Iván Kamarás
Encyclopedia
Ivan Kamaras is a Hungarian actor best known worldwide for his role as Agent Steel in the 2008 superhero fantasy thriller Hellboy II: The Golden Army, directed by Guillermo del Toro
. In January this year, he played a Hungarian detective, Tibor Orban, in Bloodlines, the fourth episode in the 14th series of the BBC crime drama Silent Witness
. He lives in Santa Monica
, California
.
, Hungary
. His mother, Teodóra Uhrik, and his stepfather, Pál Lovas, were both ballet dancers, and much of his childhood was spent in theatres. When he was seven, the family acquired a recording of the 1980 BBC
production of Hamlet
starring Derek Jacobi
as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart
as Claudius. Kamarás fell in love with the role of Hamlet and within two or three years had learned all of Hamlet's monologues from the play by heart. From 1991 to 1995, he studied at the Academy of Theatre and Film in Budapest.
. He won widespread admiration for his first role playing Othello at the age of 23 in 1995. For the Budapest Chamber Theatre he has also starred as Horst in Martin Sherman
’s Bent
(1996), Treplyov in Anton Chekhov
’s The Seagull
(1997), Stanley Kowalski
in Tennessee Williams
's A Streetcar Named Desire
in 1999 (a role he had previously played for the National Theatre of Győr
in 1997), Romeo in Romeo and Juliet
(1998), and James Tyrone Jr in A Moon for the Misbegotten
by Eugene O’Neill (2003).
For the Comedy Theatre of Budapest he has played Wayne in Ben Elton
’s Popcorn
(1998), Alyosha in an adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
(1999), Edmund in King Lear
(2001), Su Fu in Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan
(2001), Raskolnikov in an adaptation of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
(2001), Eugenio in The Coffee House by Carlo Goldoni
(2005), Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing
(2007), and Trofimov and Pjotr Sergeyevich in The Cherry Orchard
(2007).
He has also played Julien Sorel in an adaptation of The Red and the Black
by Stendhal
for Gyor National Theatre (1995), Brick in Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(2000) for the Pest Theatre, Antony in Antony and Cleopatra
(2002) for the Pest Theatre, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in Friedrich Schiller
’s Mary Stuart (2006) for the Pest Theatre, Christian in Festen for the Pest Theatre (2006), Jamie in Jason Robert Brown’s one-act musical two-hander The Last Five Years
for the Palace of the Arts (2007), a role he debuted in Hungary, and Ruy Blas in the Szeged National Theatre production of Victor Hugo
's Ruy Blas
(2009).
(1999), in which he played Jimmy, a man who becomes caught up in events when the train he is in is hijacked by a Russian mafia boss, and more recently the cult comedy GlassTiger 3 (2010), in which he played Ferenc Csopkai, a rich lawyer who pursues the bumbling heroes after they steal his car and with it a huge sum in cash.
drama, Aoi no Ue
, and which screened at the Hungarian Film Festival in 2005 and the Moziünnep film festival in 2006. He undertook a course in directing at UCLA in 2009 and in the same year directed a production of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin
at Keszthely Castle, Hungary.
, the Andor Ajtay memorial award and the Hegedus Gyula award in 2000 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the Súgó Csiga-díj (a prize for most popular actor voted for by audiences) in 2003, the Mari Jászai Award (a state award given in recognition for acting excellence) in 2006, and the Poszt best male actor of the year award for Festen (2007).
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and designer. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator with Ron Perlman, Federico Luppi and Doug Jones...
. In January this year, he played a Hungarian detective, Tibor Orban, in Bloodlines, the fourth episode in the 14th series of the BBC crime drama Silent Witness
Silent Witness
Silent Witness is a BBC crime thriller series focusing on a team of forensic pathology experts and their investigations into various crimes. First broadcast in February 1996, the series is still airing to the present day, with a fifteenth series expected to air in January 2012. The series was...
