There is a hostel in Prague with a very grim past. It's a former convent, and under the Communist regime the sisters were forced out and their convent cells were converted into secret police interrogation cells. Today the cells are inexpensive hostel rooms. Always drawn to the dark side, I stayed there once. I was curious whether there would be any hint of the room's history. My morbid curiosity went unrewarded, however. It was a Spartan, dreary room, but I wasn't haunted by any ghosts. Just my own dark fantasies...

Porn With a Political Agenda

"Stalin 2" is Lupus Pictures' most ambitious project to date. It focuses on the conspiracy-minded StB (secret police) in early 1950s Czechoslovakia and the unfortunates denounced as "class enemies" by the remorseless Communist machine. Conspiracy is the Party's raison d'etre. It's the StB's job to discover the imperialistic spies. And there must be spies or the Party wouldn't mention them.

"Stalin 2" is more than just a CP movie. It's not porn. It's not frivolous entertainment. It's political satire of the blackest kind. At dinner one night, Thomas Marco explained to me that Communism is still alive and well in the Czech Republic, both visible and hidden. Despite the fall of Communism in 1989, former StB agents remain in positions of power today. Thomas said this was the inspiration for "Stalin 2." So it's an anti-Communist manifesto. An act of rebellion. Some of the Lupus cast and crew have very personal and unpleasant memories of the regime. This was a reality they lived.

So what could possibly be eroticized about Stalinist Communism? To begin with, nothing is more erotic than power. And there is a unique and complex erotic subtext in power abused. For me fear is an aphrodisiac and I like to be pushed to scary emotional places.

I got quite a jolt when I first read the script. It was in Czech and I laboriously worked through it word by word to see what they were going to do to me. As my fate became clear I had the eerie sense that Lupus had peeked into my mind and seen my deepest, darkest fantasies. I can't help the fantasies I have and I make no apologies for their political incorrectness. No one but Lupus could help me live them out.

I doubt if caning was really a standard StB torture technique. But that's not the point. In this movie we explore a dark place where a corrupt political party has absolute power over innocent citizens. All the torturers need to do is make the prisoners confess to something they didn't do, and along the way they can toy with their victims in all sorts of diabolical ways. The StB probably had no trouble recruiting sadists for that job.

"Stalin 2" features punishment, interrogation and torture in the secret police prison cells. There are the usual Lupus comedic moments, but they take on a sinister tone here, serving to highlight the cruelty and arbitrariness of the system. And the system affects individuals in different ways. For example, Anna (played by Ester Slaba), was the victimized daughter from "Too Many Fathers." But now she has been brainwashed by her Communist stepfather. Now she is a loyal Party supporter, gleefully denouncing her teacher and classmates. Victim becomes bully and the cycle continues.

Torture also affects individuals in different ways. Bozenka (Katerina Tetova) was the girl who defaced a picture of Stalin in the first film. Just a school prank to us, but a capital crime to the StB. She is tearful and frightened, pleading her innocence to no avail. Misa (Jana Mysickova) and the teacher (Alexandra Wolfe) have done nothing wrong at all and they are understandably bewildered.

My character, Nikolaja, is defiant. She is a Czech-English girl, the daughter of a Czech ambassador who committed suicide (allegedly) on being recalled to Czechoslovakia. She is accused of being the ringleader of the western imperialistic conspiracy. Of course this group doesn't exist, but the StB need a conspiracy to justify their existence and their methods. She holds out the longest, enduring ever more bizarre and brutal tortures and brainwashing until madness sets in. It's the dilemma faced by victims of witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition: suffer and hope your endurance will prove your innocence. Or confess and be executed. Not your usual formula for a kinky story, but then Lupus films are never prosaic.

What's My Motivation?

