On Screen and Behind the Scenes with OITNB’s Xenia LeBlanc
Xenia Leblanc is an actress, comedian and filmmaker best known for her role as young red in Netflix’s supersmash hit, “Orange is the New Black”. A Russian immigrant, Xenia ventured to the US to pursue her dreams in the entertainment industry. From working in front of the screen to behind the camera as a script supervisor, writer, editor, and producer of independent films and sketches, her passion for creating via different roles on set runs deep. Her work has appeared at the NYC independent Film Festival and has won accolades at MyRodeReel Film Festival and Film Riot’s Stay at Home Film Challenge where she was honored for a piece entirely shot in quarantine. Xenia’s latest creation is “Gritty & Pretty” is a 5 episode female-driven comedy centered around boxing gym owner Kira Waikovsky, played by Leblanc and Lauren Barton (played by Kelly Russo) which tackles female empowerment and friendships with a punch. What stands out most about Xenia is her work ethic, dedication to curiosity and, desire to make great work.
The Light Leaks’s Sophie Hayssen interviewed Xenia about Knitty & Gritty, her experiences on OITNB, and being a multi-hyphonated creator. This interview has been edited for brevity.
On Her Journey:
How has your Russian upbringing informed your comedic style? Have you noticed differences in style while working in American comedies and dramas?
I feel like my humor and things that I grew up considering are very different from American culture. Russia is really sarcastic so Russians in general love dark humor. Here, even though there are plenty of dark comedy filmmakers and lovers, when I was making Gritty & Pretty I actually had to step back and realize that some of the jokes were not understood as much by Americans. It has definitely been a challenge for me because there is a lot of folklore and things in Russia that we consider funny and is just a traditional type of humor whereas here I had to learn to be a little more fast paced and clear about what my jokes are.
How did you know you were meant to be a creator? Were there any early female filmmakers or actresses you felt inspired by?
I absolutely love Vera Farmiga. She’s an actress I’ve been looking up to a lot because of how real she is and how goofy she is at times but also very deep. Filmmaking-wise I grew up watching a lot of Tarantino and [Robert] Rodriguez’s films because my father really loved dark movies. I grew up watching those as well as watching a lot of European movies and comedies.
There’s so many amazing actresses I look up to. The other day I was watching Easy A with Emma Stone and I just gravitate towards actresses and creators that are more real with their comedy and it’s not a cookie cutter comedy. It’s something that comes from their personal emotions or points of view. Taika Waititi is an amazing creator and just super inspiring in that regard.
When did you realize the importance of creating content as a director/writer/producer in addition to just being an actor?
I always wanted to be an actress but I felt like it was important to learn filmmaking as well because I am sort of a control freak so I thought it would be important to start learning how to tell good stories apart from just acting. Honestly, I started learning filmmaking first and then acting took over. But now especially there’s so many new technologies and ways to tell your stories. By coming here I’ve realized it’s not always that easy to get a job in the industry of any kind, but especially in acting because the competition is insane. So I’ve realized I have to learn to amplify my voice and my uniqueness by creating my own stories.
What are your goals in Hollywood? Where do you see yourself gravitating towards as a creator?
I feel like in the beginning when I first came here five years ago, it was mostly about acting and it was a dream of mine to get amazing roles and be in TV shows. However, the more I’ve learned about the industry, the more I’ve realized it would be fantastic to become more of a filmmaker/actor as opposed to just an actor. Of course, it’s my dream to collaborate with as many creative people here as possible, but I want to be able to create and tell my own stories with my own unique voice and I feel like directing, producing, and acting is where it all is. It’s hard to say I just want one thing. I think it’s all within the creative realm of where I want to be.
On Her Role As Young Red In Orange Is The New Black:
What was the audition process like for your role as Young Red on Orange Is The New Black?
I was super nervous. A friend of mine reached out to me one day and said there was a casting going on for a couple of Russian roles in Orange is the New Black you should definitely apply for it. I just got a manager at the time and I said ‘Have me audition for Red’s friend.” Initially we applied for that role, and then my manager reached out to me and said “you have to audition for Red. You have red hair and everything so let’s just do it.” I sent them my information and everything. I didn’t have any big roles.