. He lives in Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Personal life
Kamarás was born and raised in PécsPécs
Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya county...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
. His mother, Teodóra Uhrik, and his stepfather, Pál Lovas, were both ballet dancers, and much of his childhood was spent in theatres. When he was seven, the family acquired a recording of the 1980 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
production of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
starring Derek Jacobi
Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE is an English actor and film director.A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in...
as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
as Claudius. Kamarás fell in love with the role of Hamlet and within two or three years had learned all of Hamlet's monologues from the play by heart. From 1991 to 1995, he studied at the Academy of Theatre and Film in Budapest.
Theatre
From 1995 until 1997 he was a member of the Budapest Chamber Theatre, between 1997 and 2008 a member of the Comedy Theatre of BudapestComedy Theatre of Budapest
The Comedy Theatre of Budapest is a theatre in Budapest. Starting in the turn of the 19th and 20th century as an opposition to the conservative National Theatre, it became a pioneer institution of Hungarian drama, and one of the oldest theatres still in operation.-The building:The Vígszínház was...
. He won widespread admiration for his first role playing Othello at the age of 23 in 1995. For the Budapest Chamber Theatre he has also starred as Horst in Martin Sherman
Martin Sherman
Martin Sherman is an American dramatist and screenwriter, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Bent , which explores the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust...
’s Bent
Bent (play)
Bent is a 1979 play by Martin Sherman. It revolves around the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany, and takes place during and after the Night of the Long Knives....
(1996), Treplyov in Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
’s The Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
(1997), Stanley Kowalski
Stanley Kowalski
Stanley Kowalski is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire.-In the play:Stanley lives in the working class Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans with his wife, Stella , and is employed as a factory parts salesman. He was an Army engineer in WWII, having...
in Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
's A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire (play)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
in 1999 (a role he had previously played for the National Theatre of Győr
National Theatre of Győr
The National Theatre of Győr is a theatre in Győr, Hungary. Opened in 2 November 1978, it is the main theatre of the Győr-Moson-Sopron region. Until 1 January. 1992, it beared the name Kisfaludy Károly Theatre...
in 1997), Romeo in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
(1998), and James Tyrone Jr in A Moon for the Misbegotten
A Moon for the Misbegotten
A Moon for the Misbegotten is a play by Eugene O'Neill. The play can be thought of as a sequel to the autobiographical Long Day's Journey into Night...
by Eugene O’Neill (2003).
For the Comedy Theatre of Budapest he has played Wayne in Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....
’s Popcorn
Popcorn (play)
Popcorn is a 1998 play by English author Ben Elton adapted from his novel of the same title....
(1998), Alyosha in an adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger and completed in November 1880...
(1999), Edmund in King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
(2001), Su Fu in Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan
The Good Person of Szechwan
The Good Person of Szechwan is a play written by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffin and Ruth Berlau. The play was begun in 1938 but not completed until 1943, while the author was in exile in the United States...
(2001), Raskolnikov in an adaptation of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...
(2001), Eugenio in The Coffee House by Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
(2005), Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
(2007), and Trofimov and Pjotr Sergeyevich in The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
(2007).
He has also played Julien Sorel in an adaptation of The Red and the Black
The Red and the Black
Le Rouge et le Noir , 1830, by Stendhal, is a historical psychological novel in two volumes, chronicling a provincial young man’s attempts to socially rise beyond his plebeian upbringing with a combination of talent and hard work, deception and hypocrisy — yet who ultimately allows his passions to...
by Stendhal
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
for Gyor National Theatre (1995), Brick in Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955...
(2000) for the Pest Theatre, Antony in Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony...
