Actress Aggeliki Papoulia has once again worked with the rising star of Greek film Yorgos Lanthimos. Just like their previous collaboration Dogtooth (2008) - his absurdist feature film debut - Alps is full of bizarre moments and dialogues. And that is exactly what makes Papoulia’s role as a nurse who is also an actress so challenging: “Sometimes you have to do something difficult.”
In Alps the members of a remarkable theatre troupe play deceased loved ones and mourning survivors. With a view to working through a bereavement. This leads to awkward, bizarre and even hilarious scenes. But who the characters really are and what their emotional lives are like is consciously left unspoken. Papoulia: “Lanthimos never works with method acting, with characters that have an emotional memory. What their drives are always remains unclear in his films.”
Aggeliki Papoulia (1975), who – after drama school in Athens –primarily worked in theatre, is a blank canvas, as thespians put it. To her, it is no more than normal to modify your appearance for a role: “Yorgos and the stylist thought dark hair would suit my character better. Why? No idea, and I never asked. Since shooting this film about a year ago, I’ve dyed my hair a couple of times. And I have to do it again soon!” she says laughing.
As an actress, alongside undergoing transformations in appearance, you also have to push the boundaries of what you are comfortable with, thinks Papoulis. Nudity and sex scenes are not rejected out of hand. “If it’s for a good role then I don’t have much of a problem with it. Of course, this depends on the director’s vision and whether I trust him or her, but I don’t think in limitations. Sometimes you have to do difficult things, to step out of my comfort zone.” The scene in which a lighting shop owner goes down on her is a good example of this. “Naturally, that was pretty awkward …” There was plenty of laughter on set too though, especially when reading the insanely funny lines Lanthimos had written. “Sometimes we ended up in such hysterics whilst improvising that we had to take a break to regain our composure. The crew also regularly suffered from this affliction.” Her cooperation with Lanthimos made her tons of new friends which isn’t something that happens to her a lot: “I don’t make friends easily. Some actors make friends everywhere they go, but that’s not what I’m like. I also sometimes think no one is interesting enough to get to know. Luckily, Yorgos has managed to gather a great group of people around him.”
Alps - Yorgos Lanthimos
Saturday 4 February 2012 20:00 Cinerama 5
By: Maricke Nieuwdorp