"Movies are a fad. The audience really wants to see live actors on stage," said Charlie Chaplin.
An actress Isidor Minic, who charms with a smile and conquers with talent, the audience really has the opportunity to see on stage. She has been a permanent member of the "Atelje 212" Theater since 1998, and has performed on the stages of the National and Yugoslav Drama Theaters, the Zvezdara Theater, the Montenegrin National Theater, as well as in the "Boško Buha" and "Puž" theaters. It is difficult to count the plays in which she played or is playing, and it is even more difficult to say which role suited her best - whether it is Julia, Nadezhda from "Family Tales", Elektra, Nadezhda from "Grasshoppers"...or one of the current current ones. It is also in films and TV series, but in the theater it is on its own.
Theater - a refuge for the soul and for the game
"When my generation started acting, unfortunately there wasn't that much filming. Those were the crisis nineties, so the theater was our refuge. That's where we all started and worked a lot. I still work a lot in the theater to this day, much more than in television or film. Somehow, the theater is more "in my feet" and that's why I don't have any fear or the unknown about it. I work in both film and television, but I haven't had as much training on the big screen as in the theater. Just because of that unknown, I still have some apprehension and I don't feel so free and relaxed", Isidora told "Magazin" after the play "Sin" at the Nikšić Theater.
She is proud of the variety of theater roles, of the directors with whom she worked and works, of the colleagues with whom she "plays on stage". She's not one of those actresses who covet certain roles, but that's why the roles covet her.
"I had beautiful, diverse roles, from contemporary plays to classics, both Greek and Russian, and our writers, worked with top directors, both from Serbia and from the region. I have to be grateful for that. I see that today's youth do not have that experience, that they skip some steps. And that experience means a lot - not only on stage but also in life, to hear what someone tells you on stage Dejan Mijač, Egon Savin, Jagoš Marković... These are beautiful and meaningful experiences for us. I never wanted anything, it always surprised and pleased me. And so today. I don't have any theater roles that I want. Maybe I would prefer to deal with these other media, film and television, to gain some self-confidence to be able to play with these media, like when I play on stage".
She admits that she knows how to choose roles, that she believes in intuition, and she refused her first role as a child - she was offered to star in the film "Lost Homeland", in which the star of the Yugoslav scene, her mother, acted Neda Spasojevic.
"I have to feel something, to like the text, and then also the part in which I will participate. I quite intuitively believe in myself and when I feel something at first, when it attracts me, even though I still don't know how it will turn out, and I don't have any awareness of what it will be, I accept the role. When I have the opportunity to choose, I choose, because you shouldn't be a fool and think you can do everything. I don't think I can do everything. It is much better to accept a role when it intrigues you, when you feel something and want to 'fight' with it, than to play at all costs".
Acting genes were destined for her, painting bypassed her
When she was little, she didn't dream of being an actress. It came naturally, or the acting genes worked, but only when she entered the Academy did she fall in love with acting and realized that it was the calling she was born for.
"I didn't set out that I had to be an actress, but I wanted to try, so if it works - it worked, if not - I'll move on to some other waters. It wasn't until university that I fell in love with acting, and discovered that it was a place where I could let go of everything I had inside me, but still keep it hidden. That is the benefit of this job, although it is also learned. Not everyone is able to open up so much and surrender to a role. But that's what I really like about this job - to have my own outlet and to be able to use that inner wealth of mine through the characters I play, to sort of purify myself through that. Therefore, when something is truly yours, then in my opinion it is the most convincing and impressive for the one who observes you, i.e. audience".
She inherited acting genes from her mother, but she couldn't teach her to act. Isidora was only eight years old when Neda Spasojević, an actress of magnificent talent and beauty, unique and mysterious, passed away.
"Physically, I strongly resemble her. She left early and I couldn't learn anything from her, so what's left in me is genetics, a gift that probably runs through my veins as well. And which she gave me. It was not immediately publicized whose daughter I was, so I was able to study more calmly and enter the theater and television without any burden. With the first appearance and some successes, it was also necessary to find out whose daughter I was, but by then my career was already on the upswing, so I didn't have any panic or burden about it. I have already taken the first steps and started to prove that I can successfully deal with the work that she also dealt with".
If she inherited the acting genes from her mother, it seems that she did not inherit the painting genes from her father. Isidore's father, Branimir Bane Minic is a famous painter and one of the founders of Shkadarlija as an artistic district.
"I don't have those genes, or my father suppressed them in me, knowing how bloody bread it is. And maybe I really wasn't for it. Although we always carried a pad and crayons on all our summer and winter vacations, even though I sometimes messed something up just to kill time, I never took it seriously. He very easily suppressed it in me, the idea that I had anything to do with fine arts. What remained was this acting that I came to love through the Academy, and which was probably always in me and around me".
She would like natural sciences to be her favorite
She admits that it was never her goal to build a career. She just, as she says with a smile, loved her job and wanted to dance. That's why she never dreamed of a foreign career, nor was the lights of Hollywood tempting. She only regrets that culture is difficult to build in these areas, but that is why it is quickly destroyed. And culture is the identity of a people.
"I love those 200-300 people in a theater to whom I can give what I have to give. Or that they watch me here in the cinema, that I can constantly give myself to the audience, to search, to explore. And not that I wash dishes in some Hollywood for ten years until my chance to possibly move a little. Years have passed, and in our business every year is important and one must use it, because now I can no longer, neither with this knowledge nor with these years, play something that I played when I was 20 years old. It is wonderful that an actor can play from youth to old age. That is the wealth of this business of ours. I'm only sorry that here life is not so nice, that people and professions are not respected like they are elsewhere, so then you get that kind of regret. Then I think where I would be there, with what I have done so far. It's usually like that with us - make a success and then start all over again".
After the New Year, the audience will have the opportunity to watch her on the small screen in the crime series "The Call", and there is also the second season of the series "The Singer".
"We also finished the film 'Heroji Haliarda', and a week ago the premiere of the feature film was held Matija Gluščević i Dusan Zorić, 'Have you seen this woman'. The film is their graduation thesis and I am particularly fond of it. It is a real artistic, but youthful film that deals with a middle-aged woman. Now they won an award at the Author's Film Festival, they were in Venice and now they are going to various European and world festivals. I am really proud of them and I am glad that I participated in it".
Although, as she says, she still hasn't "revised herself or her life", when she draws the line she can be satisfied with what she has achieved. Anyway, as she points out, she is destined for art, although she wishes she could have had a choice.
"Life always surprises you and - at least in these environments - you constantly start from the beginning and see what you did wrong, where the time went. But again, when you look back and see what happened, it wasn't for nothing, if nothing else. If only I was a little better at math, but I was never into those natural sciences. If I had known that this world was going to go where it was going, I would certainly have told myself to graduate from a specific university, that I could choose some occupations and go somewhere".
This way - exclusively art and nothing else, exclusively here and nowhere else.
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