Ekaterina A. (EIE) - The ability to inhabit a role, the desire to evoke strong emotions

I remember one moment. We were performing a scene from Dead Souls: the one with Sofya Ivanovna and Anna Grigorievna. We had those two characters. I played Sofya Ivanovna. We rehearsed for a very long time—every glance, every movement; I became so immersed in the role that even when I came back from camp, two months after it ended, I still felt that I walked like Sofya Ivanovna, spoke like Sofya Ivanovna, and used the same emotional gestures she would.

I meet a friend and, when she leaves, I catch myself repeating her movements, her intonations, her glances, her gestures, etc.

As a child, when I came home from kindergarten, my parents could always tell what kind of day it had been, which teachers were there, what mood they were in, and generally what had happened that day—because when I came home, I had this little chalkboard, and I loved to draw on it and pretend to be a teacher. There weren’t any “students,” but I loved playing school. I imitated exactly the mood and behavior of the teachers that day. They could always tell everything just by watching me.

<…> I want to act in a horror movie. I want a role in a psychological film—not the lead, but a supporting role where you don’t need to say anything, where you just convey emotion so that people understand—emotional impact on the audience without words. A strong role. When you must portray fear, tragedy, so that while the main action happens on stage, I’m in the background—seemingly unimportant, but carrying great weight. I want people’s blood to run cold when they look at me, or for me to scream so wildly that everyone else screams with me and spills their popcorn… To look someone in the eyes and kill without a weapon… to make everyone tremble.