Emmy-Nominated Actress Karolina Wydra Talks ‘Pluribus’ with Rich

Karolina Wydra auditioned for the biggest role of her career without knowing what the show was about. All she had was a name and a one-line description of a character who was pleasant and likable.

"I didn't understand who Zosa really is," Wydra told Rich. It was only when she tested and read the first two scripts that Vince Gilligan's world came into focus, and her reaction to it was immediate. "I was completely overwhelmed and excited."

Then came the questions. Wydra asked Gilligan to break down how these people move through the world, and what she got back was a strange, specific set of rules. The affected are fully fledged human beings who simply do not carry the full spectrum of emotion. They hold the memories of grief and anger without feeling either one in the body. They are content, and they can perform anything at the highest level of humanity.

That last part is not an abstraction on set. It is homework. Wydra had to rehearse everything so it looked like muscle memory, because Zosa is the greatest at whatever she happens to be doing. The greatest helicopter pilot in episode nine. The greatest croquet player during the croquet game. And the greatest pilot of a C-130, which Wydra actually taxied for real at the Albuquerque airport.

The pilots initially said no on safety grounds, because she is not a pilot. Then they spent a day walking her through how the plane operates, saw how seriously she was taking it, and cleared her. Asked whether there was anything she turned out to genuinely be good at, Wydra did not hesitate. Taxiing the C-130.

Gilligan has said the premise is not meant as AI criticism, but Wydra pointed out that he built it roughly 10 years before AI entered the mainstream conversation. "What I find incredible is that Vince Gilligan is tapping into something so otherworldly," she said.

The argument the show starts is the argument the cast was already having on set. Rich made the case for individuality in sports terms, that Chris loves Boston teams and he loves New York teams and TJ likes 15 of them, and that the friction is what fills three hours every day. Wydra pushed back with the case for the others.

"They care about the planet. There's no prejudice. There's no racism. There's no war," she said. "It's quite peaceful, right?" Individuality buys you surprise and debate. The question is whether surprise and debate are worth what the others are offering in exchange. Chris settled it for himself in one line: "I don't want to love everyone."

Wydra loves that people are having Pluribus dinners to fight about exactly this. As for the diet the affected keep, she did not know about it until the cast reached that episode, and she remembers the reveal landing hard. Gilligan, she said, is the sweetest guy with the darkest side.

Season 2 is coming, and she knows almost nothing. No scripts yet, no idea where it goes, only that production starts soon and that Gilligan is excited. She liked working that way on season 1 too, discovering the story script by script.

Her favorite work came in episode eight, where the relationship between Carol and Zosa shifts. Up to that point, Zosa is doing a careful dance, never pushing too far, making sure Carol feels safe and seen. After Carol calls for her in the loneliness of episode seven, the rules change.

The path to all of it was improbable. Wydra had two children during the pandemic, lost her manager and agent while she was home with them, and was 41 and terrified about how to restart. Then an email arrived from a commercial agency she was not even working with. Casting had gone through more than 5,000 submissions worldwide and could not find Zosa, so they dug into a cabinet of handwritten notes on every actor they had ever seen. Russell Scott found her photo and asked what ever happened to her.

"I'm still pinching myself," Wydra said.