Polish Actors in Popular Foreign TV Shows
Language is no barrier, as many Polish actors don’t just appear in Polish shows these days. Here are some Polish stars that have landed roles in household-name foreign productions like Queen’s Gambit, Succession, House and more.
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Marcin Dorociński in 'The Queen’s Gambit', photo: Netflix
Thanks to starring in Polish movies like Rose and Jack Strong, Marcin Dorociński has become one of Poland’s most popular contemporary actors. Recently he also appeared in the smash hit American miniseries The Queen's Gambit where he plays a Soviet chess master by the name of Vasily Borgov. This coming-of-age Netflix drama from 2020 is set in the mid-20th century and follows a young female chess player from America, Anya Taylor-Joy’s Beth Harmon, as she ascends to chess greatness. Borgov, who holds the title of world chess champion, is Harmon’s biggest rival.
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Dorociński, with his noble, elegant composure and inscrutable gaze was impeccable in this role. Throughout the entire show, his cold disposition builds a pedestal which paralyses Beth and when they both sit down to play we perfectly understand her fear. Calmness sometimes is more disconcerting than excessive temperament, and Dorociński is really good at this.
Author
From noizz.pl, trans. MK
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Piotr Adamczyk in 'Hawkeye', photo: Disney+
Next up we have another major Polish star, Piotr Adamczyk. Although he’s appeared in a variety of popular Polish films, like The Art of Loving: The Story of Michalina Wislocka, he’s often associated with his portrayal of Pope John Paul II. Adamczyk played the Catholic leader in two international films directed by Italy’s Giacomo Battiato titled Karol: A Man Who Became Pope and Karol: The Pope, The Man.
In 2021, Adamczyk became the first noted Pole to appear in the Marvel cinematic universe with a memorable role in the Disney+ show Hawkeye. This American series is set during Christmas in a near-future New York City and follows Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton, otherwise known as the Avengers superhero Hawkeye, who encounters a fan who wants to follow in his footsteps, Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop. The pair is continually harrassed by the Tracksuit Mafia, a gang of criminals that includes the enforcer Tomas, played by Piotr Adamczyk.
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Adamczyk’s small role is a vivid crime-comedy addition to the new series from Marvel’s universe. His participation is modest, but the actor gets as much out of his part of a gangster as possible. As a bearded, brutish and dangerous thug, he successfully drifts away from his papal image.
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From kultura.onet.pl, trans. MK
It’s worth adding that recently Adamczyk also appeared in Apple TV’s science fiction drama series For All Mankind.
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Kasia Smutniak in 'Domina', photo: Sky Atlantic
Another Polish movie star that’s no stranger to Italian film direction is Kasia Smutniak. After moving from Poland to Italy, she played in a number of Italian films, including the successful comedy-drama Perfect Strangers and Loro by the acclaimed Paolo Sorrentino. She has also appeared in Polish movies such as Jacek Borcuch’s drama Dolce Fine Giornata (Sweet End of the Day) which revolves around a Polish poet (the Italian title is linked to the fact it’s set in Tuscany).
Last year saw the premiere of Sky Atlantic’s historical drama series Domina where Smutniak plays the lead role of Livia Drusilla, a real-life figure and wife of the ancient Roman emperor Augustus. Livia is charismatic and cunning which helps her navigate the complex political and social landscape that surrounds her. The show presents ancient Roman history from an often omitted female point of view and thanks to its captivating portrayal of power struggles has been compared to the immensely popular Game of Thrones. Curiously, Smutniak also has an important role on Sky Atlantic’s financial thriller drama show Devils.
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Zofia Wichłacz in 'World on Fire', photo: BBC
A different kind of historical setting than in Domina can be found in BBC’s show World on Fire which was released in 2019. This drama series portrays World War II from the perspective of citizens of various countries such as Britain, France and also Poland. Interestingly, a number of Polish actors were cast as Poles in World on Fire. The biggest of these roles was landed by Zofia Wichłacz who plays Kasia Tomaszeski, a young waitress from Warsaw whose life gets turned upside down by the war.
