Dawid Ogrodnik Polish Actor

Dawid Ogrodnik (born June 15, 1986 in Wągrowiec) is a Polish actor.

Two-time winner of the award for the best male role (2017, 2019) and two-time winner of the award for the best supporting male role (2012, 2014) at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, and two-time winner of the Polish Film Award, Eagle in the category: best male lead role (2014, 2018). Winner of the "Polityka" Passport Award in the "Film" category (2014) and the Zbyszek Cybulski Award (2018). In 2013, he received the "Golden Seal" awarded by the authorities of the Wągrowiec district.

He was born and grew up in Wągrowiec, where as a child he began learning to play the clarinet at the State Primary Music School, and at home he listened to jazz musicians Joshua Redman, Benny Goodman, Keith Jarret, and Miles Davies. His older sister Aneta played the piano, and his younger sister played the violin.

In 1998, he won a national music competition in Szczecin, after which he received a scholarship from the Minister of Culture. At the age of 13, he left his hometown for Poznań, where he continued his education at the Music High School. As a high school student, he became interested in theatre thanks to his tutor at the time, Anna Szymańska, who led a theatre group and later founded the MplusM Casting Theatre in Poznań, in which Ogrodnik played. At that time, he also played in the Catholic music band Red Light for Hallucinations.

After graduating from high school, he returned to his hometown of Wągrowiec, where he ran the music agency "David & Martin Art Management" with a friend, and in order to maintain it, he founded and led a children's choir at the Municipal Cultural Center in Łekno. For several months, he also led the choir at the church of St. Adalbert in Wągrowiec. He twice tried to get into the Warsaw Theatre Academy, and also studied at the private acting school Lart studiO in Kraków.

To pay for his tuition, he worked as an actor and host for an event agency. He was then admitted to the Łódź Film School, but due to his negligence (lack of a signed student declaration) he was struck off the list of students. Eventually, he began his studies at the Ludwik Solski State Drama School in Kraków, from which he graduated in 2012. He stated that during his studies he experienced "psychological mobbing", mainly from Beata Fudalej.

Initially, he made guest appearances in series broadcast on TVN, including the docu-crime paradocumentary Detectives (2007), the documentary-fictionalized Żołnierze wyklęci (2008), the soap opera Majka (2009) and the legal series Prawo Agaty (2012), as well as in the television drama Silence (2010) by Sławomir Pstrong.

For his debut cinema role of Sebastian "Rahim" Salbert in Leszek Dawid's drama You Are God (2012) – together with Tomasz Schuchardt – he won the award for Best Supporting Actor at the 37. Polish Film Festival in Gdynia and a nomination for the Polish Film Award, Eagle for the best supporting male role. In Paweł Pawlikowski's psychological drama Ida (2013), which at the 38. Gdynia – Film Festival won as many as four awards, he was cast in the role of "Fox", a saxophonist in a band playing at the birthday party of the city of Szydłów.

His next film role was the role of Mateusz Rosiński, who suffers from quadriplegic cerebral palsy, in Maciej Pieprzyca's drama Life Feels Good (2013), based on real events, for which he was honoured with many awards, including the Elle Crystal Star, a statuette funded by Apart and awarded by the magazine "Elle", the "Golden Puppy" award for the leading male acting at the first edition of the Film Acting Festival in Wrocław, the acting award at the Gijón Film Festival, the Eagle Polish Film Award for the best leading male role and the Elżbieta Czyżewska Award for the best actor at the 10th New York Polish Film Festival.

After the film's success at the Montreal Film Festival, where Life Feels Good won the Audience Award, the Jury Award, and the Best Picture Award, the world's media compared The Gardener to Daniel Day-Lewis as the disabled Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Dustin Hoffman as the autistic Raymond Babbitt in Rain Man.

After his participation in Anna Kazejak's Polish-Danish psychological drama for young people The Promise (2014) as Daniel, Sylwia's (Magdalena Popławska) partner, he played a drug-addicted courier in Jerzy Skolimowski's action film 11 minutes (2015) and played the main role of Tomek in Maciej Bochniak's eccentric comedy Disco Polo (2015).

He played the role of a translator and radio host Tomasz Beksiński, son of Zdzisław (Andrzej Seweryn) in the biographical film by Jan P. Matuszyński The Last Family (2016), for which he received the Onet "Discovery of the Festival" award at the 41st International Film Festival. Polish Film Festival and the acting award at the Festival of Young East European Cinema in Cottbus.

In 2018, he created the character of journalist Piotr Zarzycki, one of the main characters in the TV series Rojst. He also starred in AXN TV series: Rysa (2021) and Układ (since 2021).

In 2010, he made his professional debut on the stage of the Drama Theatre in Warsaw as a student in the play Klub Polski directed by Paweł Miśkiewicz.

