Yana Stoyanova: Bulgarian cinema should not try to catch up with Hollywood to be good

Bulgarian cinema should not try to catch up with Hollywood in order to be good, said Yana Stoyanova, a professional film make-up artist, on the English-language morning block of BGNES. Yana Stoyanova has worked on films like "Conan the Barbarian", "Wrong Turn", "The Legend of Hercules", "The Expendables" and many more.

"We should not try to catch up with American productions. The US has its own market, even if Bulgaria makes a really exceptional film, it won't sell as much. We don't have to be like them to have good productions."

"The moment we stop living in the past, then we can move forward. This is true for cinema as well," she added.

Stoyanova shared how it feels to meet famous actors all the time.

"For me, it's work and it's not very 'unique' to meet these people, it's my life. I know people are very excited about them, but we have to act natural, it's our job. More famous people are the easier to work with, for example Ethan Hawke. As a make-up artist we keep out of their way, we are the first and last people they see. If they feel like talking, we talk. They sometimes share pretty personal stuff, they're human too after all."

She also recounted details of her work on several productions.

"'The Way Back' is a very important film for me, as you know most cameras are digital now. It was my last "real" film. During the work I learned a lot of new things about make-up. And it was Peter Weir's last film, which was quite emotional."

"We had a lot of difficult scenes in 'Conan', reaching up to 6 hours, with 3 people working on them. We have 8 hours to do make-up, 12 hours to shoot and then take the make-up off, extremely intense," she added.

According to her, getting to the top mostly requires a lot of work.

"I reached Hollywood with a lot of work. People say it's all talent. But I think if you have a dream and you want to reach it, you can. I was into painting and 'Willow' inspired me to pursue it this career. I majored in makeup and gradually rose through the ranks with a tremendous amount of work," Stoyanova concluded. / BGNES