- [on cancel culture]: "They say it's a time of cancel culture, of disturbing different things and people. And it's unfortunately true. That there are these quick trials without much judgment, relying on people's moods. That scares me. When someone bans a valuable book that's long been an important part of the culture, or tears down a statue, it makes me sick. Because what wasn't banned then can be banned now; we're in a weird mess and chaos. But I do believe that another movement will arise again that will say "Don't fight!", but that's for another discussion. It seems awkward to me to exclude someone from my circle just because people heard he ran from a bear."
- [on taking notes]: "I have notes in various pockets, then it's a joy to put them together. I used to write on beer coasters, unfortunately nowadays there's advertising on both sides, but they used to be clean on the other side - those were my first floppy disks and I always twisted my notes into the middle. I now have an overabundance of Moleskine notebooks, my daughters buy them for me, they're great too, but you always forget them in another jacket, so I end up with different papers anyway. I also used to take notes on my mobile phone and on my Dictaphone, I went digital for a while, it was a kind of excursion into the digital universe, a mission from which I then quickly returned to the pencil, the trustworthy spear gun of intellectuals."
- [on his first experiences with physical acting]: "Professor Rysánková from JAMU (Brno Academy of Performing Arts), who taught us to move on stage and liked me because I was skilled at it and was already beginning to do my first etudes, used to say to me when I was playing Eugen Onegin as a counterpart: "Bolek, you're playing a nobleman, straighten up!" And then I played Eugene Onegin so beautifully that my classmates Eliska Balzerová and Jana Svandová cried until their shoulders shook and their handkerchiefs were wet. I was proud of myself then. When you make a beauty cry, you're happy, especially at a young age. Only years later did I learn from them that they were hiding fits of laughter behind their handkerchiefs. They kept it a secret for so long!"
- [on what he'd like to ask William Shakespeare]: "The important question we all ask ourselves is, "William, did you really write this?" Or, more insidiously, "William, did you really write it all by yourself?" Or even more insidiously, "Willy, Willy, wait, do you have a minute? Are you in a hurry? Does the name de Vere mean anything to you?" I wonder what he'd say. Because there's a book that says he couldn't have written all those plays himself, that as a merchant he couldn't have had all this knowledge and information about how things work in the royal courts, and also where he got all those various clever quotes... Supposedly written by the learned Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Only Devil knows. That's why I'd ask him these questions and examine his face and eyes carefully. If he'd be like, "Oh, yeah, Bolek, I actually wrote that!" then I'd believe him. But if he said: "Excuse me! De Vere, who's that?", then it would be clear - bullshit!"
- [on text learning] "When I have a script for a movie or a William Shakespeare's play , for example, I read it first, several times, and after that first reading, there are already islands of text that I remember. And then from those islands I slowly get to the other three layers, which are damn hard for me to remember. The last, hardest layer is the short dialogue that you need an acting partner for, or the physical action, I can't learn it at my desk at home. It's hard to remember short dialogue, like in Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot', his dialogue has all sorts of little variations that are important to the construction of the play. I also profess what I call garden acting, where I walk around the garden and I know it all beautifully already. But then I come to the rehearsal room at the theatre and suddenly I start stammering and curling up in various ways... The text simply has to be committed to memory, otherwise it gets lost in the garden and weeds."
- [on his most enjoyable shooting day]: "On the last day of Sasek a královna (1988), after the shooting we had a fire with Vera Chytilová, her, me and a great cinematographer Jan Malír. And as we sat there drinking, Vera suddenly grabbed my clown head, the executed, artificial one. She held it, squatting wildly around the fire, and it was so relaxing and funny at the same time... The whole cruelty of our filming and of our collaboration in general was there. The director squatting with the head of the lead and the writer around the campfire... in front of the whole crew. I liked that. The unchristian, savage ending."
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content