Alessija Lause (Fotografer: Jasna Lovrinčević

Allesija Lause, best actress at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011 and best stunt 2011 in Los Angeles, was selected as one of two actors from the 700 applicants to work with famous Canadian Oscar winner Paul Haggis personaly on the scene at the seminar in Rome in March 2015.

In the interview I conducted with Alessija Lause just before the Seminar with famous Paul Haggis in Rome, the actress said:
Alessija Lause: “I’m very excited to be working with an outstanding artist, who in Hollywood makes very relevant, but still commercial and successful films, with an artist who produces, writes and directs. I am glad to be able to learn from him. For me that means a lot. ”

Alessija Lause, known as a theater and film artist with outstanding achievements, successful producer with experience in filmmaking says: ”At the momement I have a good idea for a film and a theater performance. However, it is too early to add anything else.”

Alessija Lause is co-founder and a member of the Ensemble Santinis. The Ensemble has won the audience in Berlin for the third consecutive year. The first Santinis performance, Rumors, in 2013, in which Alessija Lause starred and which was on her proposal selected, became the most successful production ever in Berlin Kurfürstendamm Theatre and the most successful production in Germany for the period of its presentation.

Alessija Lause: “I was the leader of last year’s production, but I didn’t play. It was a very good and successful performance. And now, the third is very successful, but I could not participate because at the same time I was working in Luxembourg. I was acting in English there, whicht I like very much. I was working with a young director Anne Simon. It is important for me to make new contacts and meet new people.”

Uhe Role In The Television Series ”The Team”

Alessija Lause (Photographer: Jasna Lovrinčević)

Currently Alessija Lause is brilliant as an actress in the television series ”The Team’‘. It has been on German broadcaster ZDF since February 2015. Her first appearance is in the third episode.

Alessija Lause: “It was filmed for ZDF last year. It was a very ambitious and very good production. I enjoyed participating in ”The Team” enormously. It was a German, Belgian, Swiss, Austrian, Danish and Swedish co-production. The series features eight episodes. It’s very interesting, the actors are great. The development of the story is horizontal, that’s means the story unfolds through all the episodes. It’s a very interesting story, actually terrible and the way the story developst is very intense.”

Alessija Lause has starred in several television series such as Polizeiruf 110, Tatort, Küstenwache whose theme is similar to the most recent series, so I asked her if she loved that role, or it was a coincidence that she starred in that kind of films.

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Do you like that role? Are you looking for a role like that or the roles find you?”
Alessija Lause: “I’m attracted to portray a human being who is real, with his or her ups and downs, with its bright and dark sides, someone who is different, so you can see the different sides of the coin, not someone uniform…I take the roles that I like and sometimes the roles find me . These characters are very interesting. I like them because they are strange people, sometimes very good, sometimes not good at all. I like them because they have a very tight life.”

The Most Important Thing To Me Is To Tell The Story

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Until now you have worked as a theater and film actress, producer, director. Do you work all alternately or simultaneously?”
Alessija Lause: “I work as it comes. The most important thing for me is to tell stories. I will do whatever I have to do to be able to do it. So I’ll either see wether I can find someone who would produce it or whether I will work it myself. I love people and I love the story. That is why I am going to find someone, or I will see if someone finds me with who I can experience this passion. It is very important to work with an equal share. I will always do so that I can fulfilled it, to be in front or behind the camera. I like when people can revive what it previosly used to be only in words, written on paper. I like to transfer the feelings; to see what it is happening and to bring it to life. That means a lot. I’m happy if I can revive a character so that people feel touched, so they become curious, angry, laugh till they drop, or start thinking about what they have seen or have experienced.”

Alessija Lause (Photographer: Jasna Lovrinčević)

Jasna Lovrinčević: “What would you like to transfer to the people?”
Alessija Lause: “I do not want to exaggerate if I say that this is actually the task of art: I want to stay on theme important to our life, to society. Maybe with our art we can slightly improve our society, as thesse subjects warn people and point out a problem or provokes a smile. These are all possibilities. I just think I should take advantage of this platform. I hope to continue getting opportunities and that kind of platforms, so I can tell relevant stories. It’s very exciting, whether it provokes rejection or desire to grasp it personaly. I think that’s important.”

Allessija Lause is this year’s winner of Večernjakova Domovnica, the prestigious award of the Croatian daily newspaper “Večernji List”. This prize is awarded in the categories of drama, music, spectacle and sport for the Croatians living abroad. On the occasion of this award, on 8th of March 2015, Alessi Lause stressed that she will be glad to work in Croatia, her motherland, the country of her origin.
Allessija Lause: “I would like to work there!”

Alessija Lause (Photograph: Stefan Klüter)

Alessija Lause, film and theatre actress, won the Best Actress award at The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011 for her performance in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. In the same year at the Los Angeles New Wave International Film Festival she won The Best Stunts award together with other members of the stunt ensemble for her performance in a short film St. Christophorus: Roadkill.