Just before my final scene, I'm supposed to have undergone some water torture that pushes me to the brink of insanity. The StB think I'm ready to break, so they have me brought to the Soviet counsellor's office, naked, wet and cold, to ask me one last time to sign the confession. The movie was shot out of sequence and so this intense scene was to be filmed before I had experienced any of the more inventive tortures. (We had been caned the day before.) When the time came for that final scene, I wasn't feeling at all threatened or terrified, so I asked for some help that made even the Lupus director shudder: I asked if my boyfriend William could give me a few cane strokes just before the scene to get me in a distressed frame of mind. But, ever the sticklers for realism, they decided that it wouldn't be the right mindset. They wanted me on the verge of madness, not crying and in pain.

Pavel Stastny understood exactly what I needed – to simulate the torture Nikolaja endured just before the scene. He suggested that I go stand under some cold water until they were ready for me. Being cold and wet would help me get inside Nikolaja's head. William took it a step further. He said we should make it into a role-play, that that would be a more authentic experience in preparation for the scene. And I'm all about authenticity. Pavel agreed. So they stripped me, handcuffed me and sent me away with William.

It was intense. William was very rough with me, dragging me down the hallway and into the bathroom, where he drenched me in cold water. I was shivering in no time. William kept me in character by telling me they would torture me until I admitted everything, that I meant nothing to the Party, that I had no friends and no allies. Then he softened his tone and said something about my dead father, the traitor. That comment gave me the hook I needed to stay defiant. I had a very clear image in my head: signing the confession would be equivalent to writing, "My father was a traitor."

When they were ready for me, William hauled me onto the set and shoved me into the spotlight. I was so much in Nikolaja's head that I didn't see the familiar faces of friends and fellow actors. I saw The Enemy. There were eight of them there, surrounding me and looking down on me. I was thoroughly intimidated. Naked, handcuffed, cold and wet. Terrified. I didn't have to fake anything.

Camaraderie of Suffering

The torture scenes were inventive and intrusive. Most of them were firsts for me. For one, they shackled my wrists and strung me up to expose my back for the strap. I overheard the director asking William, "How hard should he beat her?" William didn't hesitate. "As hard as possible," he said. "She'll be disappointed with anything less." I thought I would faint. All these men were discussing what to do with me and how to treat me. I was completely helpless.

There's a special freedom in being able to scream at the top of your lungs. But my cries were ignored. My suffering meant nothing. And why should it? They didn't actually expect me to give them any information; this was about breaking me.

Throughout the tortures I was lost in the role. But as soon as the director yelled "Cut!" I was myself again, comforted and released by the same people who'd strung me up and beaten me. The other girls admired my marks and we giggled together. Then it was Katerina's turn.

It was a true camaraderie of suffering. And while Katerina was beaten, Jana and I held each other's hands for comfort. When it was over, we admired Katerina's marks and then it was Jana's turn. Then it was mine again. In between scenes we'd huddle together and wait to see who was called in next. Oddly enough, it's always harder to watch.

During these sequences of torment, something strange happened. I found my anxiety fading. I've heard that victims of repression, although never inured to their tormentors' brutality, can sometimes rise above the pain. Each successive torture was awful to endure, but as time passed I seemed be draw the energy and power away from the torturers and make it my own. I felt empowered rather than weakened. It was a transcendent experience and I feel privileged to have lived it.

By the time it was all over, my entire body ached. Katerina and Jana were in a similar state. Our bottoms hurt from the caning. Our wrists and ankles were bruised and chafed from the rough iron shackles. We had bruises on our spines from lying on the hard wooden plank. I had some peculiar bow-tie-shaped marks on my back from the strap. Our intimate places were red and sore. And like warriors, we proudly showed off our victory scars. We had survived. I saved the cane they broke on my feet, a souvenir of one of my scariest moments.

As always, there was that familiar sadness when it was all over. Back to life, back to reality. My limits had been pushed further than they've ever been pushed – physically and psychologically. I couldn't have taken any more abuse, but I still didn't want it to be over. When I signed the contract, Michal Valasek told me they'd added a special clause and that I had just agreed to do ten more films. (Ha ha, Michal.) But how on earth are they going to top this? And what more can they possibly do to me?

If Lupus ever makes a film set in a madhouse, I can guess who they'll call...