Actor Katrin Virágová was bullied as a child for being Romani, but today she inspires others in Slovakia to speak out

Virágová considers her positive relationship with art to be the most effective medicine to have aided her with overcoming her childhood trauma. In primary school she had to brave being bullied because of her Romani origin – she was humiliated by her peers for several years, experiencing brawls and slaps.

For a long time Virágová was unable to confide in anybody about her suffering, not even her parents. “I was the child who knew how to smile even though inside I was suffering,” she recalled in an interview for news server Romano fórum.

Her parents did not learn the details of what she had been through until she revealed them through an original theatrical production. “The more frequently I told my own story in the theater, the freer and more balanced I felt,” she said.

At the same time, Virágová is realizing that she has not totally healed from those experiences and likely never will. In her interview, she explains why she never told anybody about being bullied, the unforgettable words a psychologist said to her that “broke the ice”, and what her first experience on camera was like.

Q: You come from a family of musicians, but you decided to study acting. Why?

A: I am from a family of musicians, but I decided to study acting just before I took the entrance examinations. My father is a pianist and my older brother was also guided to the piano, which he studied at university. My grandfather on my father’s side was a musician, too. He loved music and he knew how to play several instruments, but he never studied music, which he greatly regretted. My father’s cousin is a cellist. My grandfather on my mother’s side, Ľubomír Virág, who recently unfortunately passed away, was a recognized singer in Slovakia.

I was also guided toward music from a young age. Father sat me down at the table as a child and taught me music theory. Later we moved to the piano. I felt otherwise, though. I knew I decidedly wanted to stay in the arts, but the piano was not my path. Later, through a friend, I learned that their daughter, who was the same age as my brother, was going to study drama and music, where there are three concentrations – singing, dancing, and acting. I was quite captivated by that and several years later, when I was in ninth grade and I had to decide what high school I wanted to go to, I knew acting would be my path.

Q: Were you not prepared when you took the entrance examinations?

A: Ahead of the entrance examinations I went to rehearsals with an excellent actress from Zvolen, Janka Valocká. I had also attended the “Stars of the Artistic Sky” series [Editor’s note: Courses in music, dance, and acting for children starting at age seven], offered by the state conservatory, and they prepare hopeful candidates for the entrance examinations. I went through all of that and then I actually got into conservatory.

Q: Did your parents try to dissuade you from studying acting, or did they leave the decision up to you?

A: Paradoxically, it did not bother my father that I had essentially rejected the piano. He was quite glad that I had decided to remain in the arts. That was natural for me because I had never known anything else – I was surrounded by art from birth. My mother was rather skeptical, because she knew the art world, and she knew what it’s all about. She had concerns because acting is quite demanding. Actors have months when they never stop working and then periods when nobody calls them. However, mother never deterred me, rather, she reminded me of the traps which awaited me. She prepared me for the fact that acting is a physically and mentally demanding profession and a time-consuming one.

Q: What do you most appreciate about the way your parents raised you?

A: There’s actually a lot. Basically, I appreciate it all. Today I realize what they did for me, although as a child I used to “roll my eyes” at them. For instance, if they sometimes didn’t want to let me go out, that seemed wrong to me, but now I get it and I genuinely appreciate what they did for me. What I appreciate the most is how they supported me in everything. Whether it was my hobbies, my interests, or if I needed support with problems in school, and later, at work. Even now that I’m an adult I know I can go to Mom or Dad at any time, they’re here for me. They talk with me, they advise me, and they always tell me the truth, even if it hurts sometimes. They always just want the best for me. They’ve always told me to decide things however is right for the moment. If I regret a decision, there is nothing left to do but learn from those mistakes. I always think about that – I am doing my best to never have to regret what I have done.

Q: A while back you began publicly speaking about the bullying you experienced in primary school because of your Romani origin. When did the turning point happen, when did you decide you didn’t want to keep that to yourself anymore?

A: When all of the bullying because of my origin came to light, and I even transferred to another primary school as a result, I believed that I would go to a psychologist and that besides him and my parents, nobody else would ever find out about it. It never occurred to me that one day I would speak about it publicly in front of total strangers. The turning point arrived when I began at the conservatory. In the second year, at the start of the school year, our acting teachers Erik Peťovský and Juraj Hrčka, who are excellent actors, came there. We were their acting class and they told us they had gotten an offer to develop a theater production with their students. We had almost no prior experience, we didn’t even know how to speak correctly or how to move onstage. However, we knew it would be the best schooling and experience we could get. In practice, it meant that for about half a year we each got an individual study plan and spent most of our time in the theater.

