Accent Pieces: Aleksandra Kaniak on Making a Place for Polish in Hollywood
GALO: What was it like to work with Robert Pattinson?
AK: He’s a very sweet young man. And I was concerned because I was thinking, ‘well, he’s just a young man, he’s a movie star, why would he want to learn any Polish, he will probably be very difficult to work with.’ So I prepared myself for that. But no, quite the opposite; he was very sweet [and] very attentive. He really wanted to learn [and] was paying attention to details. It was very important to him that he pronounced everything correctly. He asked me a lot of questions and he really worked hard. I was very surprised. And of course, he’s absolutely gorgeous. He’s so beautiful it hurts.
GALO: You have also done some voice acting for video games. How is it different acting for a game versus a live action movie?
AK: Videogames are fun in the sense that I like the way they look, and they give you a lot of good publicity. You get to wear a lot of really cool outfits, but it’s really tough work in the sense that you basically work by yourself against a green screen and you talk a lot. So at the end of the day, you lose your voice. You just kind of feel isolated because you work by yourself and there are a lot of lines, so you have to learn how to read a teleprompter. It’s very focused work and you don’t have any down time.
On a movie set, in between takes when they are setting the lights, when somebody else’s scene is up, I can hang out. I can have a cup of tea; sit in my trailer, so it doesn’t feel like the work is as strenuous. Also, there is more interaction with other people. I like the result of a video game. I love it. I just prefer to be on a TV show or a movie set.
GALO: What kind of cool outfits have you worn?
AK: A full latex body suit, which was really cool looking. I’m not saying it was fun to wear, because after a while under the hot lights, you start really sweating, but I played Lt. Zofia in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 and Red Alert: Yuri’s Revenge. They custom made this beautiful brown latex suit, and it looked really amazing.
I was hoping they would give it to me at the end, but they didn’t. I wanted it! I would wear it every Halloween.
GALO: Is there any role you would love to play in the future?
AK: I wish I could say I want to play Anna Karenina, which I did once. It was fascinating. But my biggest dream, in fact, is to work on a James Bond movie and be a James Bond girl.
GALO: Who is your favorite Bond?
AK: That would be a young Sean Connery. Although, Daniel Craig is a very handsome man as well, or Roger Moore. I really liked Roger Moore. People forget about him.
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