Academy Award nominee Maria Bakalova (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”) chatted about starring in “The Apprentice” and the Bulgarian film “Triumph.”
Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” This quote applies to Maria Bakalova.
‘The Apprentice’
The synopsis is: A young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan), eager to make his name as a hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today.
Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé—someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win. Bakalova portrays Ivana Trump, his first wife
“It was very demanding as a shoot, because we didn’t have a lot of time,” she admitted about “The Apprentice.” “To be completely honest, there is never enough time to shoot a movie; you always wish you have more time. It was all shot in Toronto during the winter.”
“It was cold, even though we were playing different seasons,” she said. “We were shooting in different times, and it was challenging in the physical level of it, and it was also challenging in the memory level of it.
“We had to know what was happening in different years and in different times because it takes place over a ten-year period, pretty much,” she acknowledged.
“At the end of the day, when you have a great team of such dedicated people (all of them in their craft), it feels like a celebration,” she exclaimed.
“It feels like making movies and making magic. It was wonderful, at the end of the day, I wish we would do it again,” Bakalova added.
Bakalova on playing Ivana Trump in ‘The Apprentice’
On playing Ivana Trump, Bakalova said, “I liked everything about her. Ivana became a role model to me, to a degree. The fact that she always kept getting back on her feet — no matter what was happening in her life — was quite inspiring.”
Bakalova continued, “Ivana knew that there was always a way of coming back and coming back stronger, and I love to be able to play somebody that has been so outspoken, so bold and so daring to be opinionated, especially in the ‘70s and the ‘80s.”
“Ivana was outspoken back in the ‘70s and the ‘80s,” Bakalova said. “Ivana wanted to be seen as an equal and she wanted to be a partner in this. She didn’t want to just be in the shadow even though she decided to take a step back and allow him to shine more than her,” Bakalova elaborated.
“I feel that Ivana was just as important in building his business as himself,” he added.
Maria Bakalova on the awards buzz that ‘The Apprentice’ has been generating
This movie has been generating awards buzz this Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG season, with critics praising the acting performances of Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, and Bakalova.
“I hope everybody in this movie gets a lot of recognition because everybody deserves to be seen,” she said.
“What our director, Ali Abbasi, has managed to do, and the entire team, is just incredible. Also, what Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong have done with their acting work is just amazing,” Bakalova acknowledged.
‘Triumph’ movie
Bakalova stars as Slava Platnikova in the new international film “Triumph.”
In “Triumph,” she took on the dual roles of lead actress and producer. “It has been a magical experience,” she said about “Triumph.” “I’ve been wanting to collaborate with the duo of directors (Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov) for a long time. They were some of my teachers back in my university days.”
“I loved their work and how they managed to create such an interesting genre between drama (heavy and emotional drama) mixed with satire, absurdity and social commentary of the environment,” she noted.
“Triumph is a part of a trilogy, and these things really happened in my country of Bulgaria,” she said.
“It’s strange to think about the fact that back in the ‘90s, a country like mine decided to trust a psychic to lead a mission of digging a hole underground by the Bulgarian Army and wasting a lot of money and wasting a lot of time in search of alliance intelligence,” she elaborated.
“It has been interesting to mix this mystical story in the environment of a very difficult time for my country back in the ‘90s after the fall of communism, feeling fragile and not knowing what to do and which side to take,” she explained.
“My country has been the only one to choose a communistic dictator after not having to be part of a communistic environment anymore. If you mix the social environment with the mystical side of it, you have ‘triumph,’ which is a beautiful mixture of life and absurdity in life,” she added.
‘Triumph’ — A co-production between Bulgaria and Greece
Bakalova stated that the international film “Triumph” is a co-production between Bulgaria and Greece. It has been selected as Bulgaria’s candidate for the 97th Academy Awards in the “Best International Feature Film” category.
“My dream is for people to see this movie and to get a sense of that place because it’s very authentic at the end of the day,” she said.
“It is also very universal, so I just wish for a lot of people to watch the movie and be open-minded and open-hearted to experience this comical tragedy because that is what ‘Triumph’ is,” Bakalova elaborated.
“If you look at it closely, you see it as a drama, if you look at it from afar, it looks like a satire,” she added.
The digital age
On being a part of the digital age, Bakalova responded, “I don’t really know. We are having this beautiful interview on Zoom and it’s working in my favor because I am in Canada right next to the Rocky Mountains far away from where you are in New York, and we can do this because of technology thanks to the digital age.”
