Czech actor Ivan Trojan receives the Karlovy Vary Festival Award

Ivan Troyan

Courtesy of Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary

Czech actor Ivan Trojan needs little introduction in his home country. But organizers of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) helped foreigners who might not immediately recognize his name by recently announcing that the star would receive the President’s Award for Outstanding Services to Czech Cinema at the closing ceremony of this year’s 58th edition of the festival. “Ivan Trojan is one of the most frequently cast Czech actors in film, television and theater of the last quarter century,” it said.

Fans of the 2013 HBO Europe miniseries Burning BushHe may be remembered as the morally ambivalent police detective Jires in the film, shot by veteran Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, which depicted the turbulent events of the Prague Spring. THRA review at the time described the actor as “a well-known Czech name and Billy Bob Thornton lookalike Ivan Trojan.”

Holland directed the star again in the 2020 film charlatanabout Jan Mikolasek, a revered faith healer known for his herbal remedies. “A figure of dazzling light and darkest shadow comes to life in an ambiguous way… in a stunning performance by top Czech actor Ivan Trojan,” THRReview by highlighted.

Trojan, who was born in Prague in 1964, is a regular guest at the KVIFF. For example, he is the patron of the non-profit club for people with cystic fibrosis, whose activities were the focus of last year’s festival. This year’s festival begins on June 28, two days before his 60th birthday.

But this man and his career have much more to offer. With that in mind, here THRLet’s look at five more things you should know about Ivan Trojan.

He holds the record for most Czech Lion awards
The Czech Lions are awarded by the Czech Film and Television Academy and recognize outstanding achievements in both cinema and television productions. Trojan received a record-breaking 12 nominations in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories and a record-breaking seven wins, namely five trophies for Best Actor and two for Best Supporting Actor.

His most recent victory was in 2021 for charlatanHis other awards as best actor follow in Nowhere in Moravia, In the shadow, Vaclav And Smradihis first major award as a Czech Lion in 2003. That year, Trojan also won the award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Do I have to tell you The following year, another trophy followed for A strand of net.

The star, however, had his beginnings on the stage. “After graduating from the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU), Trojan worked with the Realistic Theatre and the Vinohrady Theatre before becoming one of the central figures of the newly founded ensemble of Prague’s Dejvice Theatre in the second half of the 1990s,” said the KVIFF when it introduced him as one of its award winners this year. “In 2000, he received a Thália Award for the title role in OblomovIn 2012 he received the Alfréd Radok Award for his performance in the theatre’s iconic production of A blockage in the systemand in 2022 his role in Petr Zelenka’s Fifty earned him the theatre critics’ award.”

Then he was discovered for the screen. “Trojan’s film career began its meteoric rise around the turn of the millennium,” emphasized KVIFF. “He was first discovered for the screen by director David Ondříček, who cast him in his comedy as the neurotic Ondřej lonera role that earned Trojan his first nomination for the “Czech Lion” in 2001.

In the Czech Republic he is best known for his box office hits Angel of the Lord (2005), about an unfortunate angel who is banished from heaven to earth, where he is reborn as a beggar, and Angel of the Lord 2 (2016).

Trojan’s family is full of creative people
The star is far from the only one in his family who has been bitten by the entertainment and culture bug. He is the son of theater, television and film actor Ladislav Trojan and the brother of producer and director Ondřej Trojan.

The actor is also married to actress Klára Pollertová-Trojanová. They both appeared in the 2012 film In the shadow.

Trojan also appeared in films directed by his brother, such as Zelary (2003), which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and is about a nurse who is part of the resistance in the Czech Republic in the 1940s and has to find shelter, and The hit (2020), whose plot description states that it is “a comedy about what a summer storm, a city ordinance, a set of golf clubs, rock ‘n’ roll and a very angry daughter can do.”

Trojan did a lot of dubbing work
The KVIFF highlighted the Czech star’s many talents when it announced it would honor him. He “has long used his acting talent for radio plays and dubbing, and he has also tried his hand at directing in his ‘home’ theater, the Dejvice Theater,” it said.

How about the dubbing? I have the Czech voices for people like Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer) in 24 and Thomas F. Wilson’s Biff Tannen in Back to the Future would be enough to grab the attention of most actors.

But Trojan has done a lot more work behind the voice-over microphone. He also provided the Czech voices for characters like Mikey (Bruce Willis) in Look who’s talkingPete Becker (Jon Favreau) in FriendsMarlin (Albert Brooks) in Find NemoMaster Monkey (Jackie Chan) in Kung Fu PandaDr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie) in Monsters vs. Aliensand Makunga (Alec Baldwin) in Madagascar: Escape to Africa.

Trojan is also known for his roles in TV crime series
In the Czech Republic, the star is also a well-known face on television. He appeared in the historical police series Police and robbers from 1997 to 2007 and in several crime series directed by Jiří Strach, including Satan’s Cunning (2009), The lost gate (2012) and The Associate Professor (2023).

The lost gate contains a crime thriller and a mysterious, encrypted medieval text that keeps a religious scholar on his toes as he searches for answers in places including ancient underground tunnels in Prague and a Masonic lodge.

Meanwhile, the starting point for Satan’s Cunning reads as follows: “A girl is found dressed only in a blood-soaked outfit, with strange blood-drawn diagrams on her stomach and the number 666 on her forehead. She is unharmed but remembers nothing.”

Finally, The Associate Professor In “Trojan”, the main character is lecturer Otto Stehlík, who uses unconventional methods to help a policewoman track down a cold-blooded serial killer in a crime novel with an unequal relationship.

He is a huge football fan and actually played briefly in a major league game
Many actors in Hollywood and elsewhere are considered huge sports fans. But how many of them have actually played a professional game?

Trojan has. He has long been known as a huge fan of Prague football club Bohemians 1905, which plays in the Czech top league in the traditional green and white striped jerseys. Its most famous player of all time, Antonín Panenka, is now the club’s chairman.

In 2009, at the age of 44, Trojan even played for Bohemians 1905 in a competitive match against FK Ústí nad Labem in the Czech league. Although he only played for a few minutes, he is still praised as an “all-rounder in reserve” on a player page on the club’s website.

The organizers of Karlovy Vary are certainly aware of his passion for football, but the festival will honor him for what he is best known for – his all-round talent as an actor.