Meet Marek Probosz | Actor, Director, Producer, Author, Screenwriter, Playwrite, Scholar

We had the good fortune of connecting with Marek Probosz and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Marek, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Since I was a child I loved to perform and make others laugh. At age 6, at the time when I couldn’t read yet, so my mom read me my lines, I got my first stage role of the Jester in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Princes and the Pea” at the Fairy Tale Theater in Żory, Poland – a tenure which lasted seven years. Since than I fell in love with acting and never took off my jester’s costume.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
There are many things I’m really proud of as my accomplishments in my new country. Like the fact that I graduated from directing program at The American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Directed my original play “AUM or Torturing of Actors” at the Odyssey Theatre LA. Made my first feature film “Y.M.I.” – Winner Audience Award at The Other Venice Film Festival 2004, that I starred in, wrote, directed and produced. I played a legend of the cinema – Roman Polanski, in the movie Helter Skelter for Warner Bros.(2004). Played in most popular TV series like MONK; Scandal; Scorpion; Numbers or JAG. Worked with many Oscar winners on stage and in film. Got great reviews for my work in The New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Variety or Washington Post. Twice won the world’s largest solo theater festival UNITED SOLO – 2018 Winner Best Documentary show “The Auschwitz Volunteer: Captain Witold Pilecki”; 2022 Winner Best New York Premiere “Norwid’s Return”. The fact that I portrayed a mythological hero Odysseus on stage at the Getty Villa in Malibu, and portrayed one of the greatest heroes of the 20th Century the legendary Auschwitz Volunteer, Witold Pilecki in the award winning film “The Death of Captain Pilecki”. The fact that since 2005 I am teaching at UCLA Theater and Film Acting as Adjunct Associate Professor, and that I also taught at Emerson College, Williams College, Edgemar Center for the Arts and Theater Academy in Warsaw. That I was invited many times as a member of a jury to international film festivals all over the world, gave numerous lectures and workshops around the globe. Wrote many screenplays, plays and published two books. Was honored with a lifetime achievement awards MODJESKA PRIZE Los Angeles 2022, POLITKA PRIZE Poland 2022, Polish Diaspora Oscar – GOLDEN OWL, Vienna 2018, Gold Medal Witold Pilecki, Auschwitz 2011, The Morti Sunt Ut Liberti Vivamus, London 2011 etc. These are all the fruits of my passion, hard work and a million “No!” turned into “Yes!” You learn it by being an emigrant who left the country of his fathers, left the language in which the actor lives, the prominent career and the position of the star of his generation in Poland and in Eastern Europe, in times (1987) when there was a communist regime in Poland. All this for the choice of FREEDOM. Because artist must be free to create and must learn how to survive!
Starting all over again as a stranger in a foreign land, on a journey of “a hero from zero”, it was almost suicidal, it was like climbing a vertical rock, swimming with sharks, but it gave me strength, toughened my spirit and increased my steadfastness in achieving goals, fulfilling my dreams.
Never give up, never surrender, never loose your inner voice! This my mantra: “Even if I have to burn my earthly body to ashes, I must save my spirit! Persevere!”

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
The end of the western civilization – a place where the elements of water, earth and sky meet. The ocean shore is the place that gives inner peace, muffles the noise of the LA metropolis, without beginning and without the end. Would go for a hike to the Santa Monica mountains. Visit Self Realization Fellowship at Lake Shrine on Sunset Blvd. Taste the original Mexican cuisine. Pay homage to few landmark places in Hollywood & Venice.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The biggest shout out should go to my lineage of ancestors from whom I inherited such a strong DNA. I am a grandson of the Polish Poet Laureate – Jerzy Probosz – a young and promising writer whose career ended in the Dachau concentration camp where he was murdered by the Nazis for the mere fact of being a Polish intellectual. I am a son of an engineer, innovator and educator – Stanislaw Probosz – Mayor of Istebna town in the Polish mountains, and a homemaker and schoolteacher Franciszka. It is from them that I’ve learned the meaning of: Truth, Honor, Goodness, Beauty, Sacrifice, Love and commitment to higher values. Family, Country, Ideals.

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