MOVIE INTERVIEW – Mariann Hermányi, known from Rise of the Raven and The Brutalist, is the lead of one of the most anticipated Hungarian romantic fantasy comedies of the coming years, Még egy kívánság. In the film she plays a burned-out music manager who, with the help of a magic notebook, can literally erase everything that bothers her – even people. On the occasion of the shoot, we spoke with her about the dominance of rom-coms, the quality of Hungarian films, the chances of horror and video game adaptations, and the limits of method acting.

Mariann Hermányi is a member of the Centrál Theatre ensemble, and among her television and film roles are the historical series Rise of the Raven, the Oscar-winning The Brutalist alongside Adrien Brody, as well as the Budapest-shot Until Dawn video game adaptation, in which she plays a masked witch, the Glore Witch. Her next leading role on the big screen is Még egy kívánság, arriving in 2026, the romantic fantasy romantic comedy by Kata Dobó and Fanni Szilágyi, in which Juli, a music manager, has her life turned upside down by a mysterious wish notebook – and an unknown band. That’s what we sat down with her to talk about.

theGeek: I have to ask right at the start: Még egy kívánság is a rom-com too, or at least a romantic comedy with fantasy elements. Why do you think this genre is so popular here, and why does it feel like it consistently “beats” other genres in Hungarian cinemas?

Hermányi Mariann: I’m not sure it “beats” everything and everyone, but it’s true that romantic comedy is more popular worldwide than arthouse film or a heavy drama (tragedy). If you look at theatre programming (too), you see the same thing there: musicals, sung, lighter genres reach a much broader audience. This is often explained by saying that when someone finally makes it to the theatre or the cinema, they don’t necessarily want to cry and think deeply, they want to relax a little, laugh, see something beautiful. Quite simply, the desire for lightness, love, and “pink paint” is stronger than the desire for more painful, harsher stories.

tG: I was mainly thinking of feature films. Horror, thriller, crime, historical film, adventure – we had Post Mortem, detective films have been made too, there’s the historical-action world of Rise of the Raven. And yet it seems these attempts keep getting pushed into the background next to rom-coms. Why do you think that is?

H.M.: I think quality matters a lot. If a film “flops”, if it simply doesn’t reach the level where it can compete, then from there it has a hard time, regardless of genre. In the historical, costume, action lane there have been some very ugly failures in recent years. (while) Rise of the Raven finally (the first production in this genre that) reaches a standard that goes beyond “very Hungarian and at times spectacular (something representative and showy)”. You can feel real authorial intent (and quality) there. It also matters when a film is released, how it’s positioned in the programming strategy. If it lands in the wrong place, at the wrong time, it can easily get lost, even if it’s good. So it’s a much more complicated equation than “rom-coms do better”.

tG: As an actress, looking at your own career, what kinds of films do you gravitate toward? Rise of the Raven is a costume historical series, and now there’s a romantic fantasy comedy coming. Do you have a favorite genre, or do you decide based on completely different criteria?

H.M.: The first step for me is always to look at who the creators are. Who’s directing, who’s writing, who will be the key creative partners. Do I get the screenplay, can I read it in full, can I see that it was truly written by a screenwriter, or is it just some cobbled-together outline. Based on that I decide whether I want to be in it. I have no genre restrictions; the point isn’t whether it’s drama, rom-com, or horror, but whether real professionals are working on it and whether I can see quality in it. If I feel this could become a good film or series, I’ll take it, whether it’s a romantic comedy, a costume series, or even a dark thriller. Not just anything, but almost any genre can work if the background is strong.

tG: You mentioned you’ve worked in international productions too. Which jobs do people mention to you the most these days?

Mariann Hermányi in the horror film Until Dawn, based on the Sony PlayStation video game, as “Glore Witch”

H.M.: I’ve shot in many languages, mostly smaller roles, but these have been very important experiences for me. The most striking one is probably that I’m in The Brutalist, which ended up winning an Oscar, and where I had a scene with Adrien Brody. Then there’s the series Shadow and Bone, which premiered in Los Angeles and was watched by quite a lot of people. And lately many ask about Until Dawn, which is the feature-film adaptation of the PlayStation horror game, shot in Budapest, and there I play a masked witch, the Glore Witch. These are all jobs that show how well Hungarian crews and actors can connect to the international film industry too.

tG: Since Until Dawn came up: our site is fundamentally a video game portal, so it’s especially interesting that you’re in a game adaptation like this. Do you think these more popular genres – especially horror – have a real future in Hungary?