Polyglot

She is a polyglot. She speaks six languages, and she can easily switch from one language to another if necessary. Her first language is Croatian as well as German since her father is German and her mother is Croatian, who comes from City of Pula. As a child Alessija often travelled to Croatia. In an interview that I conducted with Alessija Lause in October 2013, she lovingly referred to Istria. She said: “I go to Croatia every year, once per year, and I enjoy every second there.”

She also spoke about her desire to work in Croatia.
Alessija Lause: “I would like to work in Croatia. I think about making one solo play in Croatia or with Croatian artists. I worked in the 2003 as a production assistant at Ulysses Theatre on the Brijuni islands. That year in Croatia I worked for one German production company that produced German Film Awards. At that time I was very young and I wanted to learn all about theatre and production, and not just acting. I was interested in everything and all that experience was very good and useful for my current work today. ”

It always starts from the scratch

Besides her acting and stuntwork, Alessija worked as an assistant theatre director. She produced Danny And Deep Blue Sea and she is one of the founders and a member of the acting ensemble Santinis. She organizied the International Alexander Technique workshop in Berlin and, now, she has just started to work with her acting colleague on her own TV series, which they have produced together, and for which Alessija has written the scenario.

Alessija Lause: “I could not do just one thing. Everytime you work on something new, you have to start from the beginning, and this is what I really like in the acting work. It creates new opportunities and you never go in one direction. You have to react thoughtfully, reflect the situation and have self-confidence, but at the same time it is important to be flexible and open to new opportunities. That is what creates the excitement because you can not expect a preconceived course of events. It is necessary to go out of your own shadow and be transparent. This kind of openness creates new opportunities. ”

Acting

Alessija’s first appearance as an actor was when she was six years old. She told me how people from TV companies spontaneously sought permission from her parents on the streets in Munich for her to participate in some television commercials what her parents refused for a long time.

Today Alessija says:
Alessija Lause: ” To make an acting career you must have the discipline, will, desire and the love to do it.”

She has played in many various films and TV dramas and series as SOKO Leipzig, Tatort, Löwenzahn -Schmetterlinge, Großstadtrevier – Fracht aus Abidjan, Polizeiruf 110 – Stillschweigen, Wie Männer über Frauen reden, Basement and ect..

She pointed out how she has learnt the most from Larry Moss, a respectable acting coach, whose workshops she attended in Los Angeles and in Berlin.

Jasna Lovrinčević: ” What do you find fascinating about him?”
Alessija Lause: “I like the most that you feel very alive working with Moss. The acting profession is often very self-centric and egoistic. Working with him that egoism disappears because, according to Moss, the actor should be focused on the content of the story, and how to tell that story in the best way in order to touch the audience. It is important to tell a story with a lot of adore and love for the story and the people. ”

Larry Moss suggested to Alessija Lause the performance Danny And The Deep Blue Sea. With that performance she achieved fantastic success. She won the best actress award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011. With her performing and her acting she told the story in the best way, and in this way she achieved the most important goal for her. She touched the people in audience.

After the performance Danny And The Deep Blue Sea, many people from the audience were waiting outside the theatre for Alessija and her colleague, Nikolaus Szentmiklosia. The people were delighted with their performance.
Alessija Lause: “They were waiting for us. They were crying and embracing us. It was beautiful.”

Photograph: Colin Hattersley

Stuntwoman

Alessija spent nice time working as a stuntwoman. She was prepared for this kind of work practicing different sports and participating in different dance troupes. As a stuntwomen she started to work in 2003 in the same period of time when she was working with Argentine theatre De La Guarda. At that time she was encouraged by one of her acting colleagues to apply to one company which was looking for stunts for one of their show.

Later, during the shooting of a series in Berlin she worked together with one stuntmen who was resposible for stunt work in that series. He was surprised when he realised that Alessija could work as a stuntwoman, and then he invited her to train in his stunt team.

That was the beginning, and later she received many invitations for different movies. She was the stuntwoman in Inglourious Basterds, Wer ist Hanna, The Three Musketeers, The International etc.

Alessija Lause: “It was very nice to learn all of that. For example a fight, that is like a dance, it is kind of a choreography. I like that very much. In stunt work you really have to focus on the things you have to do. You need to trust your partner, you have to know what he is going to do and what you have to do. It was fun for me to do that. I used to work with great people. I loved to work with them, we really had lot of fun. It was the teamwork with more men and less women. This work is quite different from acting. An actress takes her time, but stuntwomen has to act at the exact time; they count: three, two, one, and you must go, there are no chance to wait. It is a collaborative work. You must be very focused on what you need to do. ”

Allesija has been doubled for the actress Diane Kruger in the film Unknown Identity.

Since 2011 she hasn’t work any more as a stuntwoman.
Alessija Lause: “It is enough, I worked worked for many big movies, and now I need time for new things.”