With our professors and directors we put together a production called The Neighbor We Don’t Want. Although it was written about four years ago, we have been performing it to this day. Soon we will have the dernière, the final performance, which I really regret. This was a production that we wrote together, each of us told our real story in it. For instance, one of us spoke about her bad relationship with her mother. Each one of us brought something very personal that we had really experienced to the show.

Q: So you decided it was an opportunity to reveal your childhood trauma?

A: At the time my professors already knew what I’d undergone. They knew that they wanted me to tell the world about this subject. They told the others to prepare something personal of their own for rehearsal, a story they could work with, but they approached me personally about my piece. They were aware that my story is as personal as it gets, and they said that they would be really proud of me if I would open up and reveal it. They offered to aid me with writing it and with how to deliver it. They were willing to support me in everything. The experience was still quite fresh for me. At the time, I’d told almost nobody of my being bullied because of my Romani origin. Apart from my parents, just my best friend from high school knew of it because I had confided in her at the dorm, my psychologist knew of it, and later my teachers did, too. When they proposed that I speak about the bullying during the production, I first broke down in tears. It was quite intensive, but ultimately I promised to try.

Q: You wrote the script for your role yourself?

A: Yes. When I began writing, I felt great support from my teachers and my fellow pupils. They knew very well that this is not easy for me, it is quite an intimate, painful subject. Eventually I managed to get the script together and to write it in a dramatic way. However, the hardest part was when the day of the premiere arrived. The stress was unreal. On the one hand, it was my very first performance in a big, professional theater, and on the other hand, it was also the first time I ever publicly told my most personal story. I did it, though. I also spoke of very specific things which even my mother, father, and brother had never heard before.

Q: So your parents didn’t learn of the specific form of the bullying you experienced until the premiere of the show?

A: They knew about the bullying before, but I hadn’t told them everything the children did to me. They found out when I was onstage. They were watching me, and I spit it out. It was quite strong, and intense, not just during the performance, but also afterward, when my parents congratulated me. Mom hugged me and wept. I was crying, too, at that moment. I could feel how she regretted it, how it hurt her that she still didn’t know about the many things which happened to me. At the same time, I was also grateful to her that she didn’t ask me about it anymore, she didn’t want to discuss it with me. She heard it and she saw how I had prepared the whole thing, accepted it, and we did not open the subject again. At the time it was still difficult for me and she knew that. I’m really grateful for her reaction. That was an exceptional day I will never forget.

Q: After some time did some relief come to you from exorcising those difficult experiences?

A: The relief came gradually, with each rehearsal in the theater once the complete script had been written. The more frequently I told my own story, the freer and more balanced I felt. I felt better in front of my fellow pupils, my professors, and the directors, but what was interesting was that I also started to feel better on my own, with myself. Gradually, it became much easier for me to speak about this subject. It was still hard, but I was handling it better and better. There was also a special feeling after the premiere, because many people had been sitting out in the audience – not just strangers, but also people quite close to me. My parents were there, the parents of my fellow pupils, my friends, as well as people who had just randomly bought a ticket. At the time I fully realized I had told the darkest, most intense, most personal story a person can have to them all.

After the premiere, my professors and the directors of the production came and said they were unbelievably proud of me. That was like getting a big, warm hug. They also saw that I had literally “revealed myself” onstage. Essentially, I was still a child at the time, and they were realizing how unbelievably difficult it had been for me to overcome that experience. At the same time, they saw how bravely I fought with my fears and that I had mastered them. All those experiences together were immeasurably liberating for me. My grandmother came to the following performance, then my brother came with his girlfriend and other people. With each next performance it was a little bit easier for me. I say that art and love for the theater healed me. Those are not just words, it really is what happened.

Q: Your mother was on the Slovak television program “Lean on Me”, and she mentioned that you had serious health problems. Have the doctors determined whether they are related to the bullying you experienced?

A: It lasted a very long time, I was bullied from the second semester of first grade. The worst phase escalated in fifth grade, when I ultimately had to leave. Every year it was worse and worse, the children were bigger and bigger and they were more and more mean to me, abusing me all the more. The hatred of me that they sowed in first grade grew significantly every year and I had to experience situations which were worse and worse. The worst thing about it all was that I kept it inside for those five years and suffered physically and mentally because of that. Neither my parents nor my homeroom teacher knew about it, I hid it well, I suppressed it. I was a child who could smile even as I was suffering inside. Mom naturally did notice that I often came home from school in tears. In those days her hairdressing salon was near the school, so I went to her after school and she saw that I had been crying, my eyes were red from weeping. However, I always denied what was happening to me, I never admitted it to myself. Somehow I always excused it. In fifth grade, when it started to be unbearable, I also experienced physical bullying. There were brawls, slaps, what was happening was literally dangerous. By then I was no longer crying, my entire psyche was marked by the experience. I was destroyed by it all, I stopped being able to cope, and I started to have terrible stomach cramps as a consequence. That was the worst, most difficult period.

