with MultipleKarolina Wydra is living many actors’ greatest dream — and their worst nightmare.
Sure, she records and works with creator Vince Gilligan and plays all of her scenes opposite Rhea Seehorn. But the strange specificity of her role in the Apple TV drama — she’s essentially an ambassador for a peaceful human race with a shared consciousness, thanks to an alien virus — means she can’t really fight back.
“I’m from Eastern Europe, I have a big personality, and a lot of emotions,” the Polish-born actress said during a conversation in May. “I cry so much that my friends say to me: ‘Jesus Christ, just stop!'” So it’s a real challenge because there were moments when I was watching Raya, whose performance was so beautiful and rich, and I just had to turn it off? If I see you doing something, I’ll react to it.
Naturally, Wydra’s acting friends were surprised when she landed the role of the Zenned-out know-it-all antagonist in one of the most anticipated series in recent memory. (Gilligan You’d better call Saul The follow-up scored a two-season ranking in a heated bidding war.) But it’s not just because she tends to be in her feelings. Wydra had been without representation for some time when the possibility of booking the coveted gig first arose. “I took a break from acting to be a stay-at-home mom,” says the actress, whose previous credits include “I took a break from acting to be a stay-at-home mom.” True Blood, Justified, Sneaky House and Shield agents. “When my agent and manager left me, I had no idea how I was going to get back in my early 40s.”
Multiple Casting directors Sharon Bialy, Cherie Thomas and Russell Scott reportedly received somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 inquiries for the most prominent supporting role in Multiple. The role of Zosia, with few exceptions, is almost the only one that gets significant screen time along with Rhea’s Carol. But when Wydra’s name came up – she was in Gilligan’s extended ode, having worked with Bryan Cranston on… Sneaky Pete -There was no easy way to contact her.
It was a commercial agent, who didn’t even represent Wydra, who called her and told her about this opportunity. (“I was on their list, but I wasn’t working with them,” she says.) So, she put herself on tape, was asked to come in and read some fake dialogue, and then, after a long, agonizing Christmas break, she got a call in the new year to book the gig. “I cried and my husband took off his shirt and screamed very dramatically,” she says. “It was like a bad comedy.”
Wydra still didn’t have an act at this point, so she had to “borrow” a manager from her best friend. Outlander Star Caitriona Balfe, and seek the help of a lawyer. Once the part was hers, she received the first of two scripts. Zosia is absent from the first show, but the second episode introduces her walking down a dirty hillside in Tangier, piloting a cargo plane to Albuquerque and arriving clean and calm, as the hive mind’s point of contact with Carol — one of the last dozen bakers unaffected by the virus and the show’s narrative engine.
“That’s when I discovered the importance of Zosia,” she says. “And I was…so scared.”
Widra began her research by looking at how highly intelligent people behave, how they move, how they look, and how they interact with others. She and Gilligan decided that Zosia should speak appropriately and very diplomatically. However, she sometimes found herself slipping into the natural desire for her character to act like a human being.
“We’ll call him that day,” Wydra says of the shoot. “I’d do something and Vince would say, ‘Oh, it looks like you have a secret.’ You don’t have secrets. You’re not manipulative. A lot of times, I had to go against my natural instincts.”
Ethical lines in Multiple It’s blurry, intentionally so. Zosia, although kind and sympathetic during her interactions with Carol, is the actual villain of the series and has the primary goal of forcing Carol to assimilate. This dichotomy may have a lot to do with why the response to Wydra’s performance has been so strong. It’s no surprise that she has an agency and manager again. Incoming calls. The meetings are full of flattering notes for her work on the show. But when discussing the biggest change, yetMultipleWydra mostly seems to have been activated. She is working on the script with a friend. She wants to bring Polish stories to international platforms. She, like the viewers of her series, is looking forward to returning to the set on schedule Multiple Production resumes on the second season.
“There’s something about this show that touches so deeply on its time,” Wydra says. “When people tell you they know what’s best for you, that’s the most dangerous thing. It’s terrifying.”
