WARNING: This story contains major spoilers for the Season 3 finale of Lioness.
Elizaveta Neretin knew Oleksandra Balakin's story in Paramount+ Lioness was not going to end happily. That doesn't mean she was prepared for how much viewers would care.
Following Sunday's Season 3 finale of Taylor Sheridan's thriller, Neretin spoke with this reporter about her character's tragic fate and the reaction from fans who watched the Ukrainian double agent become collateral damage in a CIA operation built on incomplete intelligence.
"I'm very sad for Oleksandra," Neretin said. "But it's very nice to read all the articles and, you know, reviews online saying, 'Why did he have to do that? Why did he have to kill her?'"
"I can feel that fans feel for me," she added, saying viewers have reached out to tell her they wished Sheridan hadn't killed her character.
The finale, titled "The Unravelling," aired Sept. 20 and revealed that Oleksandra had been wrongly blamed for the plot surrounding Joe McNamara's kidnapping. By the time the CIA realizes the operation leads elsewhere, Oleksandra has already been killed. The episode ultimately brings back Aaliyah Amrohi, Stephanie Nur's character from Season 1, as the figure behind the revenge plot targeting Joe.
For Neretin, Oleksandra's fate says something larger about the world Sheridan has created.
"I feel a lot for Oleksandra. I think it's absolutely terrible," she said. "And also I understand how Taylor uses it as a tool to show how the system itself is broken. You know, you have to show it. But it is incredibly, incredibly sad."
The actress revealed that the ending was also about to become a family affair. Just as she logged on for the interview, her mother was trying to reach her. "My mother actually just tried to call me as I signed on on this interview with you," Neretin said. "My mother tried to call me, and I know she's calling me because she saw the last episode."
Her prediction of her mother's reaction was simple: "She's probably like, 'I can't believe they did that.'"
No Secret Oleksandra Death Scene Exists
Although the audience eventually sees Oleksandra's body, Sheridan does not show her actual killing, leaving a small window for fans hoping television's favorite rule might apply: if you don't see the death, don't assume anything.
Neretin, however, confirmed that there isn't an unseen death sequence sitting in an editing room somewhere. Asked whether she had filmed more of Oleksandra's escape or killing than audiences saw, her answer was definitive.
"That was it. That was it," she said, leaving no doubt that she won't be back for the expected but still unannounced season 4.
Taylor Sheridan Has Killed Elizaveta Neretin Before
Perhaps the funniest irony is that this isn't the first time Sheridan has given Neretin a character only to kill her.
Before Lioness, the actress appeared in Sheridan's Mayor of Kingstown. According to Neretin, her willingness to throw herself into the work helped establish the creative relationship that eventually brought her back into Sheridan's universe.
"I'm a trooper," she said. "When it comes to the work that I do ... most of the time I'm game to try things and do things. And he saw that when we worked together on Mayor of Kingstown." Sheridan apparently liked what he saw enough to have one regret.
"After working with him on Mayor of Kingstown, he told me, he was like, 'Oh, I wish I didn't kill you,'" Neretin recalled. "I was like, 'Oh, that's very nice. It's a great compliment.'"
So what does she think Sheridan saw in her? "I go for it," she said.
From Ukraine to Canada and Hollywood
Neretin's connection to the geopolitical world explored in Lioness is unusually personal.
She said Russian was her first language and that she learned Ukrainian when she was four. She attended school in Ukraine until age 12, spent a year in Russia at 13 and then moved to Canada.
She also has family on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine divide.
"When people find out that I'm half Russian, half Ukrainian, they always sort of go like, 'Ah,'" she said. "And I'm like, 'Yeah, yeah, half of my family is there. And then the other half is there. Yes.'"
Neretin also recognized something familiar in the immigrant experience: pressure.
"There's so much pressure when you're a kid and just everything is a bigger deal," she said. "Your grades are such a bigger deal because your parents are way more stressed about it."
Today she speaks French, English, Russian and Ukrainian, and says English has even invaded one particularly revealing part of her vocabulary: swearing.
"I'd say swearing is mostly in English," she joked, explaining that she has predominantly spoken English since her teenage years.
Dreaming is another matter.
"Both languages," she said, adding that when she talks with friends from Ukraine who also grew up in Canada, they effortlessly switch between languages. "Whatever language comes, that's the one that you communicate in."
Could a Superhero Be Next?
If Neretin gets her wish, her next major role could take her from Sheridan's espionage universe into a very different one.
The actress is a major fan of James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy, particularly the first movie, which she estimates she has watched at least 20 times. During the COVID era, she participated in one of Gunn's Twitter watch-alongs and was thrilled when the filmmaker answered one of her questions.
Now she wants a superhero role of her own.
"I would love to play, like, a superhero that's perhaps not one that we've seen already," she said.
She already has one character in mind: DC's magician Zatanna.
"There's this one hero, I think her name is Zatanna, and she's like a magician with her cards," Neretin said, pointing to the character's relationship with her father and magical background as part of the appeal.
"Oh yeah, that'd be really, really, really cool," she said. "Like a cool outfit. Oh, come on. I mean, who doesn't want to do that?"
For now, however, Neretin is taking a break after Lioness, and contemplating something that could mark another evolution in her career: creating stories herself.
"Right now I'm doing a lot of resting," she said from Europe. "I'm excited to write my own work."
For Neretin, that means finally tackling ideas that have been waiting for their turn.
"It's resting and actually ... working on the stories that have been sitting in my brain for a long time."