Q: Even in that situation you never confided in anybody?

A: No. We began addressing the pain, and we believed I had an allergy to some food. My parents took me to the allergy specialist. They tested me and discovered that I am lactose intolerant. It appeared that they had found the cause of my problems. They bought me all the right groceries without lactose, we had a refrigerator full of supplies. For some time I functioned, but even if there was not a trace of lactose in my body, the horrible pains kept persisting. It went so far that I would writhe on the floor in cramps and pain. It was clear it had nothing to do with lactose, so Mom took me to a general practitioner. She did all the tests she could on me, but the results were fine. When she saw I still had pain, though, she sent me to the hospital. I spent two weeks in the hospital on Antolská Street in Bratislava, where they did all kinds of gastro tests on me, magnetic resonance, a CAT scan of my belly. They examined me for everything they could. I was still a child, I was stressed out by the examinations, but fortunately Mom could stay there with me, so I dealt with it more easily thanks to her.

Q: What did the doctors’ examinations find?

A: After two weeks, the doctor came to tell us that she had already exhausted all the possibilities. They examined everything, and all the results were in order. They could not find the cause of those crazy cramps. However, what was interesting was that I had no pain during my hospital stay. The doctor put two and two together and began to reflect on whether some kind of hidden problem, some kind of block was behind this. For that reason, she asked Mom whether she would consent to a psychological examination of me, too. Mom consented, naturally – she was desperate. On the day I was meant to leave the hospital I had an appointment with the psychologist. In her office it took quite a long time, probably three hours, and I was fighting back the whole time. She did her best to get out of me what was happening, what I was living through, what my fellow pupils were like, did I have friends, was I afraid of my teachers and so forth. I kept repeating that everything is fine. She knew it wasn’t, she felt I had a block, but she couldn’t manage to break it down. Once she grasped that I was unable to open up, she said the sentence that changed everything. I will never forget those words. She told me I could open the door and go home, but that I should think about the fact that if I did that, then tomorrow morning I would go to school and nothing would change. However, if I would tell her now what’s bothering me, she guaranteed that I would never feel as bad as I had been feeling ever again. At that moment I imagined what my life would be like if all that was wrong with it could go away. I saw myself waking up in the morning and not being afraid to go to school. I wouldn’t be afraid to live anymore, I wouldn’t have to walk down the street in fear of meeting a fellow pupil who would throw a rock at me again. That idea was so liberating that something broke in me and I told her everything.

Q: So the cause of your pain was finally clear.

A: I spent another hour with her during which I described almost everything I’d lived through during those five years and her jaw dropped as she listened to me. The little 11-year-old girl who was sitting in front of her had suffered like that for five years and was incredibly worried. I cried like I never had before and the psychologist called my mother in and told her everything. Mom came to me and was unhappy that I had kept it a secret from her all those years. She cried a lot, too, and told me that I would never have to go back to that school – and that’s what happened. She reached an agreement with the school, although it wasn’t easy, that they would make it possible for me to complete the year without having to attend in person. In sixth grade I attended another school.

Q: If you could go back in time, what would you do differently?

A: My parents taught me all my life to do everything in such a way that I would never regret it, and I stick to that. My only regret is that I never told anybody what was happening to me. For several years I suffered bullying and was unable to confide in anybody. At the time, at that age, it was a horrifying idea to me. I was afraid that if I told somebody I would still have to go to the school and it would all be even worse. Apart from all the names they already called me, I would be the snitch who told on them. I was really afraid of that idea. If I look back on it now, as an adult woman who is expecting a child of her own, it’s unimaginable to me. I can’t imagine my child would experience something like that and say nothing about it to me for five years. For me, it is quite rehabilitating that I can speak about it now, because I believe doing so can aid others so that they will never do anything like this, so they will speak up when they have problems. Each time I open this subject I feel like a piece of the soul of the child I once was is healed. I think it will still be healing even when I’m older. I am not now and I probably never will be totally healed, there will certainly be situations where I will have to find a psychologist again. Fortunately, today I know that I do not have to be ashamed of this. Professionals are here to assist us. I know that what I went through cannot be erased and will remain with me for the rest of my life, but that doesn’t mean that working with what happened to me is impossible.