They didn’t respond for quite some time, and I left and went to Hawaii. As soon as I landed in Hawaii they requested a self-tape. I had to record it pretty much the same night in a hotel room with a crazy background and everything. There was like ten pages of dialogue and I was like “I have to do my best.” So I sent in the tape and within three days they called me back and were like ‘you’ve got the part. You’re perfect for it. You sound like her. You’re shooting in a couple of weeks. ’
Did you study Kate Mulgrew’s performance as present-day Red before playing Young Red?
Of course, I watched that show religiously prior to being on it. I knew that character just by watching all the previous seasons and just knowing how she behaves, how her posture is, how tough she is, how sarcastic she is, which is very close to who I am. I had to definitely figure out some moments about who she used to be as opposed to who she is now in the story. I had to make sure there were traits of who she became and at the same time she was much more innocent before she went to prison and all that stuff. She had her own dreams that were broken and I had to make sure that was more of who she was as opposed to just being Red as we know her from Orange is the New Black. I had to show a softer side of her character that fell in love and was trying on jeans and felt awkward at parties and things like that.
That must have been fun to sort of reverse engineer a character.
Yes, definitely and really challenging because her character is loved by fans all over the world. It was challenging because I wanted to do her justice and we had a fantastic crew and the director was incredible. There was a translator on set because we were doing everything in Russian. They were just making sure that those little moments we created together where there is like a dance sequence and I was very nervous to dance. I had to come up with a way to trip over a bench as I’m approaching the guy. All these little cute moments. I always say it was probably the most fun I’ve had acting on a project.
Your episode of Orange Is The New Black takes place in Soviet-Era Russia. How much did you know about that time period before that role? Were you able to draw on your family’s history at all?
There was a joke among my family members that I came to Hollywood to be an actor in American movies and I ended up back in the Soviet Union. I was mostly raised by my grandmother especially during my early school years. My grandparents pretty much went through the entire craziness of the Soviet Era where you couldn’t say certain things and you had to stand in line to get your food. They definitely still have that mindset.
I was born in the Soviet Union but it ended pretty much two years after I was born. But still, supermarkets arrived much later and we didn’t have a big variety of choices of food. Also, fashion wise [you had to be] a bit modest about what you wear and if you had something from America it was frowned upon. For example my father went to America and brought back gum. My brother and I were like ‘Ooh we have American gum.’ We got into trouble in certain cases, especially at school. It was like ‘You should not have those items. They’re from a different country. They are the enemy.’
As an actor were you able to have any creative input on set?
They pretty much did a fantastic job writing this because they really researched the roles. So, again, this was my first big role where you do have creative control, but not really. Your creative control is bringing in the choices that you make as an actor. But I didn't have a choice to just come and be like, ‘No, this should be this way.’
But there was one time when the writer of the show came up to me during the lunch break and he was like, 'Hey, I want to add like a line into this moment. And how do you think she would say that according to what's going on?' It was like it was at the factory and it was like, ‘What would a person say in this case? You know, little moments like that. But the costume designers did a fantastic job. And they actually asked they were like, 'Is this something that would be present in Russia?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, definitely' like the materials they chose that the clothing that we wore besides the jeans or anything like that.
But behavior wise, they just trusted all of us Russian actors that they've cast in this to kind of do our best with it. And they felt like we know this so much that they just let us play with it and just just bring in those aspects of darkness in Russian personalities.
Was it fun to play in that Russian dark, sarcastic humor you were already familiar with?
Yeah, for sure. You have to keep in mind that this was created for an American audience. It's not done for Russians, so Russians watching this would not laugh as much maybe or connect to this as much . Like I know my family watched the episode and they were like, 'This is amazing and like ‘Great portrayal and stuff.' But there's still something missing because the storytelling nature of it is very American. I can see the difference. But I personally love the way they told the story, but I know a lot of Russian people that were like, 'Oh, this is not really this is not exactly what it was like.' Yeah, no kidding. This is an American show that portrays an image of something, a stylistic version of something the same with humor and things. There are some lines that I said that again, I suggested certain things, but like it's like 'No this is how we want to do it because in English translated, that would make more sense.'
On Her Latest Project Gritty & Pretty:
You wore many hats in Gritty & Pretty as creator, writer, director, producer, and star. Which role do you feel was the most rewarding during this project?
I think acting, in general, is something that is always very rewarding. I feel like you're tapping into the truthfulness of who you are, and I feel like for me that was the most rewarding was because it was really stressful to kind of switch between.
There was one day when we were filming Lauren working at the Instagram channel. That was the most fun day I've had directing because I didn't have to think about acting at the same time. I keep saying when people ask me this question about 'you wear so many hats, how was that?' and I honestly think it's not a good thing. I don't think I'll do it again to that extent, because directing and directing yourself acting as well as, you know, just switching between the two is a really, really exhausting experience. I don't necessarily think it's good for your art. You need to be able to either act and be directed and have another perspective or you direct and create something so you can focus on it fully.
In Gritty & Pretty, your character owns a boxing gym. Did you have any experience with boxing before this project or did you have to do research beforehand?
I never did any boxing prior to starting this project, but I actually had to train for this. I've always wanted to make a boxing film. There's something really cool and romantic for me about a female boxer just as a character. And I had to go and train for it pretty much every day for a couple of months before we started filming and prior to that, a couple of months before just starting to warm up to it. Actually the owner of that gym, he told me, I could come in and practice for a bit, so I started coming in and I thought it was just going to be like, 'Oh, I'm just doing a little bit of research' because I don't have any actual fight sequences in the film. Like there's like a couple of little moments, but we don't actually show me doing this.
But he made me work out every day, along with all the other boxers, some of which were professional boxers. And then eventually he put me in the ring with somebody and I got punched in the face and I was like, 'OK, that's probably where I draw the line because this face needs to be on camera.' He taught me about how they train every day, what the specific punches are called, how to make sure you don't break your wrist by doing this, what are the different categories for the gloves, how much they weigh.I had to learn and figure out [all these things] even before I started writing the script because I wanted to make sure it makes sense.
There is a boxing montage in the first part of the first episode. Did having that training and having that confidence make you feel more comfortable showing off your boxing and including it in the series?
Definitely. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't go through the training because I didn't know. I honestly thought like before writing all this, I thought all they do is just punch the punch bag. I didn't know about pad work, which is what I'm doing in that sequence. And when I started training the owner of the gym, he started working with me personally. And he was like, ‘this is what you do when you start training and you have to learn to hit exactly where I tell you’.
With Gritty & Pretty you had only seven days to film and an $11,000 budget. Did you find that having limited time and resources forced you and your team to be more creative in your approach to filming?
Oh, yes, for sure. We didn't have much time to set up different shots, so my director of photography, Nicholas Acosta, helped me create the vision for this and he helped me to understand what would be the best way to film this more efficiently. He came up with shooting the scenes like dialogue scenes by just putting the camera on a dolly where it just kind of rotates around. And we were just sort of playing the scene from start to finish. And we would only do like one or two takes and move on to the next thing because we didn't have time at all. And the same with lights, Nicholas has a fantastic crew of people, lights people, gaffers and camera operators, Paul and Bill. We sat down and before filming began, we're like, ‘We won't have much time. We don't have time to set up gimbals to put all the fancy stuff. So what can we do with the minimum equipment?’. And they kind of because I don't know, I had to learn a lot about light while working on this.
In fact, we had six days to shoot initially. I found out that insurance for filmmakers costs a lot of money for any type of filmmaking, so that kind of took out a couple of grand from my budget right there. So I was like, ‘We have to do it in six days’ and which of course I knew would be impossible.
We also lost a shot. So one close up shot of Kelly when [I punched her] and she falls, [losing her consciousness] and she comes to, that was a close-up shot of her on the mat, on the gym mat. And we lost that shot.
