart from Macbeth/Anatomy and the “old-new” Platonov, you also had a premiere this season, Roberto Zucco, directed by Ivica Buljan. How did it affect you?

- The monologue of the sister in Roberto Zucco represented a significant breakthrough for me. I don’t say it in my mother tongue, but in English, and yet the text doesn’t feel foreign to me – it always comes from the same place. In fact, the entire Zucco was a step forward because by then, everything we had learned at Maladype had come together. Perhaps this is because Ivica’s working methods are completely different from Zoli’s. In Zucco, we were much more dependent on ourselves. Zoli wasn’t there with tasks and exercises to guide us toward solutions. We didn’t want to please anyone, but we used what we had learned from him. What Zoli planted in us is no longer a goal but a tool in our hands.

- Have you reached home yet?

- I feel like I still have a lot to learn, but Maladype is a suitable workshop for that. What I like about it is that we never stop and say, "We’re done." We’re always looking for new challenges, always striving to reach a new level. Right now, I plan to enroll in English classes and take singing lessons. I’ve also started swimming, which, while not contributing directly to my artistic work, does impact how I feel in my body, and that affects my performance. The area I most want to improve in is communication. It’s important that I can convey to the audience everything I discover. Because it’s useless if you find something, but can’t communicate it.

Kata Koroknyai, szinhaz.hu, 2014

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek