It could have been different

In most cases the unknown people at the street call me Mirza or Perhan, but since I played in more movies and performed more characters, many people get confused and when they can’t remember any of those names, then they just call me: Azra! That’s one of the bad sides of being popular! But as it has its bad sides, it also has its good sides. One of the good sides is that you don’t have to wait in line for fuel and it’s the same thing with love…
No, I’m just joking, but people do see popularity that way. My seventeen year long experience in acting has changed me as much as any other business would. Therefore, today I’m different from the sixteen year old Davor as much as I’m supposed to be. Basically, I’m just like some guy Senad Misic, who lives somewhere, does something and gets what he is entitled to… That is how my parents think of me and people who know me, live beside me. Everything would’ve been different if was somewhere in America, Italy, somewhere in the West, if I had too much money, drive a Porsche …

I would like to work abroad, but only the things I like and the things that I could really be good at, but it’s difficult for a Bosnian to perform even in Slovenia, not to mention some other state. I don’t like to experiment with the unknown things. I have the same kind of attitude with my parents too. I would always be willing to work with people in whose projects I already participated, rather then somebody whose methods and approach I’m not familiar with, regardless to the fact how much I like it. If I like one person’s movies, that doesn’t mean that the two of us could function together. About the things that I do and how I lead my life after all, there’s no philosophy and everything is much simpler then I can tell. It’s the same case at work. I read the script today and tomorrow I forget it, but when we start shooting everything happens spontaneously.

Script, the costume, rain or sun, have impact on what I’ll perform, regardless to what’s written in the script. That’s probably because my first acting experiences are related to Kusta and that’s exactly how he works. Emir Kusturica is “guilty” for me being an actor. If I first played in the movie directed by somebody else, it would surely not happen again. And everything started by pure chance. With the movie “When father was away for business” in 1984, they were looking for somebody who could play Mirza, they had auditions, many were interested but nobody was the one. And then when they came to the bar for drink, they found me. I was finishing the primary school at the time and opportunity to act was very interesting to me. And I was more interested in everything that was happening at the shooting more than acting itself. First, I learned everything about camera then my own lines. And I played when it was necessary and when not, with cameras on and off.

I was thrilled to socialize with Mustafa Nadarevic, Miki Manojlovic, Mirjana Karanovic, because they were totally normal people and good friends, and least the stars. After this movie, I decided to enroll myself to the Film Academy, I didn’t succeed and I never tried again. Today, after seven years of experience in this business, I don’t even need it any more. This movie won the Golden Palm tree in Cannes and I realized that it’s more then just a game. I had to be careful about what I say and how I say it.

And I liked it, as well as the opportunity to fly by plane 17 times in ten days and I was never in the plane before that. Everything happened for me too quickly and without any particular order. I thought how it would be much better if all those things happen to me when I grow up. And I never had the time for “normal” growing up. I had to learn stuff faster then the kids of my own age so that I can fit in the company of people who were surrounding me by chance. I had to adjust quickly so that I could communicate with them in a normal way. Today, I’m very happy that things in my life happened exactly how they happened because none of the schools could have provided the same.