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" You&amp;#039;d think the main reason to tune into Fox&amp;#039;s new series Rake, which has its second episode tonight, is Greg Kinnear&amp;#039;s charming disaster of a lawyer. And it may be. But the reason you should be watching is Bojana Novakovic, the Australian actress with Serbian roots who&amp;#039;s playing Kinnear&amp;#039;s all-business escort-girlfriend. The new TV star talked to us about her addiction to the medium, her side gig doing blind date improv, and the dating scene in Los Angeles. ESQUIRE.COM: From the pilot, it seems like we&amp;#039;ll be seeing a lot more of you in the coming weeks. BOJANA NOVAKOVIC: I hope so. The funny thing is that it&amp;#039;s so hard to talk about, because my character changes all the time. In the beginning she&amp;#039;s a high-class escort and her relationship with Keegan [Greg Kinnear] is questionable. Are they friends, is it something more? Is it business? What is it? And then everything keeps changing to the point where I&amp;#039;m waiting to read the next episode to find out what&amp;#039;s going on with me. ESQ: And to do it all with Greg Kinnear. BN: I don&amp;#039;t think he&amp;#039;s ever done something like this, the long-term commitment. ESQ: Have you done a series before? BN: No. I did one in Austriala called Satisfaction, which was actually set inside a brothel. Can you believe it? People love me as a prostitute, obviously. What is going on with my life? But that was a very different character. And I did this one a long time ago \u2014 this is the stuff you don&amp;#039;t want anyone to know about. Satisfaction was fine, but this other one. So, I&amp;#039;ve done a couple, but only for one season. And I haven&amp;#039;t done this for years. ESQ: Do you have a lot of shows you keep up with? BN: Dude. I have to tell you something. I have made a commitment. One of my New Year&amp;#039;s resolutions \u2014 apart from living an ethical life and all that kind of stuff everyone does... I have this cheat life where at work I play a prostitute and date, and in real life I&amp;#039;m not dating and being good. But regarding binge-watching: I had to make this commitment not to watch for 90 days. Like an alcoholic, I was like no TV for 90 days. Except for Rake, which I&amp;#039;m allowed to watch. But I don&amp;#039;t have a television. All I have is Netflix and Apple TV and Hulu. So I have to go to my sister&amp;#039;s house to watch it. I got so addicted last year to a couple of shows that at the end of last year I had to make a commitment to myself to not waste my life.  ESQ: That&amp;#039;s tough. BN: I know. When Friday Night Lights finished, I cried for a day. I have a problem. ESQ: I&amp;#039;m glad to know that even as an Australian Texas football resonates with you. BN: Are you kidding me? &amp;quot;Clear eyes, full hearts, can&amp;#039;t lose.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s different when you say it in an Australian accent. Oh my God. Coach Taylor! Kyle Chandler. Oh my God. Matt Saracen? What do you do? Of course, Tim Riggins. Everyone loves Tim Riggins, but, you know what, he&amp;#039;s Tim Riggins. ESQ: Saracen was your guy then? BN: Okay, I know I cried when the show finished, but I couldn&amp;#039;t control myself when he left. I died. I was texting my friend, &amp;quot;Please tell me it gets better. I can&amp;#039;t watch this show anymore if he&amp;#039;s gone.&amp;quot; And they&amp;#039;re just like, &amp;quot;Keep watching. Keep watching.&amp;quot; Then he comes back and he goes again. I was just crying. I think it speaks more to where I was at than, like, how good the show is. Matt Saracen was definitely my boy, but Coach Taylor even more so, I think.  ESQ: Every time you need a little motivation in life, they&amp;#039;ve got his speech on YouTube that you can cue up. BN: Oh, no. I think I would just cry. Look, I can&amp;#039;t. I had to go off it. Talk to me in April. The first of April you can talk to me about it. ESQ: Did you leave any series hanging, that you&amp;#039;re coming back to when you&amp;#039;ve finished your commitment? BN: Absolutely not. I made myself finish Friday Night Lights. It was to the point where I was in Serbia going on this five-hour drive to see my cousin, and I delayed it for two hours so I could finish the show before I went, because I knew I would cry on the drive. I timed my addiction. I get attached. I think that that&amp;#039;s the problem. It was Scandal before that. ESQ: Women are obsessed with that show. BN: I know. It&amp;#039;s because they&amp;#039;ve got Tony Goldwyn playing the president fking the beautiful woman. Who wouldn&amp;#039;t be? The sex scenes are amazing. You don&amp;#039;t even see titties and they&amp;#039;re amazing. It&amp;#039;s really good. And then Kerry Washington struts her hips every time she walks. And the president is sexy and emotional. He&amp;#039;s a train wreck of a president. Can&amp;#039;t keep it in his pants. The country is probably falling apart, but the women love him. It&amp;#039;s amazing. Anyway, back to Rake. I&amp;#039;m talking about all competitor networks. ESQ: Any Fox shows you love? BN: Oh, yeah. The Following. ESQ: Rake is based on an Australian show, right? Had you seen it back in Australia? BN: Yeah. I actually met Peter Duncan, who&amp;#039;s the creator, about playing this character in the original. Now he has a story that goes like this: Bojana was too young. Right? My story is that I got offered a film, so I didn&amp;#039;t care. But! And we kind of argue this case to each other. I&amp;#039;m so glad that I got to see the show and that I&amp;#039;m getting to do it here. It all worked out in the end. I felt rather rejected, I think, for a second. But I was doing a movie, so it all worked out. I read it and loved it, because there was this kind of vagabond of a male lead who everybody loved to hate, but women loved to love but not tell anyone. You just don&amp;#039;t want to admit to anybody that you like this kind of guy. Then there were these four female characters who are his compass