Wichłacz, who has acted in popular Polish films like Warsaw 44 and Spoor, also appeared in the American TV show The Romanoffs.
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[An] eye-catching feature of World on Fire is a star-studded Polish cast who speak in subtitled Polish, which adds to the authenticity of the story. Dr Joanna Rydzewska of Swansea University, who studies representation of Poles in British cinema, hopes this is a sign that film producers are becoming more open to including European voices.
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From theguardian.com
Borys Szyc & Ksawery Szlenkier
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Ksawery Szlenkier in 'Into the Night', photo: Netflix
The aforementioned Borys Szyc, the star of many Polish films including Snow White and Russian Red, recently appeared in another popular foreign TV show, namely in Into the Night. This Belgian sci-fi thriller series which premiered on Netflix in 2020 is based on a premise from The Old Axolotl, a book by the acclaimed Polish science fiction writer Jacek Dukaj. In the show, which is set in modern times, the Sun’s light reaching the Earth becomes lethal, causing the mass extinction of life. A group of plane passengers manage to survive by continuously flying away from the line of daylight. In Into the Night, Szyc plays a Polish colonel by the surname of Lom, whom the passengers eventually encounter first as a protector, although tensions soon arise.
While his part is a modest one, a much bigger role in the series is played by another Polish actor, Ksawery Szlenkier. He portrays Jakub Kieślowski, a Polish mechanic from the main group of plane travellers. There’s a whole episode devoted to Jakub which includes flashbacks from his apartment where he’s talking in Polish to his wife Lena, played by Poland’s Martyna Peszko. Her role, however, is only an episodic one. Interestingly, Szlenkier not only speaks Polish in the show but also French, a language he’s been familiar with for years. You can also constantly hear English, Arabic and Russian in Into the Night, making it possibly the most multilingual show out there.
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Joanna Kulig in 'The Eddy', photo: Netflix
French, English, Arabic and Polish can also be heard in the dialogues in Netflix’s 2020 music drama miniseries The Eddy. This show, set in contemporary Paris, revolves around a group of people with ties to the jazz club of the series’ title. The establishment is co-owned by André Holland’s Elliot Udo, an American musician who’s involved with the singer Maja, played by Poland’s Joanna Kulig. A number of other musician characters appear in the show, which revolves around the murder of Udo’s business partner. Needless to say, music plays a big part in The Eddy.
Joanna Kulig is a highly celebrated Polish actress – she has performed, amongst others, in the highly successful melodrama film Cold War and in another foreign TV show, Amazon Prime’s Hanna. Here’s how her important role in The Eddy was described by the website Onet:
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[…] Here she acts and sings in English, French and also Polish. And it is when she uses her native tongue that she appears most natural. Maja has a warm, soothing voice […] but she’s also emotionally fragile and deeply unhappy with how things turned out for her. Instead of enjoying a grand career in New York, she has to struggle every day to get by.
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From kultura.onet.pl, trans. MK
The Eddy also features another Polish actress in a lesser role. Agnieszka Pilaszewska plays the small part of Maja’s mother, Kinga.
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Zuzanna Szadkowski in ‘Gossip Girl’, photo: Warner Bros
Another character in a foreign show that occasionally speaks Polish is Dorota Kishlovsky, a Polish maid in Gossip Girl. This hugely popular series, which premiered on America’s The CW network in 2007, is centred around a group of affluent adolescents from New York City. Dorota is the housekeeper at the home of Leighton Meester’s Blair Waldorf. The maid becomes Blair’s confidant and helps her with meaningful advice. Since Dorota hails from Poland, it seems fitting that she’s played by the Polish-American actress Zuzanna Szadkowski who was born in Warsaw.
Although Dorota isn’t a main character, Szadkowski portayed her so skilfully that she attracted plenty of attention. Here’s an excerpt from a Chicago Tribune gallery titled 10 reasons We Love Gossip Girl's Dorota:
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Dorota's incredibly mobile features and expressive eyes can elicit laughs in the face of more verbal characters – an accomplishment on a show in which everybody has something incredibly pithy or catty to say.
