Carolina Bartczak plays Magda, Magneto’s wife in the upcoming blockbuster X-Men: Apocalypse. Comix Asylum recently had the pleasure of chatting with the Toronto native about her character Magda, working with Michael Fassbender, being directed by Bryan Singer and her experiences on the set of the latest big screen installment of the successful X-Men movie franchise.
*Warning: Interview contains spoilers!
SB: Tell us a little bit about your character Magda.
CB: Magda is based on one of the characters in the comic books. In this manifestation of the character she’s a little different. Magneto meets her a few years after the White House debacle and on their first night he confesses to her who he is and that he’s the most wanted man in the world. For some reason she sees something beautiful in him, like Charles does, and sees past everything that’s been written about him. They fall in love and start this beautiful family hidden away, because he still has to hide, in the countryside in Poland.
SB: So there are some parallels between the comic books and the film adaptation of the character.
CB: Yes there are. She is Polish and they do have kids together. There wasn’t that much that I was even able to dig up on Magda.
SB: Magda is an obscure character and in the comics she’s the mother of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch as well as another child. She has an interesting birth story concerning the twins because a talking cow helps her deliver them and there’s no way they would have been able to put them into the film.
CB: Also they took it in another direction. In the comics, Magneto and Magda have a much more tormented relationship and in the film it’s a beautiful partnership.
SB: Will it be revealed in the film that you’ll be Quicksilver’s parents?
CB: I’m not actually the mother of Quicksilver in this film. It’s revealed during the movie that Magneto had an affair previous to our meeting and has a love child.
SB: What was it like working opposite Michael Fassbender and the rest of the cast?
CB: Oh man, (laughs) it was really scary (continues to laugh). Luckily Michael is such a wonderful human being. He’s not only professional and a great person and but he probably knew that I was really nervous to work with him. I think the first day on set I was sweating profusely the entire time (laughs). For an actor of his caliber to sit down with an unknown actor and ask, “What do you think this scene is about? Tell me what your thoughts are. What do you think their relationship was like?” We stopped filming for half an hour just to chat about where he thinks they are in their relationship. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience with him. He let me improvise a kiss at one point, obviously my idea, of course (laughs). I was like, “We should try that a few more times. I don’t think we got it on the first take”. It was such a pleasure. Before filming I was terrified and having those high school nightmares where your pants are off and everyone is laughing at you and apparently those never goes away. I was having those kinds of nightmares but in reality it couldn’t have been better.
SB: So he’s a very giving actor.
CB: He makes everyone’s job easier. Oh my God he just comes to the set and he’s ready to play and figure it out. With that improvised kiss, we had just done this critical scene where Magneto is revealed and we’re deciding what we should do. Should we stay, should we run away? Magda is really beautiful and has this trust in humanity that they will see his goodness and accept him. It doesn’t matter what he did in the past because he’s a good man. She’s arguing with him saying “We should stay because these are your friends so they’ll trust you”. He had a very different experience in his life and says no we should go. At one point I have this impulse to kiss him but because I don’t know him that well (as an actor) I stifle the impulse to because I wasn’t bold enough. When Bryan Singer yells cut, Michael says, “I think that kiss in that moment is such a good idea”. So not only did he see it happening he saw me censor it. Then he said to try it again and only kiss me if the impulse comes and I was like yeah, it’ll be there.
SB: What was it like working with Bryan Singer?
CB: Oh, it was so much fun. Again, coming to set each day it felt like we were coming to work as equals on the project. At one point, Michael and I improvised a moment between our characters and Bryan came up to me and said that he “Didn’t see the scene like that. It wasn’t like that in my head but that moment shows me that you two have a secret language, the way that couples do where they can communicate using a look or a single word”. He was open to letting us do what we wanted to do until we found our groove.
SB: Now I don’t know if you had a lot of time to work with any of the other cast members, because it seems that you had a lot of your scenes just with Michael, but the X-Men cast is notorious for pulling pranks on each other during filming. Did you have a chance to experience any of the hijinks?
CB: I unfortunately didn’t get to work with any of the others in the cast. My scenes were exclusively with Michael but I did get to spend a lot of time with them. We shot it in Montreal and its such a small city that we’d all end up at the same restaurants at the end of the day to relax, have a snack and a glass of wine. So I did get to see some of the buffoonery that would go on. They would all get relegated to being in high school again with punching fights and it was a really fun dynamic to be a part of.
SB: You studied biochemistry at the University of Toronto. How did you transition from that to acting?
CB: Oh God, I don’t even know how that happened. I wasn’t really loving biochemistry. It’s a really intense program and the extrovert in me was just dying to get out. Biochemistry is all about studying and learning and at one point I looked up and said I need to go and have fun. What’s the most fun I could do? I picked rock star as number one, two was astronaut and three was actor. I don’t know how to sing so I eventually settled on acting.
SB: When you think about it you could help Professor X out with some of the science stuff.
CB: (laughs) Yeah I could.
SB: You’ve done voice work for projects like The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog and Smurfs 2. How is working on an animated series or film different from being part of a live action movie.
CB: Voice work is actually way more exhausting. When you’re doing voice work our days are only four hours long because you can’t maintain your energy for that long. You have to push all the emotion and facial features through your voice. There’s a reason why there’s a really small pool of voice actors who can really nail it. I don’t even work that often in voice because there are so many talented and specialized actors in the field and it’s quite challenging. On film you get more chances to try everything out and in the end it’s the editor who puts together your performance.
SB: When you’re doing voice work you’re recording it by yourself.
CB: Oh that’s the fun part about voice work. You can show up in track pants! (laughs) You roll out of bed and you go to work. It’s you, the director and the sound engineer so it’s definitely less pressure. It’s a lot less pressure in terms of having to be on all the time. You’re not in front of a crew of 150 people especially when you’re shooting in 3D and there are four cameras capturing you from every direction. The hard part about live action that I’m still figuring out is that you’re always miked.
SB: Really?
CB: Yeah, so everyone can hear what you’re saying all of the time.
SB: The extra audio is for the DVD extras (laughs).
CB: Yeah (laughs). I had this really awkward moment where I had a daughter in the movie and she was this really intelligent and lovely eight year old and she was so hungry to learn at all times. At one point I was talking to the costume person and I said that this part (of the costume) was digging into my clavicle and I just want to make sure that when I’m doing the stunt that I’m going to be o.k. Well she (the young actress) looks at me and asks me what’s a clavicle. I tell her that it’s her collarbone and I could see her trying to digest the word and put it to memory. About two hours later we are sitting around chatting and I say to her what’s that word I taught you earlier? I can see that she’s struggling and trying to remember it. So I begin to spell it out, C-L- and she jumps in and says oh, clitoris!
SB: (Laughs)
CB: And we’re miked and I’m like oh my God, we’re miked. Where did you hear that word? It’s an important one, but not the one I taught you. (laughs)
SB: So what projects do you have coming up next?
CB: I’ve just finished working on a video game. The game is so secret that I don’t even know the title of it. Right now I’m working on a couple of my own projects. I’ve just finished shooting a short film that we are submitting to festivals and now I’m trying to get a feature off the ground.
SB: Did you write it or are you behind the camera?
CB: I’m going to be involved from a creative/producing standpoint. I pray to God that I don’t have to write it. I want to find someone who is smarter and has a more critical mind than mine when it comes to writing.
SB: Thanks a lot for this. It was a pleasure talking to you and best of luck with the film.
CB: Thank you so much and thanks for the chat.
X-Men: Apocalypse hits theaters on May 27, 2016.