in the show. And I thought it was such a beautiful, honest depiction of a world that we kind of know in terms of the emotional lives of the characters. I would absolutely have Keegan represent me any day. One day when I&amp;#039;m up against the criminal courts for, I don&amp;#039;t know, spray-painting &amp;quot;Love is the only way&amp;quot; on the Hollywood sign \u2014 ESQ: Wait. That&amp;#039;s what you&amp;#039;d get arrested for? BN: Well, I&amp;#039;d get arrested for a crime of passion. Not like a murder, but some kind of environmental or social activism. In fact, I did organize something in high school like a school walkout. These kids were locked up in their school, they weren&amp;#039;t allowed out, but 3,000 school kids from Sydney walked out and protested. And I organized it from my mom&amp;#039;s office at work. And I was 12. Crazy, right? Well, what&amp;#039;s happened now? I&amp;#039;m playing a prostitute and doing blind dates every week. I was all suppressed when I was a kid. I&amp;#039;m living like a naughty 12-year-old now. ESQ: What is this blind date thing you&amp;#039;re doing? BN: I don&amp;#039;t want you to bastardize this, so I have to explain it to you properly. It&amp;#039;s called The Blind Date Project. And the premise of the show is you&amp;#039;re watching a blind date between two people who are in desperate need of connection. You don&amp;#039;t really know what they want. The premise, in terms of the technicality of it, is I have no idea who is turning up. I perform the show with a different actor each week. We both play characters. It&amp;#039;s not reality TV and it&amp;#039;s not an interview show. It&amp;#039;s basically a live one-hour-long improv. So, an actor comes to the show. He has a bunch of flowers. He arrives. And we have this date, which lasts an hour. Directions are sent to us via text messages and phone calls by the director who is there, live. So she is texting, calling, giving us direction. And there is no set ending. And what ends up happening is entirely up in the air. Oh, and by the way, it&amp;#039;s set in a karaoke bar where we sing songs and stuff as well. And it&amp;#039;s actually done in a real bar. It&amp;#039;s a live piece. I&amp;#039;m doing it in LA every Wednesday night. We&amp;#039;ve had amazing actors on. Justin Kirk did it. Jeremy Sisto did it. Jason Ritter did it. It&amp;#039;s like the date you never want to go on. And it&amp;#039;s a girl this week. This week I have girl. I don&amp;#039;t know who it is. ESQ: But what if you had Zach Gilford who played Matt Saracen just show up? BN: To be honest with you, it&amp;#039;s so terrifying for the guy. I&amp;#039;m in the zone. I&amp;#039;m looking at an hour with no script, so I will not get starstruck. I really don&amp;#039;t think I could get starstruck with anybody. Famous final words, but I just don&amp;#039;t think I could. It is an interesting show. On the down low, I&amp;#039;m desperately trying to get Greg Kinnear to do it. Put it out there. Greg Kinnear, I challenge you. It&amp;#039;s amazing. And I think LA is kind of related to it because the dating culture here is so bizarre. ESQ: I&amp;#039;ve heard that it can be a little superficial out there. BN: I&amp;#039;ll tell you what, it&amp;#039;s weird. I&amp;#039;ve dated, two American guys? Three? Like in the last five years, I&amp;#039;ve dated a couple of American guys, and I have to tell you I really didn&amp;#039;t find them superficial at all. I found them both very charming and beautiful and courageous within the relationship. We did what we could and it didn&amp;#039;t work out. So I didn&amp;#039;t really find that superficiality, but I can see that in the culture here, and it scares me. It&amp;#039;s scary. Because people are like &amp;quot;dating.&amp;quot; Like, [affecting an American accent] &amp;quot;Oh I&amp;#039;m dating at the moment. I&amp;#039;m dating this guy and this guy. And I&amp;#039;m dating this really nice guy, but I don&amp;#039;t find him attractive?&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m like, Oh my God. Don&amp;#039;t date him! Don&amp;#039;t be mean to the nice guy if you don&amp;#039;t want to have sex with him. Do not date him, because that&amp;#039;s why he&amp;#039;s dating you! That&amp;#039;s not me. I was doing an American voice. But it&amp;#039;s just that the dating culture here is really different. There is something about it, which is don&amp;#039;t jump into bed with someone until you&amp;#039;ve gone on a couple of dates. People here, it&amp;#039;s like you do get to know someone before you jump into bed with them. Whereas in Australia it&amp;#039;s totally different where it&amp;#039;s, Oh my God. I like you. I like you, too. Okay, let&amp;#039;s go home and consummate and now we&amp;#039;re in a relationship. And if it doesn&amp;#039;t work, you get out of it. You kind of just go for it in Australia. It is what it is. If there&amp;#039;s going to be heartache, there&amp;#039;s going to be heartache. You might as well get laid in the process. I don&amp;#039;t know if that&amp;#039;s good advice. But I think for your readers, I love it. What&amp;#039;s the dating scene in New York like now? Is it the same as here? ESQ: It&amp;#039;s all right. It can feel like a business transaction a lot of times. BN: Yeah, I&amp;#039;ve found that here and in New York, there&amp;#039;s a lot more sexuality in the actual profession. It&amp;#039;s a sexually charged profession here. In Australia, it really isn&amp;#039;t like that. There&amp;#039;s a greater sense of community in the film and theater and TV world in Australia. Don&amp;#039;t get me wrong, people get together and stuff. But here, there&amp;#039;s just a really high sexually charged energy to the business. In the town itself, there&amp;#039;s a lot of flirtation and charge. I don&amp;#039;t know how to explain it. ESQ: I think I&amp;#039;d have to visit LA to get it. BN: Oh my God. Come and visit LA. I&amp;#039;ll point it out.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/interviews/a27050/bojana-novakovic-rake-interview/>