In 2011, he defended his acting diploma thanks to his performance in Elfriede Jelinek's play Babel 2 directed by Maja Kleczewska, and for the role he received an award (also for the acting team and producers) at the XXIX Theatre Schools Festival in Łódź. In the same year, he performed at the Stary Theatre in Kraków as Eyolf in Henrik Ibsen's Brand miasto wybrani / The Chosen City (2011) directed by Michał Borczuch, as well as at the Rozmaitości Theatre in Nosferatu (2011) directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna.

In 2012, he was supposed to play the main role in the play So Michael J. Said at the Wybrzeże Theatre in Gdańsk, but after a dispute with director Wiktor Rubin, he broke off cooperation on the title two days before the scheduled premiere, but the official announcement was that the premiere of the show was postponed due to the actor's injury.

From 2013 to 2017, he was associated with the Rozmaitości Theatre in Warsaw, where he achieved success with the role of Łukasz, an origami master suffering from cerebral palsy in Johann Strauss's Bat or My Cemetery (2012) directed by Kornél Mundruczó; the role brought him the Grand Prix for his acting performance at the 53. Kalisz Theatre Meetings and Warsaw Feliks 2013 in the category of beginner actor or director.

In the following years, he played in other TR plays directed by Jarzyna: The Second Woman (2014) by John Cassavetes as the Heartbreakers and The Martyrs (2015) by Marius von Mayenburg as Frank, as well as in the plays: The Lake (2016) by Mikhail Durnienkov directed by Yana Ross and Robert Robur (2016) directed by Krzysztof Garbaczewski.

In 2017, he terminated his contract with the theatre, dissatisfied with the course of his cooperation with Jarzyna.

In the Television Theatre, he played in Sskutki Side Effects (2013) directed by Leszek Dawid alongside Krzysztof Stroiński as Hank, Brancz (2014) by Juliusz Machulski as Olaf, Nelly's fiancé (Alicja Juszkiewicz), The Visit (2015) by Agnieszka Maskovic as Jurek, who goes on a journey to his hometown after a few years of absence, and in the crime comedy Rybka Canero (2015) by Juliusz Machulski as Zenon Vogel, son of Ignacy (Andrzej Zieliński). For his role as Patryk in the Television Theatre play Apnea (2013) directed by Andrzej Bart, he won an acting distinction at the "Two Theatres" Festival of Polish Radio Theatre and Polish Television Theatre in Sopot.

In 2017, on the stage of the BARAKAH Theatre in Krakow, he played in the play Christiane F. Children from the Zoo Station, directed by Sebastian Oberc.

In March 2021, he was accused by former student Aleksander Kurzak of mobbing when – while working as an assistant to Adam Nawojczyk at the AST in 2017 – he allegedly bullied first-year students. Kurzak wrote in a Facebook post: I remember when you interrupted my etude, shouting: "What the is this supposed to be, I f******, what the are you in the circus". You were very aggressive at the time. In fact, I was trampled into the ground. At that moment, you showed me that I was a s**t, that I was a nobody, and I felt that way.

In an interview with "Newsweek", Ogrodnik said that the situation described by Kurzak took place when he felt helpless and helpless when he watched the performance of an acting task, which resembled a pantomime and a set of facial expressions. I expressed my helplessness, helplessness and anger through shouting. I didn't judge the student as a person, but what he does," he said, promising to call Kurzak to explain the matter. In his 2022 autobiographical book, Endgame, he asserted that he contacted Kurzak and apologized for his behaviour.

During his high school years, he was sexually harassed by Father Arkadiusz R., the manager of the band Red Light for Hallucinations, in which Ogrodnik played.

He declares himself to be a believer in God and belongs to the Protestant Christian Community North.

He was in a relationship with Marta Nieradkiewicz, with whom he has a daughter, Jaśmina (born 2018).

DAWID OGRODNIK is a Polish actor known for his work in movies. He has appeared in more than ten films since 2010. He graduated from the National Academy of Theatre Arts in Krakow. He gained recognition for his role in the movie You Are God (2012), inspired by the life and work of the hip-hop group "Paktofonika".

Born: June 15, 1986

Location: Wagrowiec, Wielkopolskie, Poland

Nationality: Polish

Educated at: Stanisław Wyspiański Academy for the Dramatic Arts

Occupation: actor

Height: 5′ 10¾″ (1.80 m)

Awards: Polish Academy Award for Best Actor

Unmarried partner: Marta Nieradkiewicz

Relationship: Marta Nieradkiewicz and Dawid Ogrodnik

He has received multiple awards for his performances, including the Polish Film Award, Eagle, for best male lead role. Other notable performances include the movies Ida (2013), The Last Family (2016), and Johnny (2022). His work is characterized by a deep commitment to his roles and a unique ability to portray a wide range of characters.

