“Krakow monsters”. “I was going to where the entrance to Hades was. In the evening I knew what to write.”

Justyna Bryczkowska: I usually talk to actors and I like to ask them first what they thought when they read the script. But you are the screenwriter of “Krakow Monsters”, so this is not the theme. So I would like to know what you thought when you heard about this idea?

Magdalena Lankosz: In fact, I can answer like actors, because the first thing I got was also a text that was created by Kasia Adamik. The main idea was that here are Slavic monsters in the modern world and there is a group of people who have the ability to see them, fight them or make friends with them. It was her detailed idea for the show, and of course it was a bit different from what we finally got. Alex already existed, Lucky existed, Professor Zawadzki existed, although he was not a professor yet, but he was Zawadzki and of course there were Slavic monsters that appear in our series. It was even described, very precisely, the one we see at the end of the first episode. Kasia told what she would like to do with this concept, if she wanted to transform it, as if she wanted to develop it. She asked if I would take part in this trip and so it started.

I remember the information that the series was supposed to be called “Axis mundi”. Where did this change to “Krakowskie monsters” come from?

In fact, our first working title was “Krakowskie monwory” and we became very attached to this idea. In fact, there was a hesitation to go in the direction of “Axis mundi” because this is a very important plot of the show, but collectively we made the decision to stick with these monsters.

Do you think of the text with images when you write your screenplays? Do words translate to frames for you?

I always see images, whether I’m writing series or comics. Here I saw very clearly defined frames. I walked a lot on the map of Krakow, looked at photos of the city to imagine the space. Sometimes I also substituted faces, although I did not know what the casting would be. But for me it is necessary in the course of work. Only then it turns out whether the producers chose other locations and the characters walk along completely different streets than the ones I saw in my head.

Without such walking, even virtual walking, I cannot fully write. I also often walk around the house with my heroes – I have to see them in space – and repeat the dialogues aloud to myself. Only when I hear them do I run to the computer to write them down.

How do you feel when you put your written “child” in the hands of these “monsters of directors”?

It may be weird and I will sound like an emotionless person, but I don’t have any negative feelings when someone transforms my text. I don’t feel that someone has taken my beloved child from me. Perhaps it is something similar to the Slavic customs, according to which the mother raised children until the age of 7, and then after the haircut, the father took care of them. Maybe I am just such a Slavic mother of these scenarios.

I also never want to be in the director’s shoes. It’s just terribly hard work: I get up at 3 am and go somewhere cold. It always says it’s raining and it’s winter. Plus, you have to answer 100 questions per minute. I have a very high comfort of working at home, in peace and quiet.

Nice comparison. Speaking of the Slavic language, I’m interested in where did you look for information about Slavic mythology? Do you have a book that you could recommend?

I looked through a lot of books, but three of them appealed to me the most. They approached Slavic mythology less clichéd than the rest, they were simply interesting and original. I decided that this is the spring from which we will lap in our series.

Among other things, I worked on a very interesting 19th-century study of Slavic mythology, which is kept in the Czartoryski Library. This manuscript had a very interesting fate by the way, because just before World War II it was borrowed to Warsaw. He came back at the last minute. If he had stayed in the capital, he would have probably burned down in the course of the attacks and we would never have known him. And this is a text that has never been published in such a form. I read about him in the footnotes to Maria Janion’s “Amazing Slavic”. When I started digging deeper, it turned out that it was developed by Professor Tadeusz Linkner from Gdańsk and published under the title “Slavic gods and demons” – so I bought it right away.

I think writing your own screenplay gives you more freedom than adapting a book, which you have already dealt with several times. What is a more interesting challenge for you?

When I got the first episode, the characters were doing something else, living in a different city. I would say that I was given the framework of the world that Kasia Adamik imagined, but the rest was original writing. Before that, I was adapting two novels and I must say that original writing is very liberating. Creating a world from scratch is a very fun adventure. And you don’t have to follow someone else’s idea. So I would like to write more original stuff in the future, although I know that I have specialized a bit in adaptations. It is easy to stick a “oh, this is the adaptation” label on a human.

Magdalena Lankosz Marcin Morawicki

So what was your method of work? Were there any difficult times?

As there is a pandemic going on and we were all locked at home, I could also afford a real adventure. So I rented a cabin in the mountains where I could go as all the work meetings were online. It so happened that this cottage was situated in Greece, in a small village where for some time nobody was there except me. One day I was wondering how to make my heroine reach the underworld. I looked at the map and saw that there was a place, according to mythology, that the entrance to Hades was two hours away from me.