Gossip Girl ended in 2012 after six seasons, but last year a reboot of the series, also titled Gossip Girl was released on HBO Max. This new iteration has an original cast but features cameos from some of the old show’s actors, including Szadkowski as Dorota. One should probably mention that Szadkowski has also appeared in other noteworthy shows such as The Knick and The Sopranos.
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Dagmara Domińczyk in 'Succession', photo: HBO
Like Zuzanna Szadkowski, the Polish-American actress Dagmara Domińczyk was also born in Poland before moving to the US. She launched a successful acting career as proven by her appearances in the Palme d'Or-nominated The Immigrant and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter.
Domińczyk is probably most recognisable from HBO’s satirical comedy-drama series Succession. This celebrated show, which premiered in 2018, focuses on the modern-day Roy family whose head is the ageing founder of the immensely valuable media company Waystar RoyCo. As his health deteriorates, his children start to fight for control over this lucrative business. Domińczyk plays Karolina Novotney, the head of public relations at Waystar RoyCo:
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Dagmara Domińczyk plays a poker-faced PR exec who is ‘super corporate and doesn’t let an ounce of emotion out,’ she said. ‘Blazered, buttoned up and there to do a job.’
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From chicagotribune.com
The Polish-American actress has also performed in the famed show Boardwalk Empire and landed the lead role of an FBI agent looking into police corruption in the 2022 HBO miniseries We Own This City, which comes from the creators of the acclaimed show The Wire.
Karolina Wydra in 'House', photo: Ray Mickshaw / NBC / Getty Images Another Polish-American actress born in Poland that ought to be mentioned is Karolina Wydra. She is often associated with her recurring role on the global hit TV show House which premiered on America’s Fox network in 2004. This medical drama series follows Hugh Laurie’s Gregory House, a misanthropic and cynical, but also brilliant doctor, as he works at a fictitious hospital in 21st century New Jersey. In one of the final seasons, House marries a Ukrainian woman by the name of Dominika Petrova just so that she can obtain a green card allowing for permanent residency in the US. This Ukrainian character, who eventually starts living with the titular doctor, is portrayed by Wydra.
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Unlike House, Dominika is friendly, outgoing, kind. […] She empathises quickly with people and, again unlike House, realises when people's feelings have been hurt and wants to make it up to them.
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From house.fandom.com
Wydra also acted in HBO’s fantasy horror drama series True Blood where she took on the role of vampire Violet Mazurski.
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Maciej Musiał in 'The Witcher', photo: Netflix
Somewhat similarly to True Blood, the celebrated The Witcher is also a fantasy drama series. Although the latter isn’t entirely ‘foreign’, as it is a Polish-American production, it seems that devoting a word or two to it is a must.
The Witcher, which premiered on Netflix in 2019, is based on a series of fantasy novels and short stories by the renowned Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, which have as their protagonist the monster slayer Geralt of Rivia.
Geralt is played by Britain’s Henry Cavill and the rest of the main cast are also from outside of Poland. However, a couple of Polish actors do play smaller parts on this show. The best-known of these performers is arguably Maciej Musiał who portrays Sir Lazlo, a knight protecting the important character of Cirilla. Apart from appearing in The Witcher Musiał has starred, for example, in the Polish-American alternative history series 1983.
The other Poles in the cast of the series about Geralt are Tomasz Krzemieniecki and Marcin Czarnik. The first plays a cutthroat by the name of Vyr, whereas the second portrays an assassin mage.
Let’s wrap things up by saying that there are, of course, other Polish actors who have appeared in foreign TV shows. For example, Weronika Rosati has had small parts in Luck and True Detective and Natalia Klimas played an episodic role in the aforementioned Gossip Girl. And with Polish actors being as talented as they are, there’s surely more to come.
Written by Marek Kępa, Feb 22