2021 – Najmro, dir. Mateusz Rakowicz

2021 – Fears, dir. Łukasz Ronduda

2020 – Magnezja, dir. Maciej Bochniak

2019 – Icarus. The Legend of Mietek Kosz, dir. Maciej Pieprzyca

2017 – Silent Night, dir. Piotr Domalewski

2016 – The Last Family, dir. Jan P. Matuszyński

2015 – Disco Polo, dir. Maciej Bochniak

2015 – 11 minutes, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski

2014 – Obietnica, director: Anna Kazejak

2013 – Bezdech, director: Andrzej Bart, received an actor award at the Festival of Polish Radio and Television Theatre "Dwa Teatry" in Sopot

2013 – Chce się żyć, director: Maciej Pieprzyca

2013 – Ida, director: Paweł Pawlikowski

2012 – Jesteś Bogiem, director: Leszek Dawid, awards Best Supporting Actor at the Gdynia Film Festival.

2015 – Martyr, director: Grzegorz Jarzyna. TR Warsaw.

2014 – The Second Woman, director: Grzegorz Jarzyna. TR Warsaw.

2012 – Nietoperz director: Kornél Mundruczó. TR Warsaw. Grand Prix award at the 53rd Kaliskich Spotkania Teatralne

2012 – Bracia i siostry, director: Maja Kleczewska, Kochanowski Theatre in Opole

2011 – Brand. Miasto. Wybrani, director: Michał Borczuch, the Helena Modjeska Stary National Theatre in Kraków

2011 – Klub Polski, director: Paweł Miśkiewicz, Drama Theatre of Warsaw

2011 – Babel 2, director: Maja Kleczewska, the The Ludwik Solski State Drama School in Kraków, Individual award at the 29th Festival of Theatre Schools in Łodz.

2012 – Best Actor in a Supporting Role in You Are God Award at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia

2013 – Elle Crystal Star for her role in Life Feels Good at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia

2013 – nomination for the Polish Film Award, Eagle for the best supporting male role in the film You Are God

2013 – acting distinction at the Festival of Polish Radio and Television Theatre "Two Theatres" in Sopot for her role in the play Apnea

2013 – Golden Puppy for the leading male performance in the film Life Feels Good at the Tadeusz Szymkow Film Acting Festival in Wrocław

2014 – Best Actor Award in the film The Promise at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia

2014 – Polish Film Award, Eagle for the best leading male role in the film Life Feels Good

2014 – Polityka's Passport Award in the "Film" category

2014 – Grand Prix at the Festival of Polish Radio and Television Theatre "Two Theatres" in Sopot for her role in the play Side Effects

2017 – Award for the best male role in the film Silent Night at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia

2017 – nomination for the Polish Film Award, Eagle for the best supporting male role in the film The Last Family

2018 – Zbyszek Cybulski Award for his role in the film Silent Night

2018 – Polish Film Award, Eagle for the best male lead role in the film Silent Night

2019 – Award for the leading male role in the film Icarus. The legend of Mietek Kosz at the 44. Polish Film Festival in Gdynia

2019 – Nomination for the leading male role in the film Icarus. The Legend of Mietek Kosz at the Tadeusz Szymkow Film Acting Festival.

Author: Bartosz Staszczyszyn

Film and theatre actor, alumnus of the National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków. One of his generation's most famous stage artists, winner of multiple awards for best leading male role at Gdynia Film Festival, the country's most important annual cinema event. Born in 1986.

His interest in the arts began with music, a passion that ran in the family – his older sister played the piano and the younger, the clarinet. From attending music school in Wągrowiec and listening to jazz in his free time, he admits in an interview with Culture.pl that while he strayed into classical music it was 'Ravel only. I was attracted to the images of landscapes, closer to the music of films than traditional classics'.

Employing his musical interest in theatre and cinema, he plays a Coltrane piece on alto saxophone in Paweł Pawlikowski’s film Ida and sings Italian disco in Kornél Mundruczó’s stage production, The Bat. The multi-talented artist has been recognised for his ability to completely immerse himself in his roles and manifest incredibly moving performances. Ogrodnik’s dedication, reflected by the courage required by his process and his initiative to break down barriers of the self and explore the dark depths of alternate perspectives, has already been rewarded by professionals in the industry.

In high school Ogrodnik met Anna Szymańska, founder of the Poznań Theatre, when she was casting MplusM – and managed to get a role. But even with this experience, it would take him three tries to be accepted into Kraków’s Academy of Dramatic Arts (PWST). As he later said:

"Our course group was very lucky because the teachers with whom we worked went far beyond the canon. Working with Roman Gancarczyk, Małgorzata Hajewska-Krzysztofik or Grzegorz Mielczarek was always a pursuit of, and not a following of formals. They never tried to impose anything upon us."