Q: You regularly perform at the P. O. Hviezdoslav Theater and you have appeared in several television projects. Do you remember your very first experience in front of a camera?

A: My first theatrical experience was in the production The Neighbor We Don’t Want, as I have already mentioned. Back then we were all about 16, so by now those are just cherished memories. That was my first “proper” experience and thanks to that I basically opened up what had previously been a taboo subject for me for the first time. Basically, even before that I had a bit of experience with the television camera exactly at the time when they were bullying me in school. What is interesting is that the film I briefly appeared in was also about bullying. Director Miro Drobný made a film called Who’s Next? that told three different stories. The first story is about a Slovak singer, Aless, who experienced cyberbullying. In the scene where Aless comes to debate this subject, a little girl is in the hall who breaks into tears upon hearing her words because she has also experienced this, even though nobody else knows that. I played the role of that girl, but nobody knew I had experienced that in real life. In the scene I didn’t have any lines, I was just supposed to cry, but it was quite strong. Everybody was tense because they didn’t know whether this nine-year-old girl would manage to cry on cue. I actually broke down and wept a great deal, but it wasn’t acting. I was crying because I had really experienced this. At that moment, I allowed myself to release my feelings, because nobody knew the truth. They filmed the scene, they turned off the cameras, and everybody started applauding how the little girl had managed to cry on cue. Already back then they were telling me I would be an actress someday. I had more experience in front of the camera with a role in the series Mr. Professor, which really helped catapult me toward other offers.

Q: How did you come to dubbing?

A: When I was studying at the conservatory I had a brilliant professor named Jana Valocká. She aided me with preparing for the entrance examinations. I was in her artistic performance class and we already knew each other well then. I frequently say we are soulmates because we understand each other very well. Although I was a child at the time and she was a grown woman, we had each been through our own problems and essentially we helped each other heal. It was Ms. Valocká in particular who helped me get into dubbing. She knew the dubbing studio was seeking a new voice for a little red panda in an animated fairy tale. It was supposed to be a fearless, somewhat cheeky girl. She remembered me and arranged an audition for me to show my stuff. I went there with zero dubbing experience. It was quite difficult for me to read the script while simultaneously following the “tv” and listening to what the director was saying in my headphones. It was all Greek to me, I completely screwed up and had a horribly bad feeling about it. I called my Dad and cried that I couldn’t cope and I would certainly not get the job. Three weeks later my mother and I were doing the shopping in the supermarket and the dubbing studio called to say I got the role of Mei Mei, the panda. I jumped about two meters in the air between the shelves full of yogurt and Mom and the other people didn’t know what was happening with me. I was enormously happy and I took it as a big success, although it had been demanding to get the part. COVID-19 was happening then, everybody was wearing facemasks, and when I did the dubbing I had to be alone in the room. However, it all worked out, I dubbed the Disney animated film Turning Red and to this day I am grateful for how much I have learned from that opportunity. What’s more, I met many people who helped me later. When my entire family and I went to the premiere of that fairy tale, I was quite proud of it, which was a new feeling for me. I had long not had any self-esteem because of the bullying, I didn’t know how to be proud of myself, but here I learned that I can. Gradually I started realizing my own value more, I started to trust myself. Thanks to that fairy tale I made it to other nice projects and opportunities.

Q: Do you have time for any other hobbies?

A: Certainly, yes. For instance, I am dedicating myself to singing more now, which was never my plan, but my grandfather, who was a singer, always dreamed of that for me. Just before he passed away I promised him to sing someday. I kept that promise and found a way to sing. However, I also have many other hobbies, anything related to art is what amuses me most. For instance, I love writing, so once I go to university I would like to study directing, screenwriting, and maybe even journalism. Even when I was living through that difficult period, my only comfort and therapy was to put it all down on paper. I saved those notes and even though they are very sad to read, it was exactly at that time that I discovered my love for stories and writing. Apart from that I really love painting, but right now I don’t have time for it. My other passion is fashion. Naturally I love to spend time with my family, too.

Q: Do you have any other long-range plans besides your studies?

A: My ambition and big dream is to write a screenplay and film it. The idea, the concept would be purely mine and I would offer it to a production company, so I’ll see if they’ll take it or if I will have to adapt it somehow. For the time being I don’t want to and I cannot much reveal anything about it, it’s all still in the stars. It’s the story of two lost people who find each other during the worst time of their lives, who fall in love, and who try to help each other, but ultimately it turns out completely differently than they expected. I hope I will manage to produce it. Apart from that, I have another big adventure ahead of me, I will become a mother myself soon and I am really looking forward to that role!