Versatility, her middle name

It could most likely be her Austrian, German, Polish, Romanian or Ukranian ancestries from where Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany gets her knack to ace as many as a dozen characters in a single show, Orphan Black. The sci-fi thriller series stars the actress as a woman with several clones, and she enacts the roles of the characters belonging to varied backgrounds with total ease.

Tatiana has gone ahead to win not just hearts across the world for her killer acting chops, but also got her hands on the Primetime Emmy last year. As the show comes to a close, Tatiana, in an interview with us recollects her time with the show right from her audition days.

Q What made you want to be a part of Orphan Black?
To me it was just exciting to be playing so many characters and the fact that I was getting a challenge to play many roles interested me. The storytelling was also completely different from anything I’ve ever read before. I was excited to see all of these characters coming alive.

Q When you auditioned for the show, did you know that it was going to take you places?  
God no, absolutely not! I had no idea that anybody was even going to watch the show. Critical response we’ve had has been completely overwhelming. We had no idea that people would love the show the way they did and respond to the characters the way they did.

Q What were the challenges in performing so many roles?
I think the challenge is in keeping them distinct and continuing to find differences among them in a way that they grow and change, and sometimes they become like each other, sometimes more different from each other. The biggest challenge is continuing to evolve with them and letting them be different and contradictory.

Q Who is your personal favourite among the clones?
I don’t know, there’s so many of them. Each day was being a different person. There certainly are a few different characters that I miss more than certain others. I definitely miss Helena — playing her role was so much fun and challenging at the same time.

Q You are so good at all of the accents you had to do!
I guess it comes to me because I’ve trained as an actor for a long time and I’ve been trying things out since I was a kid. I’ve also been very fascinated all the time by accents, it’s a different way for me to explore different languages. My mom is a translator and she speaks a lot of different languages and keeps improving my ability to speak in various languages. Some accents add another dimension to the character for the show.

Q What can one expect from the Season 5 of the show?
There’s so much that happens in this season. My favourite act of the last season is the part where there are these flashback episodes — wherein we get to explore a character back in time and what makes them who they are. It was really exciting to learn about them.

Q What was it like winning an Emmy for your work?
It was so surreal and it was a huge thing for our show to be on that level and to be recognised for all the effort we had put in.

Q What else keeps you busy lately?
I’m not really working on anything else right now. But I’ve got a movie coming out in September, Stronger, with Jake Gyllenhaal, directed by David Gordon Green, which is a very moving story. I’m looking forward to that.  

(Orphan Black Season 5 airs every Saturday at 11 pm on AXN)