As a child growing up in the sparsely populated Opole, Poland during the Soviet era, actress Karolina Wydra recalls a childhood marked by limited recreational opportunities. The only real excitement came during the monthly gatherings where residents would illegally watch pirated American movies, projected on a makeshift screen. Dirty Dancing and Prince's Purple Rain were particularly memorable for her, igniting her passion for acting and inspiring her to take ballroom dancing lessons.
"Everything was very controlled," Wydra tells Deadline. "There wasn't much theater, but if I could get involved in a school play or recite poetry, I would. It was a big deal." Today, she counts Jennifer Grey as a friend and describes herself as a "daydreamer" and a Pisces, with a deep appreciation for the medium of acting.
After her family emigrated to the U.S., Wydra embarked on a career in the entertainment industry in the late '90s, first as a model and later as an actress. She's been acting for over three decades, appearing in films like Crazy, Stupid, Love and TV shows like House, True Blood, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., working with heavyweights like Graham Yost and the late David Lynch.
But her "dream," she says, was to work with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. "I walked away to have children," she recalls. "It was scary when my agent and manager decided they didn't want to represent me because I was taking a break."
Fast forward several years, Wydra received an audition request from the Pluribus casting team, which had reached out to her former commercial agent. She went in blind and remembers hesitating to even try. She was cast in March 2024.
"To be on this journey and see it unfold, I'm still pinching myself," she says. "Where are the cameras? Is someone going to say, 'I was just kidding?'"
To craft Zosia, the hive mind emissary sent by the Others to communicate with Rhea Seehorn's cantankerous author Carol, Wydra relied on tried-and-true acting techniques like dreamwork and active imagination. She meditated and had "conversations with images" in her subconscious, channeling "a different vibration" where she felt a Zen-like state and unconditional love for humanity.
The goal was to embody the "content and happy," "unflappable" creatures that compose the group. To create the "serenity that [Zosia] embodies," Wydra also engaged in physical techniques to relax her body.
The challenges were significant in the first few days of shooting: "When you feel nervous," she says, "you have to give it to the character, but not to this one."
Working with Gilligan to fine-tune Zosia's mental state was also challenging. "There were moments where I would have so much empathy for what Rhea was going through," Wydra recalls. "He would say, 'You can't go on that journey with her.' And it was really hard sometimes; you just felt like, 'But she really looks like she's suffering.'"
As the first season of the Apple TV sci-fi dramedy progresses, Zosia shifts from maternal figure to friend to lover. Wydra says being a mom helped her tap into the "unconditional love and understanding" the character embodies.
Despite the Others' inability to lie or act with supposed malice, their supreme emotional and intellectual intelligence can be read as calculating. Key scenes were played and shot "many, many different ways," including Zosia's reunion with Carol, their first kiss, and the bombshell reveal of the hive mind having access to her frozen eggs.
The latter sequence took a while to shoot, with Wydra and Seehorn each taking a day of filming to complete. Wydra credits finale director and co-writer Gordon Smith for bringing flexibility to the shoot and praises Gilligan's approach of taking a scene "til it breaks" to see "where it lands."
The final result is a heartwrenching moment that muddies up notions of consent. Online, some drew parallels between it and an earlier scene in the series where Carol reveals her mother sent her to conversion therapy camp. While the connection wasn't necessarily established behind the scenes, Wydra says that interpretation "totally makes sense."
That said, another tidbit fans have latched onto is theorizing about Zosia's past. As for theories on whether the Zosia from before is straight, Wydra can't say: "That was the thing that I didn't want to know from Vince—just because to create her today, I didn't want the past to influence who she is today."
Admittedly, Wydra stays offline when it comes to the show: "I read very little because I'm way too sensitive and too fragile." She adds, "I do feel protective of Zosia because I had to work on all that stuff, and I had to really believe in it."
Ultimately, the conclusion of Season 1 positions Zosia and Carol firmly on opposing sides. Dejected and embittered, Carol returns to her unlikely ally Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) to begrudgingly save the world—and with a Plan A (atom bomb).
"Even when I read it," Wydra says, "I went—excuse my language—'What the fuck?'" Despite how unforgivable the hive mind's actions are, Carol and Zosia share a piercing look—of sorrow, of regret—when they part ways. "I think the look is also like, 'Are you sure? Is this what you really want?'" Wydra explains. "We did it many different ways, and what that means for everybody: for her, for me, and for the world."
Gilligan is already deep in Season 2 prep with the writers' room breaking the next installment. While Wydra is happy to cheer on her co-star Seehorn who won her category at the Golden Globes (the actress sent Better Call Saul alumna a video of a family viewing party featuring her husband, two kids, and other young children chanting her name), she is "dying" to be back on set again.
"I have no idea what Season 2 brings," she says. "I'm really excited to find out. I can't wait. I'm like, 'Vince, can you write a little faster?'"