H.M.: I’ll be honest: right now I don’t think it really even has a present, and its past is only a few short excursions. Very little horror is made, and even less of it is truly good. And yet it’s an insanely exciting genre; I personally loved shooting Until Dawn. Of course it has its own technique: how to shoot a film like this well, how the masks work, the effects, the pacing. The problem is that horror is already a niche genre: in theory people under 18 can’t watch it, a large part of our grandparents’ (older) generation won’t go in because it’s too fast (they’ve had enough with war or their own life traumas), and there are plenty of sensitive viewers who simply can’t handle the tension. That narrows the audience a lot. It’s also expensive, technically demanding, requires many special solutions, so a director can easily say: “it costs a lot, few people watch it, let’s make a rom-com instead.” I understand that, but it’s a shame, because there really could be potential in it (strong Hungarian film).

tG: Isn’t it a bit sad that rom-com is what dominates so much, when for example I think Post Mortem turned out to be a particularly good film, and you could see that Péter Bergendy was really into horror?

H.M.: (I think Post Mortem is also a good example that quality can be created in the genre, I totally believe that, even if I haven’t seen it yet.) Unfortunately I haven’t seen it yet, but you’ve made me curious! In any case, maybe the problem isn’t even that there are lots of romantic comedies, but that there are lots of lousy ones. (if we automatically consider the rom-com genre “lousy”.) I don’t think the issue is the genre itself, but sloppiness. A rom-com isn’t bad because it’s about love, but because it stays on a soap-opera level, because the story is formulaic, because the whole thing looks like it was invented the day before. It’s the same with children’s performances: many think you can babble anything to kids, “it’s fine that way”, but if a children’s performance is high-quality, it’s just as seriously to be taken as any “adult” performance. With rom-coms too, the question is whether there’s thought, care, work behind it. My problem isn’t with the genre, but when the quality isn’t in proportion to the money and energy spent on it.

tG: You mentioned several times that there are lots of untapped stories. Which recent Hungarian films do you think are good examples of a high-quality yet audience-friendly direction?

H.M.: In the past five years a few films have been made that I really love. For example, Renátó Olasz’s film Minden csillag is, in my view, one of the most sensitive (better) newly made Hungarian movies: there was hardly any money for it, it was practically shot with a single camera, and yet it works because it has soul. Then there’s Lefkovicsék gyászolnak, which can even be watched as a comedy, but at the same time it grabs you very deeply. Not to mention the films Larry or Akik maradtak. All of these (the films) show that yes, you can make something exciting and accessible at the same time (too, even if not everything takes place among pink sets). And then there are historical (or psychological-topic) dramas, like Rise of the Raven, or even real cases that I’ve played on stage too – for example, the Ladányi Piroska story, about a 14-year-old girl serial killer, about whom unbelievably detailed transcripts have survived. (From all of this, very strong films could be made.)

tG: In the conversation, the responsibility of state, public-service TV channels also came up. Do you think there would be room for, say, supporting documentaries and historical films more?

H.M.: (Absolutely there would be). Ideally, public-service television would truly also take up genres that don’t necessarily bring huge ratings immediately, but are important: documentaries, correct, credible historical treatments, works that don’t manufacture propaganda, but awaken thought. I think the problem lies in the imbalance: often there is no harmony between the usable money and the resulting quality. There would be nothing wrong with lighter genres if, alongside them, there were space for these types of films too, and not only on paper, but through projects that actually get made.

tG: Personally, what kinds of films do you miss most from today’s Hungarian lineup?

