Agata Kulesza may be the biggest discovery in recent Polish cinema. Charismatic, vibrant and versatile, she copes equally well with minimalist psychological creations and with comical frolics, verging on the grotesque. For the past few years she has kept her position as the top Polish actress, and each consecutive role seems to be better than the last.
She knew that she wanted to be an actress by the second year of high school. As a child, she would take part in dance classes at the Szczecin community centre, practising ballet and dance. After completing high school, she applied to the National Higher Theatre School (now the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art) in Warsaw, succeeding on her first attempt. She had her TV debut while still at the Theatre School – in the series Goodbye Rockefeller ( Żegnaj Rockefeller, 1992). She graduated from the Theatre Academy in 1994, with a distinction. She starred in Polish and German TV series (e.g. Die Strassen von Berlin), as well as in TV theatrical productions (O, Beri-Beri, directed by Wiesław Komasa and Don Kichot by Andrzej Domalik).
She also made her first feature appearance at the time, playing a young film director in Man of… by Konrad Szołajski (1993). The beginnings of her acting career did not hint at her future outstanding roles. She performed at the Dramatyczny Theatre in Warsaw, and made her living by playing minor parts in various TV series.
I really enjoyed the academy, I worked very hard. Then I became afraid about whether it would all work out. At some point I was even thinking about changing my profession. I thought of becoming a production manager, imagining that perhaps acting wasn’t for me, after al.
Her career took off with the film My Roasted Chickens (Moje pieczone kurczaki) by Iwona Siekierzyńska, in which Kulesza played Magda, a young woman going through a marriage crisis. The film, realized as part of the Generation 2000 TV series, brought her awards at the Prowincjonalia Polish Film Festival in Września and at the Young and Cinema Debut Film Festival in Koszalin.
In 2003, she appeared in Seven Stops on the Way to Paradise (Siedem przystanków na drodze do raju), an independent production by Ryszard Maciej Nyczka, with whom she also collaborated on the sets of A Thousand Sighs Park (Park tysiąca westchnień) and Fortune Watches for You in the Forest (Fortuna czyha w lesie). In 2004, she acted in Petrol (Benzyna) by Filip Bajon, and two years later – in Foundation (Fundacja) by the same director. Over her career she has dubbed over 20 animated films, such as Howl's Moving Castle and Snow White by Tarsem Singh. She mostly gained popularity, however, due to her role in the TV series Pensjonat pod Różą (The Rose Guesthouse), in which she acted between 2004-2006, and thanks to some of her other creations in TV.
“I continue to work in theatre, therefore I have an opportunity to practise my acting skills all the time, and that’s extremely important. Actors are just like sportspeople – they should constantly act, seek, and exercise, in order not to be afraid. Upon entering a stage or a film set, one may suddenly become very shy, it can strike as an isolating experience. Privately we tend to be introverted, but performing is an act of courage, it requires one to open up.” – Kulesza told Anna Bielak in an interview for Wirtualna Polska.
After 2011, it was all downhill. First she appeared in the role of the mother of the main character in Jan Komasa’s Suicide Room, playing a successful woman who had a hard time coping with her son’s alienation. After that, she made a truly revelatory appearance in Wojciech Smarzowski’s Rose (Róża). It is a film about a woman from Masuria who lost her husband to war, and a startling story about violence and love born from the ashes. For this role, Kulesza received the Polish Film Award for Best Leading Actress.
A year later, she received the Warsaw Feliks Award for her role in the spectacle Merylin Mongoł, directed by Bogusław Linda for the Ateneum Theatre. This adaptation of Nikolai Kolada’s play featured Kulesza as Ina, an ever-drunken woman, abandoned by her husband. In the 2012 Summer’s Blood (Krew z krwi) TV series, she presented one of the best female creations of contemporary Polish television. The series, directed by Xawery Żuławski, told the story of a woman who, following her husband’s death, has to take over his deals with mafia.
