Home » Entertainment » Actress Barbora Hrzánová: Fellini’s Road was a revelation for me

Actress Barbora Hrzánová: Fellini’s Road was a revelation for me


When did you first see the Road and how did Federico Fellini come into your life?

My mother sent me on Fellini’s Road while I was still a Bolshevik. It was her beloved film. At that time, my friend Leona and I went to the Amfora club cinema, I guess in Prague 4. We could have been sixteen or seventeen years old. Properly club-dressed independent intellectuals. We left weeping from the head to the ankles. The film was a revelation to me and the revelation remains to this day.

The world of comedians and clowns is close to your acting. Is this the environment you wanted to taste in your acting experience?

I grew up as an actress at the South Bohemian Theater in České Budějovice. Instead of going to kindergarten, I went to the theater for rehearsals, with my grandmother and grandfather, I went on tours. Circus performers, actors, carousels, musicians, athletes, street girls, this is one big family. When the Třísků family came to Budějovice with carousels and a shooting range, I could jump on the carousel, stick to the poles and pick up tickets.

Barbora Hrzánová and Radek Holub are the protagonists of the production of Fellini’s Road.

Photo: Richard Kocourek

When we started thinking about the theatrical adaptation of The Road, director Lída Engelová said about me and Radek that we have a circus soul. So we believed that we could be Gelsomina and Zampanó, if she believed it.

How did you like the actress Giulietta Masina in the role of Gelsomina?

Giulietta Masina has been my beloved actress of heart since she was sixteen. Too bad I didn’t know her, maybe just carrying her coffee on the square and lighting cigarettes would be an honor for me.

Barbora Hrzánová will also play the trumpet in the production Road.

Photo: Richard Kocourek

What makes the theatrical adaptation of The Road other than film?

Lída Engelová and Johana Kudláčková boned the original screenplay to the marrow, to the very essence. And situationally and textually. We express ourselves mostly in bare sentences. The director kindly forced us to use words only when absolutely necessary. Direct contact with the viewer is essential for me. That’s why I prefer to play in theaters all over the country than make films. After all, Fellini has left me anyway.

Are you happy to play the couple with Zampan with Radek Holub and directed by Lída Engel?

I’m fine with Radek on stage and in life. I’m safe. In addition to being an excellent actor, he is also an amazing acting partner. And this combination is rare. Lida Engel, that is, first and foremost, mutual trust, security. She is a lady who works twenty-four hours a day for actors, not for herself. With all his nobility, education, erudition, feeling, imagination and empathy.

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