“Nothing will ever persuade me to take up acting again,” said Magda Vášáryová at KVIFF Talk

Magda Vášáryová attended KVIFF Talk with her daughter, the writer Hana Lasicová. “You still remember me as an actress, even though I haven’t acted for over thirty years. Isn’t it lovely?” she remarked aptly. She made her last film in 1990. When asked whether anything would ever bring her back in front of the camera, she replied with a resounding “no”.

She began the discussion by talking about her youth. “I always wanted to be a mathematician. I’d advise all young girls: if you feel that men are harassing you, carry a collection of maths problems with you. When they see it, it’s more effective than bear spray,” she said with her typically sharp sense of humour. Her book Before I Disappear: Interview, published last year, also came up in the discussion.

Presenter Veronika Bednářová asked Hana Lasicová whether she ever watched her mother’s films. “That’s not how we were brought up. We didn’t live a life of fame at home. I didn’t see Marketa Lazarová until I was 27,” she said. As a matter of fact, Vášáryová was surprised that she had seen any of her films at all. The film’s director, František Vláčil, chose the actress – who was fifteen at the time – based on a photograph. She had, however, already made one film; it was called Senzi mama. The film’s director, Vladislav Pavlovič, was her neighbour and she taught his children to swim.

Pavlovič then approached her father, whom Vášáryová described as conservative. Her father’s permission to film it therefore came as a surprise to her. The conversation then turned to Marketa Lazarová. “What are your memories of the shoot?” she was asked. “When it was all over, I said, ‘Never again’,” recalled Vášáryová, describing the gruelling production, which spanned two years.

She was surprised that the film became such an important work, as it had disappeared for twenty years because the screenwriter, František Pavlíček, had been silenced by the regime. When Vášáryová visited the U.S.A. in the 1980s at the invitation of Francis Ford Coppola, a huge photograph from Marketa Lazarová was hanging in one of the cinemas. It was only when she got there that she realised just how significant the film was from an aesthetic point of view. Vášáryová campaigned for the film to be restored fifteen years ago. 

She also spoke in greater depth about the allegory Birds, Orphans and Fools, which she had selected for the programme of the 60th KVIFF. “It’s a film that very few people know. We filmed it during the invasion of our country in the 1960s. I’ve never seen the whole thing. I don’t watch my own films. It was a banned film, which got me expelled from school. It is drastic and conveys an important message. I couldn’t stand Jakubisko, but he was a genius. Like any really good director, he was very manipulative,” said the former actress.