(2002) for the Pest Theatre, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
’s Mary Stuart (2006) for the Pest Theatre, Christian in Festen for the Pest Theatre (2006), Jamie in Jason Robert Brown’s one-act musical two-hander The Last Five Years
The Last Five Years
The Last Five Years is a one-act musical written by Jason Robert Brown. It premiered in Chicago in 2001 and was then produced off-Broadway in March 2002. Since then it has had numerous productions both in the United States and internationally....
for the Palace of the Arts (2007), a role he debuted in Hungary, and Ruy Blas in the Szeged National Theatre production of Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
's Ruy Blas
Ruy Blas
Ruy Blas is a tragic drama by Victor Hugo. It was the first play presented at the Théâtre de la Renaissance and opened on November 8, 1838. Though considered by many to be Hugo’s best drama, the play initially met with only average success....
(2009).
Film
Aside from his role as Agent Steel in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Kamarás has had an extensive career in Hungarian cinema. Notable roles have included the hit bedroom farce Out of Order (1997), in which he played a jealous boxer in pursuit of his errant girlfriend and her politician lover, the thriller Európa expresszEurópa expressz
-Plot:Zavarov, a psychotic Russian thief who likes to steal religious icons, is on the run from a group of undercover cops who don't know Zavarov has planted an informant amongst them. Zavarov makes his getaway on a train, only to discover the police were able to board before leaving the station....
(1999), in which he played Jimmy, a man who becomes caught up in events when the train he is in is hijacked by a Russian mafia boss, and more recently the cult comedy GlassTiger 3 (2010), in which he played Ferenc Csopkai, a rich lawyer who pursues the bumbling heroes after they steal his car and with it a huge sum in cash.
Television
In addition to Silent Witness – in which his character, detective Tibor Orban, helped to uncover a baby-farming racket in Budapest while trying to track down series regular, forensic pathologist Dr Harry Cunningham – Kamarás has played Pipin, the second of Charlemagne in the miniseries Charlemagne (1993); Louis II, King of Hungary, in the costume drama Mohacs (1995); Ivan, a man who becomes obsessed on his wedding day with his newly met twin sister in Alice and the Seven Wolves (2009); and the machiavellian nightclub owner and antihero Evil in the 10-part drama First Generation (2001). He was also the creative force behind Mobile Poem, a series of poetry readings done by notable Hungarian actors and filmed on mobile phone, which screened on the Hungarian TV channel MTV1 in 2009.Music
He has released two solo pop albums – Bombajó (2000), and Revelation (2005) – and been a contributor to two others, So We Sing (2003) and Actor Songs (2009).Directing
Kamarás has shot an experimental film on his mobile phone, Sigh, which was inspired by the Yukio MishimaYukio Mishima
was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
drama, Aoi no Ue
Aoi no Ue
is a fictional character in The Tale of Genji . Daughter of the Minister of the Left and Genji’s first principal wife, she marries Genji when she is sixteen and he only twelve. Proud and distant to her husband, Aoi is constantly aware of the age difference between them and very much hurt by...
, and which screened at the Hungarian Film Festival in 2005 and the Moziünnep film festival in 2006. He undertook a course in directing at UCLA in 2009 and in the same year directed a production of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
at Keszthely Castle, Hungary.
Awards
He has won six awards for his work in Hungarian theatre: the Szinikritikusok critics’ award (1996) for OthelloOthello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
, the Andor Ajtay memorial award and the Hegedus Gyula award in 2000 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the Súgó Csiga-díj (a prize for most popular actor voted for by audiences) in 2003, the Mari Jászai Award (a state award given in recognition for acting excellence) in 2006, and the Poszt best male actor of the year award for Festen (2007).
External links
- http://www.ivankamaras.com Official website
- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0436442 Listing for Kamaras on imdb.com
- http://www.youtube.com Kamaras reciting the poem maradni, maradni by Adám Nádasdy
- http://www.youtube.com BBC showreel for Silent Witness
- http://www.youtube.com Video giving extracts from Kamaras's work in Hungarian cinema
- http://www.youtube.com Performance of Much Ado About Nothing starring Kamaras as Benedict (in Hungarian)
- http://annakirschner.com Further images