Miami Living Magazine

EXCLUSIVE 92 MIAMI LIVING Osama! Communism is so over. Give your people toilet paper!" Knowing that she started out doing improv and stand-up, I ask if any of these lines were improv. "She has no idea what she's talking about," Ivana says about Katrina. "That stuff was actually improv. All improv'd. Things like, 'Every time I meet a guy. Lesbian.' All that. That director [Mark Waters] I'd worked with before in Head Over Heels, and he just let me have my own takes." Her stint in comedy, before transitioning into acting, was short-lived, due to its over-the-top competitiveness. But Ivana is not averse to working hard --citing that everything is competitive. "I'm not very competitive though; I really believe that what's meant to be yours is yours… As much as I love this business, it's not the most important thing in my life. This is my job, which I love and respect and I work hard. But I would never be interested in walking over someone to get what I wanted… If I didn't get a job and some other girl got the job, good for her, it was hers to get," she philosophizes. None of that competitiveness exists on the set of BANSHEE. Ivana's character primarily interacts with the men on the show. With the men, she sweats, bruises, bleeds, and cries, she tells me. Despite the fact that the women don't spend time together onscreen, they are extremely close off-screen. "We love each other so much that we're dying for scenes together. We're a bunch of really girly, girl-power, girl-love girls… The girls are my sisters. I love them. I don't have any sisters and I'm the eldest one on the show, so I take them all under my wing. I just want everyone to be their most awesome on the show." In season three, pre- miering January 9th at 10 pm on Cinemax, Ivana finally gets the chance to act with the women. This season, Carrie is not happy. "There's not a choice Carrie can make that everybody's happy with. Ever… She's kind of mad at the world, because she can't win. So, she's going to make really bad choices..." Ivana returns us to her matchmaking pursuits and devises a plan. "Are you interested?" she asks --her eyes wide with excitement. She continues to ask me more questions. "See, I want to interview you. This sounds interesting," she says about a story I'm telling her. What is interesting is Ivana's year ahead, which not only brings season three of BANSHEE, but the release of two of her movies. Ivana plays a biographer to Bill Murray's "gabillionaire" character in Cameron Crowe's still-untitled film starring Bradley Cooper and Rachel McAdams. "I got to play with Billy Murray a lot. I'm a little bit in love with Bill Murray, to be honest," she says with a smile. "The movie is about space, and the future, but not the future as in sci-fi. It's set in Hawaii on a military base… Every day I'd just show up and we'd improv some things or the camera would come up to me and say, 'Say this.' So I did. It was like that. It was pretty crazy." And there's also the indie film, Alone, in which Ivana plays a call girl. Working as an actress never seemed out of reach to Ivana. There was never a Plan B. Her mentality is, why not? "People do this all the time. Why not me, too? Now, there might be a degree of success, a degree of fame, a degree of prestige. This is as hard as any other job," she says humbly. "This is not harder than being a writer. That's got to be hard, isn't it?" I tell her that I believe that her field may be more challenging, and she throws out a few rational reasons to convince me that being a writer is just as tough. "Everyone is not doing that, that might want to be," she says. "It's degrees. I haven't won an Oscar, but I am doing what I love," she says thoughtfully. And we love watching her. Her self-effacing responses and concern for others is a testament to the type of person she is. Though intensely beautiful, sexy, and strong, she's not the woman who will undercut you to get ahead, she's the woman you want in your corner. Yes, to protect you, but mostly so she can rub some of that amazing confidence and wisdom of hers off on you. Don't miss season three of BANSHEE premiering January 9th at 10 pm on Cinemax and follow Ivana on Twitter @ivanamilicevic. ML PHOTO CREDIT: GREGORY SHUMMON/CINEMAX

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