Lena Góra Wants Great Sex, Great Food, and to Beat You at Chess

Lena Góra has spent her career building a body of work she can be proud of, moving between prestige television like the HBO hit The Eastern Gate and arthouse cinema like Imago, which she also co-wrote and was based on the life of her mother. In Erupcja, Pete Ohs’ Warsaw-set drama about two old friends reconnecting over an intense weekend of unresolved passion and complicated history, Górastars alongside Charli XCX and Jeremy O. Harris, introducing the Poland native to a brand new audience. Ahead of the movie’s premiere earlier this month, Góra answered some of our most personal questions straight from her Warsaw apartment, just back from set, head spinning.

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Where are you?

Just walked into my Warsaw apartment straight from set, straight from airplane, straight from New York. My head is spinning.

What are you wearing?

Just took off my brown velour flying sweats thingy. Someone from the costumes on set said I look like Peggy Bundy. Now I’m wearing undies and an old Sisters of Mercy tee.

What do you like to eat?

Stuff that doesn’t feel dead and plastic, which is most food now. Food that feels like it was actually living once. Also, I love bread and butter. With a glass of Sancerre, you kinda can’t do better than that. Also beef jerky on work days is a savior. Last weekend was so busy it was a beef jerky and champagne kind of weekend. But then a green juice in the morning. Balance is everything.

What do you do that’s bad for you?

Oh gosh, I hope nothing. I fully believe that your thoughts are absolutely responsible for your reality. Your reality is serving you with everything you are ready to allow. Which is why a cig, if smoked with coffee over a great discussion, or drinking a glass of wine while writing or reading, just can’t be bad for you. If it’s ceremonial it’s okay, but if it becomes something you do when stressed, it turns bad. Stress is bad. And typing these responses back to you on my phone right now is bad. This phone is so bad, nothing ceremonial about being stuck and swallowed by this. Phone bad, full stop.

What’s your favorite body part?

I like my back. I mean, I can’t really know for certain if it’s that good, but I have a feeling. Also, if I like a guy, I start loving his hands, and with girls—well, boobies forever. I have the biggest crush on the fact that milk is produced there. 

Who do you tell your secrets to?

I sort of think of my whole existence as a secret I try to keep. Like the persona I created to show publicly has very little to do with me. But I do have a few people I share the secretest of secrets with. I also have my art for that. There, I have my secrets, but I kind of do it in a code so it’s not so obvious. Only focused viewers may get it. Especially the most embarrassing things, I believe they need to be worked through, played with, put up, and left behind. Otherwise I’d have to keep them with me. I hate keeping things. Too heavy.

Where do you go to hide?

Moving vehicles. Used to get on a plane and change cities and hotel-live whenever I needed to clear up my head. I can’t live without a car. I had a little beat-up sports car. Windows down, music up, I can’t live without it. Currently moving to New York and I have to bring my car from L.A. to the city just so I can bail to nature as often as possible. And maybe I will find the time to drive it alone cross-country while I’m at it. I’ve been dreaming of doing that forever.

What meds are you on?

Wine and an occasional cig. Meditation. Prayer. I am a little worried about this popular and easy access to meds now. Everyone is taking their “be normal” pill, stand in line and obey! Scary. I have been studying the so-called abnormalities and spending time with the so-called crazies my whole life, and somehow think it is the normal people we should be afraid of. I mean, was David Bowie normal?

What do you do in the shower?

I don’t really do showers. They feel somehow aggressive. I’m a bath person, completely. Two, sometimes three times a day. It’s less hygiene, more habitat. If it’s evening, I light candles everywhere, turn it into a kind of ritual. During the day, I open this big window next to the tub, let the air in, sometimes have a sneaky cig there. I read scripts in there, books. Honestly, I’m a total SpongeBob. I could live in a bathtub.

What reminds you of your childhood?

Nature, play, time, getting lost, being lost, being okay with being lost, being excited to be lost, not rushing, being curious, being lost in my curiosity. Being a kid in ’90s Poland was fields, flowers, making flower crowns, casting spells, pagan little rituals, so much time in nature. Running around graveyards, abandoned buildings, broken factories with other kids. Making worlds for ourselves. Getting lost inside them. That’s what I crave in my work. That’s what I look for in art. That’s why I made Erupcja. It was just five of us—Pete Ohs, Jeremy O. Harris, Charli XCX, Will Madden, and myself—just kids, playing free, building a world together, writing and shooting as we went along.

Do you crave attention?

Not at all, it scares me, but I do think of it as a tool that I need to be good at in order to create interest in my work, in my art, and in what I have to say. So I’m a writer, and I am an actor, and I feel that the art that I get to create is important. And with the productions that I choose to work on, I hope to be telling the story that I believe in and, you know, man, just saving art and cinema and the independence of artists. A spotlight  is important. I grew up with phenomenal artists who had no attention and never really sold their art. My painter father and punk artist mother. I watched that happen and was so saddened by it. So attention is important. I don’t crave it, but I’m afraid that I need it.

What gives you energy?

Sleep. Sun. Sex. Sex in the sun. Art. Conversations. Awareness. Cutting off low-energy sources. And above all, love.

Who are you jealous of?

Man, if I could recommend one thing, I would say: you don’t have time for that kind of stuff. There’s already so much fear, negativity, and competition in the world, in politics, everywhere around us. As artists, we really don’t need to spend our energy there. It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t really understand jealousy, comparing yourself to someone else and thinking about what they have that you don’t have. It feels strange to me. 

What do you want more of?

Good conversations, fearless conversations, nature, patience, magic, kismet, connection, great music, great sex, great food, art, chess, winning at chess, whatever at chess, and playing like a kid.

What counts as hard work?

Giving yourself a way of experiencing the beauty of being alive, playful, and free. We’re lost by constantly having to follow rules of work and phone, ugh! The phone thing, it really scares me. I hope it’s not going to swallow us!

What do you think is sexy?

Kindness and care lately are on top of my list. Tenderness. Brain. Discussion. Food. Butter. Oil. Putting too much oil on everything.

What makes you sweat?

Sauna in the winter, as much as possible. Sun in summer. Fire year-long. Sometimes stress. This is the year of the fire horse, I think we will all be sweatin’.

What’s worth fighting for?

Everything you truly desire.

What do you fake?

What? Nothing.

What are you saving for later?

Oh, lately all my pleasures. I have been working all the time and living in my phone, away from nature. Away from city and bodega and coffee and books and chess and life. Nuts! I’m so overdue for some fun!