“On the other hand, it’s a bit of a sacrifice of art in general… It is easy to get information, and if you manage to use it in a smart way, you can find a lot of benefits in it… but if you get soaked into the idea of using it only to make yourself lazy and not putting in the effort, then it’s working against you,” Bakalova explained.
Bakalova noted that the digital age is a double-edged sword. “It’s good and it’s not good,” she noted. “Some movies are made to be seen on streaming platforms, where some shows and some movies work better at home,” she said.
“During the COVID lockdown, the only hope and escape from these four white walls was through digital and the streaming platforms… so it’s just as equally crucial,” she noted.
Bakalova continued, “On the other hand, a lot of movies don’t work at home… you need an audience and this contagious feeling of the audience’s reaction and how they perceive the scenes. If the audience loves a scene, then you understand that maybe it’s okay to love at the scene. If the audience gasps, then maybe it’s okay to gasp.”
“It’s a shared experience,” she admitted. “For me, it is always better to go to a theater and to experience something on the big screen, as a cinematic lover. You can also see a lot of details such as the music, the sound, and the sound design… it is always more influential in a theater.”
Oscar nomination for ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’
In 2021, Bakalova was nominated for the “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role” Oscar for her acting work in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.”
“It has been wonderful,” she exclaimed. “It’s the biggest thing that can happen to you, and I was lucky enough to have this happen to me when I was working and surrounded by some incredibly talented people from something that I really cared about.”
“I was shooting a movie called ‘The Bubble’ with Judd Apatow directing it,” she recalled. “I was in the middle of a scene with Pedro Pascal, and Judd just stopped the scene and told me ‘you just got nominated for an Academy Award!'”
“Having that experience shared with somebody like Pedro was an even better feeling because he is exceptionally talented, and on top of that, he is one of the nicest human beings that I’ve met,” she acknowledged.
“It has been incredible, and it has been so important because ‘Borat’ is a satire; it’s a political satire comedy, and usually, comedies are underrated and overlooked, even though they can manage to send a message even more widely simply through the power of comedy and through the tools of entertainment, which manage to make this world a better place,” she elaborated.
Stage of her life
On the title of the current chapter of her life, Bakalova revealed, “Triumph.”
“I feel that title is very accurate right now,” she said. “I’ve been very lucky to be able to work and to be able to do what I love. ‘Triumph’ is a movie that I am really proud of, and as we say in the movie, ‘every day is a triumph.’
Advice for young and emerging actors
For young and aspiring actors, she said, “Coming from a place that doesn’t really get a lot of attention and hasn’t been given a lot of chances, and that’s why I will always be grateful to Sacha Baron Cohen for opening a possibility for somebody like me to take a role that is so widely seen in the face of Tutar (Borat’s teenage daughter).
“Also, I am grateful to Ali for choosing somebody like me… someone from that region of the world that feels authentic to represent somebody as Ivana, who is coming from communistic Czechoslovakia and I’m coming from communistic Bulgaria,” she said.
“Of course, I am fully aware that Czechoslovakia is not Eastern Europe; it’s considered an Eastern country because it has been under the Eastern Bloc… it’s Central Europe but it feels relevant,” she clarified.
“I will always be grateful to both of them (Sacha and Ali) for choosing me to portray characters that feel authentic,” she added.
Best advice that she has ever been given
On the best advice that she has ever been given, she shared, “One of the first pieces of advice I ever got, was to go and watch a lot of independent films, and I keep following that advice. Also, I go to a lot of festivals, and I go see movies that are not necessarily Blockbusters.
“A lot of times, these movies are even more moving and more powerful and they give you the opportunity to expand your cinematic culture by seeing different regions of the world and obtaining different tastes and different tools. Get to know directors from all over the world,” she elaborated.
“Just pay attention to the films that don’t immediately get all the attention; if you find these gems, it is just as inspiring for you to know them,” she acknowledged.
“Get a lot of gemstones of how to do your acting and how to build a show. One day, you might be behind the camera and you might want to participate in the producing, writing, and directing teams,” she said.
“Get a lot of tools of how to do this, not only by saying your lines, but get to know the craft and the art of acting. This was the advice that I wish I was given,” she concluded.
Track and field running legend Wilma Rudolph once said: “Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” Maria Bakalova is a woman, actress, and storyteller that embodies this wise quotation.
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