For some reason, it got erased or something happened to it. So what we did is many months later into the editing, we just ordered the same colored gym mat from Amazon, just put it at home on the ground. We put Kelly in the same position, the same everything that we kind of did before we set up the lights and set up the lights in my apartment. And you would never be able to tell the difference. You kind of have to be creative when you don't have much money to work with.
The car crash scene in the first episode also felt like a metaphor for women in Hollywood in that it’s two women fighting for only one space. What made you decide on that meet cute and did you think about it metaphorically while you were writing it?
I didn't know what kind of meet cute that should be. And I was trying to figure it out as I was writing the series. One Saturday, I went to Whole Foods in West Hollywood to get something and I remember I was about to park somewhere [but accidentally] I went the wrong way. I was about to park and this woman, pulls in, opens the window and she says ‘You're going the wrong way, you bitch.' And I was like, 'Oh, my God, look, you can have the spot. It's just the spot.' So then I was wondered, 'Why don't I just add this? Because it's such a real moment.' So this is how they're going to meet because, in a way, parking is everything.
Metaphorically speaking, it's a special spot, which Kira had her eye on for a while. And then Lauren appears all with her beautiful fancy car, and she's late for an interview or whatever it is. And she wasn't even watching where she was going. So she kind of smashed into my life, into my plan.
On The Importance Of Female Friendships:
You created and produced the show with your co-star Kelly Russo. What is it about your relationship that allows you to work together in so many different ways?
So Kelly and I both trained at the same place acting-wise at the Meisner Playhouse West but we were never friends at Playhouse. We trained there for two years and somehow we never communicated. We kind of heard about each other but we were never friends. [But], Nicholas Acosta, who was also the director of photography, and a filmmaker as well was working with Kelly a lot.
[I met Nicholas] at a film festival, [and] the three of us together [created a project] for My Rode Reel competition. We created an action film together where Kelly and I are friends and assassins trying to figure out how we are going to kill the next person. We won first place! And [after that] Kelly and I started hanging out together and we realized very quickly how different we are.
When we were hanging out together, I thought that was an interesting dynamic and it actually inspired me for that. I thought ‘this is a fantastic chance for both of us to tell that story’ because for her, she was also struggling at the time with finding good roles. Her roles were mostly all about being ditzy and cute. So I would write a scene and then we would talk about it and I'd [ask], 'How would your character, how would you as Kelly behave in this situation?' And so she would tell me and we would rewrite as we went along with the story.
Female friendship is at the center of Gritty & Pretty. What is unique about the female friendships in Gritty & Pretty, especially compared to the way they are generally portrayed on screen?
There's a lot of competition in female friendships. I feel like at least that was my experience growing up, I don't know how it is for everyone else, but for me, it was all about competition in one way or the other. And I've always hated that part. I feel like it's not natural. It just sort of comes from the socially dictated norms of what you should be as a girl or as a woman, as a wife, and as a mother.
And I feel like what's interesting about the friendship in Gritty and Pretty is that we're so different. And obviously we both lack something that the other has, which is usually what best friendships are about. And in this case, there is part of the competition. But at the same time, it brings us together by understanding that with our differences, with our complete opposite perceptions of how things should be… we help each other by complimenting each other in that way.
You are a frequent contributor to Elizabeth Banks’ platform for women creators called WHOHAHA. Why are these kinds of platforms so important for female creatives?
It's a community that honestly supports and helps to nourish new talent as well as female creators, just specifically. I feel like now there are more and more communities like that being built, but there are still not that many. I think it's important because for me personally, it's a place where I can always go and share my work and find work.
Everyone is supportive of each other's work… so if you make a series or you make sketches, which is usually what I was making with them, WhoHaHa would make sure that it gets seen.They would highlight people who independently create things without having incredible managers and expensive publicists, they just connect and they all feel the same. I feel like communities are vital to surviving in L.A. and in [this] industry just without communities it's just really hard to get anywhere and to feel supported.
Find more of Xenia’s work at: