Bojana Novakovic: Stopping Rio Tinto in Serbia is ‘a Fight for Survival’

She is also known for her roles in Burning man, Edge of Darkness with Mel Gibson and many others, and for classics such as the Oscar-winning I Tonya and multiple Emmy-awarded series "Shameless" and "Westworld".

But since moving to Australia in 1988, as a seven-year-old, Novakovic, now 41, was not so famous in Serbia until recently. And surprisingly, it is not so much for her acting but for her activism. 

Novakovic has become one of the leading faces of Serbia's growing eco-movement, which is currently focused on stopping the controversial lithium mining project of global mining giant Rio Tinto.

"They often ask me why I needed this. I could stay in my safe zone, acting and traveling, but sometimes I am offended by these questions," Novakovic told BIRN in an interview.

"Do I need a reason to care about public health or collective happiness? Why do they need to ask me why I fight for better air and healthier soil in my country?" she asks.

She welcomes the fact that this is one of the rare interviews in which she is asked explicitly about her activism, or "social organizing", as she calls it, not about her acting career and its glamour.

"I would be much more successful commercially if I was not doing this [activism]. When I do an interview, they always want me to talk like about, say, starring with Keanu Reeves, or shooting in an exotic location in Japan, and are dazzled when I say: 'I am in Serbia, coordinating a campaign against the Rio Tinto lithium mining project," Novakovic says. 

Novakovic has become a main face of the "Mars na Drinu" ["Get off the Drina"] campaign, which opposes the so-called Jadar lithium mine. She claims Rio Tinto has a "horrible reputation" and does not want it in the country

"It is not...