Karolina Wydra is drawing attention for her performance as Zosia in Vince Gilligan’s Apple TV sci-fi series Pluribus, with the role now sparking early Emmy conversation. In the interview, Wydra reflects on returning to acting after stepping away during the pandemic to raise children, a break that changed the course of her career when her representation parted ways with her. She says the response to Pluribus has been both surprising and deeply moving, especially because the series is so closely tied to Gilligan’s creative vision and Rhea Seehorn’s lead performance.
Wydra describes working with Gilligan as a long-held dream. She praises his writing as rich, precise, and complete, saying his scripts do not require improvisation or added flourishes. She also admires his visual storytelling, noting that every camera movement and scene setup feels intentional and emotionally exact. Beyond his craft, she calls him kind, humble, thoughtful, and generous, saying that his calm and collaborative presence made the set feel safe for actors. That sense of trust, she says, is essential in a medium as vulnerable as acting.
The actress says the emotional core of Zosia came from her own life experience as a mother. She connects that part of herself to Zosia’s unconditional love and patience toward Carol, the character played by Seehorn. Wydra also used mindfulness and dream work to access Zosia’s detached, controlled energy. She explains that the character’s physicality was carefully designed: the posture, hand placement, voice, vocabulary, and even the choice of words were all shaped to communicate a calm, nonthreatening presence. Zosia’s behavior, she says, is always influenced by Carol’s emotional state and by the scene’s purpose.
One of the most striking aspects of playing Zosia, Wydra says, was inhabiting a being without shame, fear, or personal attachment. In the world of Pluribus, the Others are part of a collective consciousness, and their memories exist outside the body. That created a character with no concern for status symbols, privacy, or even physical discomfort. Wydra says that reality helped her understand how alien yet seductive that world could be. She points out that it represents peace, tolerance, and the absence of war, hunger, and prejudice, but also a loss of individuality, surprise, and emotional intensity.
Wydra and Seehorn kept things light off-camera, often joking between takes and sharing a daily donut ritual. She says their offscreen bond made the work easier and more enjoyable. Looking ahead, Wydra says she knows little about Season 2 and is waiting, like the audience, to see where the story goes. She says she is excited to return to the cast and to New Mexico, where the series is filmed, and remains curious about Zosia’s origins and future.
