“I LEARNED A LOT FROM TH E DI REC TORS I’V E WORKED W ITH. I LEARNED THAT REL ATIONSH IPS ARE M OST I M PORTANT. W ITH TH E DIREC TOR, W ITH YOU R AC TING PEERS, W ITH TH E PEOPLE ON TH E SET.”
When he was a young boy nine years old, the Bosnian War raged, and Nikola’s family lived through it. Nikola remembers it as a very difficult time. Twenty years later, he is starring “Circles”, a film about the war and its devastating effect. For Nikola Rakocevic, making the film was a very personal experience. “I had the feeling that I was involved in the war, but I wasn’t. I was only a kid at that time. Everybody who worked on the film felt the same way – the costume designer, the director of photography, everyone. We were all emotionally very involved. This created a great potential for making a very good movie.” And that was how it turned out. The film is this year’s Serbian national entry for the Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film. As Nikola puts it: “It’s a movie about forgiving, and it was very hard for me”.
SERB I A N I KO L A R A KO C E V I C
Nikola knew he wanted to act early on. “I was in amateur theater. It was there that I learned a lot about acting, movies and the theater. That was where I started to love everything that had to do with acting. After that, I attended the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. While I was there, I did a few short films. One of them was ‘Street Walker’, which was in a lot of international film festivals. I received my first award for that film”.
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SERBIA NIKOLA R AKOCEVIC
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Nikola Rakocevic, European Shooting Star, Serbia.
© BAŠ CELIK
“It was in amateur theater where I started to love everything that had to do with acting.”
Nikola Rakocevic in “Circles” by Srdan Golubovic.
EU RO PE A N SHOOTING STARS 2014
One of his most important acting experiences was in the omnibus film, “October”. The segment he acted in was written and directed by an up and comer, Milica Tomovic. “I was already an established actor in Serbia, and I got a call to be in this film. But the director said that I had to audition for it! I couldn’t believe it. But then, I was very surprised by everything. It was one of the best roles I ever had. It was the first time I really felt the power of acting, the power of the moment. You feel so confident, so strong. Everything was right. Maybe it was because I didn’t feel like I had to prove my talents. We only had ten days to shoot, and there was so much energy in the moment”.
Nikola is thankful that he has had the chance to work with some very good directors as well. “I learned a lot from the directors I’ve worked with. I learned that relationships are most important. With the director, with your acting peers, with the people on the set. And, of course, the relationship between your character and the other actors characters. But most importantly, I learned something about my style of acting: not to show too much, just to feel things. I had to cover the emotion. When you cover it, it becomes stronger”.