Interview with Anna Próchniak (Alina)

Who is Alina and what is she like?

Alina is from Poland and has been living in the UK for at least 15 years. She is an artist by nature. She graduated from art school in Glasgow and worked as a photographer for several years until the universe had a different plan for her and she ended up here in Summerwater. She is an introvert, sensitive yet grounded, fragile but strong and connected with herself. It's a nice and interesting mix of contradictions. Alina is a keen observer of details. She's always searching for underlying truth. She loves capturing people in moments of vulnerability and values honesty, both in art and life. She is an expat, but this has never been a real issue for her because she's always felt different from other people and existed slightly apart from the world around her. She can see beauty in imperfections and the order in chaos. I like to think of her as someone who can see more than most. It's almost as if she could read a person's aura or see truth underneath the mask we wear on a daily basis. 

What research and preparation did you to do for this role? 

For me, it’s always essential to create a comprehensive background for the character I play. Every time I work on a new role, I try to immerse in their world and their inspirations. When preparing to take on this role, I researched female photographers who could be inspirations for Alina and who could shape her artistic identity. I thought about Diane Arbus, who would always look for beauty in unexpected places and capture people with all their flaws without any judgment. I love how she sees people for who they truly are and how she would reveal their humanity through vulnerabilities. I also thought of Francesca Woodman as an inspiration for Alina. She's known for her self-portraits in some very unusual setups, and explored themes such as sexuality, relationships, body image, alienation, isolation, and human fragility.

Were you involved in the development of the character?

I had a chance to work creatively with Robbie McKillop for the costume and style, because we have a chance to see how Alina's style evolves over the years, and we can see different versions of her. It was great seeing Alina and Marijonas as characters develop. It's one of the partnerships that we see over the longest period of time for all the families.

How does Alina change in Summerwater? 

Alina ended up here because she sacrificed her old life and her old self to save her relationship. She did it for her partner who was struggling and needed a change. She really wanted to help him and make it all work. Throughout Summerwater, we follow the characters across roughly 24 hours and it's one of those days when you wake up in the morning, you look in the mirror, and you don't really recognise yourself and the person staring back at you seems unfamiliar. During this one day, Alina learns a lot about herself, and she is in the process of reinvention and evolves into a new version of herself. However, to do that she will need to revisit her past and face her present with honesty.

What should audiences expect from Summerwater?

Viewers should be ready for more than one mystery when they step into the world of Summerwater, because everyone is hiding something and nothing really is how it seems to be at first.

What did you feel when you read the novel? 

I really enjoyed the novel by Sarah Moss; it was very beautifully written. I loved the style and the stream of consciousness. In the novel, you listen to the different voices of different characters, and I think it's very poetic and very evocative. I read it in one sitting. Alina's voice isn't represented in the novel but in the series, we have time and space to explore her world, her story, her perspective and it adds another dimension to the story we tell in Summerwater.