I set off there right away. There you go along the narrow road along the coast, which often turns in huge serpentines. So you have to go very slowly up the hill, from which you have to go down. And so I rode, first 15 km per hour, then 10, then 8. It is such a repetitive cycle that you can have the impression that time has stood still. Then I started to wonder what would happen if, when a man approaches the point where two worlds intersect, time also stands still? Another idea hatched from this idea, then another, and then another. When I came back to my hut in the evening, I already knew what to write.

You mentioned that in the beginning the action was set elsewhere. How did you get to this Krakow?

It wasn’t exactly a specific place, but we knew what was going to happen there. Let’s face it, we have one, well-preserved medieval city, which can be modern and very up-to-date at the same time. A place with so many historic buildings and, for example, recently excavated vaults. When we started working on the series, I started reading about magical thinking about Krakow: about the Wawel chakra, about mounds that are somehow strangely located and no one really knows why. And it was developing so slowly, and Krakow is also beautifully photographed. In addition to all these monuments, we also have “forbidden gates”. It all sounded good together.

Have you had a chance to be on a movie set to see your baby hatch?

Kasia Adamik and Olga Chajdas are not directors who would hide something from screenwriters. So I had an open invitation to the set that I didn’t want to abuse due to the pandemic and the testing requirement. I also watched the first rehearsals in the hall, when the main characters were creating their entire entourage. It was a very, very interesting experience.

Kasia also took me with her to the documentation in Wieliczka to show me the places I will write about. In this way, we missed the stage where she would have to describe and explain to me what our landscapes look like. It was a great adventure for me – the more so because we were following extra-natural routes. It would never have happened to me if I hadn’t been part of this show.

Did the directors also offer you to play any character from the series?

Yes, I was also supposed to play a small episode in the last episode, but the photos were taken somewhere around the third coronavirus wave, which was very severe for many. I didn’t have the courage to go to the set. And I was supposed to be a woman in a coat, who was described like this: she has a puzzled face. In the series, however, we see Gaja Grzegorzewska for a second – she is also a screenwriter for “Krakow Monsters”. She is a very talented writer from Krakow. If you focus, you can notice her walking through the corridors of the Collegium Medicum series. Our third screenwriter, Ania Sieńska, was immortalized with the inscription “Ania” at the Wanda Mound.

How was your cooperation? Because this is a longer text and you had to keep the continuity of what you were doing, right?

I was responsible for the continuity and ensuring that this world was coherent. This function is called head writer, I think Polish is the name of the leading screenwriter. Such a person is responsible for the editorial and creative side of the project. He also edits all texts and supports other screenwriters.

Ania participated in the project at the very beginning of inventing our serial “bible” (one of the first literary documents describing the assumptions of the series; presents the characters and presents the outline of the action of individual episodes – editorial note), so her knowledge was enormous. Gaia is also exceptionally talented – she immediately understood our heroes after she joined us. She quickly caught their motivations, intentions and emotions. They were great to work with, just a shame it was all done online.

Have you seen the fully assembled series yet?

We started working on “Krakow Monsters” exactly at the beginning of the first lockdown, so we are celebrating the second anniversary of this project. And during this time I saw parts of the series many times. Kasia and Olga also invited me to participate in post-production, in case something needs to be rewritten or written a bit differently, or a voice-over changed (dialogues performed by actors in the recording studio, after the shooting stage is finished – editor’s note). I was also present when Antek Łazarkiewicz and Mary Komasa were finalizing their work on music, i.e. they were doing the so-called chemistry. Now, at home, I was voted over by my husband and son to watch the whole thing on the day of the official premiere.

Barbara Liberek, the main actor, delighted me, and do you have a favorite in the cast?

It’s nice that you are talking about Basia, I have similar feelings. I also like Staszek Linowski, who plays Lucky here. I know his previous roles and he is phenomenal in the series. But in fact, now I feel like a mom who can’t say which of her children she likes best. The casting was very wide, long, and it turned out well in my opinion. Even in the trailer you could see Ania Paliga – she is extremely interesting. I think it was a good choice for Iliana, she has the right acting talent and a very unusual beauty. I also love our Erik [Pratsko, jego bohater opisany jest słowem “Chłopiec” – przyp. red.]. It is true that I did not meet with him personally, but I saw the effects of his work. Children can be very different, and he was very responsive and he can empathize and play. And he had a very difficult role, the farther away, the more demanding. I think viewers will have the opportunity to find out for themselves.

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