H.M.: Films I feel like rewatching. (in which I see the work and the sense of mission.) Where you can see caliber on screen, real actors. Often I feel there’s enormous noise: a huge amount of content is being made, today everyone thinks of themselves as an actor and a director, content just pours in from everywhere, but why. (while it goes at the expense of quality.) Every year 80–100 actors graduate, and half of them become career changers within a few years, because
we live in a world where slowly the number of Instagram followers matters more than the diploma. (it turns out they shouldn’t be working in this – either for talent-related or mental reasons.) Meanwhile we see that (often) people end up in decision-making positions who have nothing to do with the profession and
in reality have nothing to say. The weight disappears. I’m looking for the people whose eyes you can see burning, who want to tell stories: directors like Fanni Szilágyi, cinematographers like those I’ve been working with lately, whose work is driven by a very strong inner need. I like working with them, because that’s where I feel it’s not just “we’re making a film”, but we truly want to say something.

tG: Let’s shift a bit within the acting side to dream roles. Is there a classic or iconic role you’ve already played and that’s very important to you, or one you still really want to play?

H.M.: I played Nina in The Seagull for many years, and I loved that. I started at 24 and it stayed with me until I was 27, as I too grew up and changed in the meantime. It’s a role that burned into me. But if I had to name a dream role now, I’d say a truly extreme, mentally very problematic character: a hopeless case, a serial killer, a really dangerous, extreme state of mind. I find it very exciting to try, as an actor, to follow what leads to such a mental state, what the consequences are, and how it can be portrayed without slipping into self-serving shock value.

tG: At this point method acting inevitably comes up, and its dangers. How much do you fear that a very difficult, psychologically taxing role “sticks” in you?

H.M.: I think we’re talking about two different things. One is method acting itself, how we prepare for a role: how much we let it into ourselves, how much we identify with it. In Hungary, the conditions simply aren’t there to remain in a character for months, because we rehearse in the morning, perform at night, and shoot in between – there isn’t the time and structure Hollywood has. I believe certain parts of you are worth “letting through” to the character, identifying with it, but at the same time technique is terribly important. On set we often shoot a scene word by word, we jump around in the arc, we don’t work linearly. In those situations you have to consciously be able to flip “switches”. How someone releases tension is another question: you can take everything to extremes, but sooner or later it has a cost on the level of the body too. At some point you have to decide what is worth shortening your life for, and what isn’t.

tG: Speaking of extreme cases: you mentioned the story of Ladányi Piroska, a 14-year-old girl serial killer, which was also adapted into a play. How much do these real stories move something in you?

H.M.: A lot. The story of Ladányi Piroska, for example, is incredibly fascinating and terrifying at the same time: a teenage girl who kills other children, steals their clothes, and throws them into the well, which then literally “fills up”, and she gets caught. A 120-page transcript survived about it, where her confession, her thinking, the whole tragedy can be followed through. These stories are at once social mirrors of self-knowledge and brutal psychodramas. I feel that from material like this you could make films that are watchable, thought-provoking, and interesting on an international level too. But for that you need a director who falls in love with the story and can fight for the support.

tG: Coming back to the present: Még egy kívánság is a romantic fantasy comedy in which Juli can, with the help of a wish notebook, essentially remove anything from her life. What grabbed you in this story?

H.M.: That it’s playful and yet painfully familiar at the same time. Juli is a burned-out music manager who increasingly feels that neither her work nor her private life gives her anything anymore. Then a notebook ends up in her hands with which she can “erase” any person, situation, problem from the world. From the outside it’s very funny, especially when she starts “boosting” the career of an unknown band, the Dead Flamingos, this way, but at its core it’s about how many times we’ve thought it would be good to just cross someone out of our lives. The film plays with: okay, but what if you really can do it? What do you lose, and what do you gain? That moral, human side is what interests me most, and that we tell all of it in an entertaining, light form.

tG: From what you’ve said, quality and real personal stakes in a film are very important to you. What do you hope viewers will take home from Még egy kívánság?

H.M.: I hope that first of all they have a good time, they laugh, they switch off for an hour and a half to two hours, because that’s terribly important too. But it would also be good if they recognized themselves a little: their own bad decisions, their procrastinations, their unspoken desires. If after the film even one person goes home and thinks that maybe it’s not the world around them that needs to be erased, but something in themselves needs to change, then it was worth it. And of course I secretly hope that if this film is successful, then it may be easier to get money and trust for stories that are less “pink”, but just as much about our reality.

Interview by: -Gergely Herpai “BadSector”- and -Anikó-,

photos: Dóra Sallák, Gergely Herpai and Anikó Angyal

The producer of the film Még egy kívánság is Megafilm Service