Shira Haas: Golden Globe Love For ‘Unorthodox’ Is A “Beautiful Thing”

On Wednesday, as Golden Globe Nominations were announced, Unorthodox‘s Shira Haas was at home in Tel Aviv, glued to the Netflix series’ cast and crew group text. When both the show and Haas herself received noms, there were “a lot of capital letters” in that Whatsapp chat, she told Deadline.

“I’m super excited and happy,” she said. “It’s more than I expected. It’s the greatest. “We were texting like crazy, and phonecalls one after the other with the crew. There’s a lot of love even though it’s been a while since we filmed it.”

The Anna Winger-created limited series Unorthodox stars Haas as Esther Shapiro, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman living in Brooklyn, who escapes the confines of her marriage and community for a new life in Berlin. “When I first got the script, I thought, How can I relate to this character because she’s coming from such a different world than mine?” Haas said. “But once I read it I felt like it was a universal story, I could really relate to it and I saw myself.”

Haas, who was also nominated for an Emmy for the role, has found the feedback from and appreciation for the show heartwarming. “We got so many messages form people from so many different countries and cities,” she said. “From people who are religious, Jewish, Christian or non-religious. Younger audiences and older audiences, women or men, from all over the world.

While Haas related to the story and felt it was universal, she said, “I only could have dream that other people would feel the same and the amount of comments and love that we’re getting from so many different people, it’s amazing how art and cinema and television connect us all, even though we’re so different. It’s the most beautiful thing that could have happened and it happened way beyond what I expected so it’s amazing.”

She can’t confirm any of the projects she has in the pipeline just yet, but said that going forward, she wants to continue portraying “different characters, that even though we are different from them, they can connect us all together. And to keep on telling meaningful stories.”