An international production filmed entirely in Romania brings together Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, and director Roland Joff\u00e9 in \u2018The Gray House\u2019, a story about a clandestine network of women involved in espionage during the American Civil War. The cast of the Amazon Prime miniseries also includes the Romanian actress Olivia Ni\u021b\u0103, who plays Amanda Suggs, a widow from Richmond\u2019s high society and a supporter of the Confederacy.<\/p>\n
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For the Romanian actress, the role also involved working with a Southern American accent and participating in a casting call held simultaneously in London, Bucharest, and the United States: \u201cI remember that for the casting call, I was given two scenes in which I had to play Amanda, and that meant I had to speak with a Southern accent. More specifically, it was a typical Virginia accent, and my husband, a native English speaker and an expert on different accents, helped me a lot. I also re-watched \u2018Gone with the Wind\u2019, as well as other movies set in that region and during that period. It seems I did pretty well, because I was called in for the next round of auditions, there were several stages of casting. The process was interesting because I was in London, another actress was in New York, and the people involved in the casting were in several different cities. Everything was happening remotely. After I got the role, I had a session with a speech coach who specialized in accents; he guided all of us and helped us achieve the right accent for the film. I split my time between Bucharest and London, because I had other commitments there as well. It was a wonderful and intense time, and I really enjoyed being caught up in this international flurry of projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Her experience on an international stage comes after more than two decades of training. For Olivia, her first encounter with acting happened much earlier than she could have ever imagined. She was only 11 years old and studying music when a chance encounter led her onto the stage of the National Theater in Bucharest. She was playing the violin when a casting agent looking for children for a production of \u2018The Lost Letter\u2019 play noticed her. An audition with director Alexandru Tocilescu followed, and, for a child who didn\u2019t yet know what the stage meant, it was a meeting with some of the most important actors in Romanian theater.<\/p>\n
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Here is Olivia Ni\u021b\u0103 back at the microphone: \u201cI remember how I came to be part of the project. It was winter, in January, and I was a student at the George Enescu Music High School. A scout from the casting team saw me with my violin and told me they were looking for children to appear in the play \u2018A Lost Letter\u2019, staged at the I.L. Caragiale National Theater in Bucharest. He gave me all the details, contacted my parents, and they were amazed, after all, there weren\u2019t any children in \u2018A Lost Letter\u2019. A few days later, I arrived at the National Theater, on the stage of the Main Hall, and met the director, Alexandru Tocilescu. We had a long conversation, and he asked me to play some Bach for him. As it happened, I actually knew a piece by Bach. We also talked about cats, since we both liked them. Now, when I look back, I realize that I was just a kid back then and didn\u2019t understand the impact that experience would have. I was performing on the same stage with actors whom I admired or who later became my teachers: George Iva\u0219cu, R\u0103zvan Vasilescu, Ion Lucian, and Florin Zamfirescu. I also had the chance to work with \u0218tefan Iordache. It was an experience where I simply acted and enjoyed myself. And it was also the experience that clearly paved my way to theater. My character was the daughter of Pristanda, the obsequious and opportunistic police officer, preoccupied with keeping his job and pleasing those in power. I was the only child in the cast, and even though my character didn\u2019t have a name, she was always there wherever Pristanda was.\u201d<\/p>\n
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That first role was followed by television, the Theater Department at the \u201cI.L. Caragiale\u201d National University of Theater and Film in Bucharest (UNATC), and studies in the United Kingdom. Olivia has taken on a wide variety of projects, ranging from Romanian productions to international series, and \u2018The Gray House\u2019 is one of her most recent collaborations with an international film crew. For this production, Romania was not merely the filming location. The set design and costumes were created by Romanian artists Adrian Curelea and Oana P\u0103unescu, and the miniseries brought together actors from several countries. The Amazon Prime production features an impressive soundtrack, with songs by famous artists such as Willie Nelson, Jon Bon Jovi, and Shania Twain, and was presented at the Monte Carlo Television Festival. (LS)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An international production filmed entirely in Romania brings together Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, and director Roland Joff\u00e9 in \u2018The Gray House\u2019, a story about a clandestine network of women involved in espionage during the American Civil War. The cast of the Amazon Prime miniseries also includes the Romanian actress Olivia Ni\u021b\u0103, who plays Amanda Suggs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":1060754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[29241,196967,196968],"coauthors":[113268],"class_list":["post-1062611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-film","tag-olivia-nita-en","tag-the-gray-house-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n