Marina Gera: “I wanted to be a film actress since I was two years old”

On Monday night, Marina Gera won an International Emmy Award in the best actress category for her portrayal in the TV film ‘Eternal Winter’. We caught up with her a day and a half later in the Hungarian Consulate in New York.

First of all, we would like to congratulate you on this beautiful Emmy Award! How are you feeling now? 

“It’s a little bit like being drunk but I haven’t drunk anything. The past two months were very difficult, I had to process the fact of the nomination and prepare myself for these four days, I really didn’t know whether I should start campaigning or even if this had any sense because after all, how would I by myself be able to compete against the big international production companies. I worried a lot about whether invitations would arrive because of the nomination or I would disappear from the scene if I didn’t win. Luckily, all these bad feelings dissipated when I arrived in New York and I felt that people here were interested in me and that I was enveloped in love. Fundamentally, I did not travel out here for the awards ceremony but for the four-day Emmy festival, where the nominees take part in events, get to know each other and are constantly in the limelight. From this aspect, too, it is very different to the Oscars. This year, by chance the organizers selected the Consulate General of Hungary as the venue for the opening ceremony and it was a really good feeling that I, as a Hungarian, was a guest of honour here, and when I walked up the red carpet and the members of the academy and festival directors called me by my name. The second and third days were very intense, I gave countless interviews, took part in roundtable discussions and meanwhile I tried to get to know my colleagues and co-workers in the profession.” 

Was the possibility of you winning ‘in the air’?

“If I were to say now ‘very much so’ then I would certainly be seen as boastful, but this is how it was, I felt this from the academy members. It was already highly ‘suspicious’ that the festival director invited me to the lunch with academy members prior to the awards ceremony, which included the writers of the ‘Game of Thrones’ and one of the main actors, Peter Hayden Dinklage, gave a speech about what the Emmy means for him. At the awards ceremony in the evening, for the first time in my life, there were 60 photographers on the red carpet all constantly calling ‘Marina! Marina!!!’.

“I must have given at least 15 interviews there and in nearly all of them I said that on this exact day in Hungary we were remembering the victims of forced labour camps, and that it wasn’t possible to conceive of something more fitting than that precisely on this day a film about the horrors of the Gulag should be in the limelight.

“I was greatly affected when, after the nomination, it transpired on what day the prize would be awarded, and that this day coincided exactly with the commemoration day of those deported to the Soviet Union. This was even more pressure on me: not to ruin this fine moment by not winning the prize.” 

But towards the end of the evening they called your name and this really crowned the day!

“Thanks to the positive signs I was not so anxious but when they opened the envelope I was looking down all the time and gave a huge sigh. Perhaps my legs were shaking even more at the medal-giving ceremony, because that is when I happened to find myself in all this, but in a few days I grew into this ‘new role’ and so I collected the prize with a measure of self-confidence.

“I’m really pleased that I managed to have all these great experiences and I did not sense that people felt sorry for this Eastern European actress.”

Are you constantly receiving international offers and has your phone been ringing non-stop since the day before yesterday? 

“Luckily this all started a bit earlier but even so I sometimes feel that I have boarded some strange train that is taking me towards new and exciting adventures. Six months ago, a British producer contacted me saying he would like to entrust the lead role of an international film to me and he was looking for a story specifically for me. I was really pleased but my life didn’t come to a halt because of this, I thought he would get back in touch, I didn’t even check to see who he was, although of course I knew he worked as a senior producer for the BBC. Flirting with an international career aroused mixed feelings in me because obviously I have such disadvantages that I cannot totally resolve, only improve. I’ll always have an accent, but luckily I actually love performing in English and we have a performance in English at home. Academy members tried to persuade me to think about making an international career but for the moment I am being very cautious about even considering this.

“A few weeks later, the abovementioned BBC producer sent me the first screenplay draft and that is when I started doing a background check and found that he is a double Emmy Award winner. Suddenly I was delighted thinking that maybe I, too, had a chance to make it into this apparently unattainable realm, I got so excited I could hardly sleep. In the meantime, an Oscar producer teamed up with him, I would have met them now but they said I should come out first because I was a sure-fire winner and then we would talk afterwards. Who would have thought that this could really happen?

“The BBC and Netflix were behind my rivals, and the Hungarian Gulag Memorial Committee behind me, which obviously was unable to get into promoting the film in America with large sums. It is really amazing that even so they took so much notice of me. The festival director told me that in fact there had not been any question about whether I should win or not. 

“Of course, the fact that I have an Emmy Award does not make me a better actress.” 

You first thanked your foster father for the prize. Why are you grateful to him?

“My dream was to be a film actress since I was two years old. Together, we worked for at least 20 years to make this dream come true and for me to be who I am today. We really did do something for this every day starting from when I was very young. In fact, he is not an actor and yet he was able to help and I will always be grateful to him for this.”