During his studies he was cast in Paweł Miśkiewicz’s Polish Club, which represented one of the great spiritual experiences for Poles and contributed to the social foundation that shaped modern Polish identity.

"I think it was with Miśkiewicz that I understood that the art of this discipline depends on starting from scratch, that you need to surpass your own limitations."

Ogrodnik’s performance was witnessed by the director Leszek Dawid, and the two would soon meet on the set of You Are God. This movie would go on to be one of the biggest recent hits in Polish cinema.

You Are God is the story of the legendary hip-hop band Paktofonika, and Ogrodnik was cast in the role of Rahim, a withdrawn and shy teenager. Along with two colleagues from PWST, Marcin Kowalczyk and Tomasz Schuchardt, they created a poignant portrayal of the three musicians on the threshold of their careers. With only two months to prepare their roles, the group travelled to concerts, held conversations with Rahim and Fokus (the surviving members of Paktofonika) and listened to their old records:

"Leszek wanted us to understand how the guys would have composed their songs in the '90s. On an old PC with ancient software we had been working on a track for four hours when for a moment the power went out and everything disappeared. This was an excellent example. We quickly understood why this was torture."

The movie became the launch for Ogrodnik’s career. Over a million people flocked to the cinema to see it. At the Gdynia Film Festival, the country's most important annual cinema event, Ogrodnik won an award for his role as a supporting actor.

Dawid Ogrodnik missed the first casting call for the role of Mateusz in Maciej Pieprzyca’s Life Feels Good. Once the director already had a selection of young actors, Ogrodnik came to see him in a jogging suit and shaved head. He managed to convey himself as a sensitive and intelligent actor able to play the role of a boy with cerebral palsy in a long conversation over coffee. In eight months, the actor underwent a complete transformation to effectively portray the film’s protagonist:

"At the beginning I could not imagine that I could create the character out of only gestures and grimaces. This ignorance motivated me. I spent months thinking about how to build a character without words."

In an interview with Sebastian Łupakow from Newsweek, he recalls that:

"the whole wall of my room was covered with sheets of notes describing scene after scene. I looked at them and wrote an internal monologue about what I felt, what the emotions were."

The actor lost 10 kilos for the role so that every muscle and every vein would 'cut through the screen'. To prepare his body for the physical challenges of portraying the disease, he wrapped his fingers and twisted his joints. Bartłomiej Ostapczuk, a specialist in pantomime from Na Woli Theatre, mentored him through this process. He read the biographies of Christy Brown and Rubén Gallego and even had two sets of toothbrushes; one for Mateusz and one for himself.

He met with people from the disabled community to observe their world and learn their gestures to construct his role. These encounters often overwhelmed his ability to be a stoic professional and the emotional nature catalysed breakdowns. In an interview with Hanna Halek from Polityka magazine, he remembers an unusual encounters he had with a boy suffering from cerebral palsy and his totally healthy twin brother:

"The soul gets really heavy and helpless: in a mixture of desire and impotence. A trip home for these people is like travelling to Vietnam for me. Going to the movie is like climbing Mt. Everest… Our path to understanding these people is long. I spent a few days just staring out the window because I was curious about what a person would have in their minds if they couldn’t move from their wheelchair and could only stare at the clouds passing over. At first is the impulse to destroy everything, it hurts your body, but then due to the lack of means, you slowly adopt the pose, you play with your ideas, you look for system and you tell yourself many things. I have never before thought about myself as much as I did then."

Using only gestures, eye movement and dramatic vocals, Ogrodnik portrayed a man enslaved by his own impairments. His performance connected with audiences and critics alike – evidence of this is in the number of festival awards the film has received. Comparisons to the role Daniel Day-Lewis had in My Left Foot and commendations from Polish director Sławomir Idziak are enormously encouraging signs of his ability as an actor. Idziak even said that had the role of Mateusz been a part of an American film, Ogrodnik would have been nominated for an Oscar.

Upon completion of Life Feels Good in 2012, Ogrodnik was offered a role in Kornél Mundruczó’s production of The Bat scheduled to perform on the stage of TR Warszawa in the capital. Once again embodying the character of a disabled boy, his transition back to reality was eased through the opportunity to not break so suddenly from his character of Mateusz. Hanna Rydlewska from Na Temat wrote about his performance:

"Ogrodnik is authentic, irritating and pathetic. The dance of his body is able to move the audience to be completely amazed and deliver wild reviews under the auspices of TR Warsaw. Even when Łukasz, played by Ogrodnik, raises himself for a second from his wheelchair, letting his body fall while singing Italian disco, is fantastic. Not for one moment does he turn the hero into a farce."

Soon thereafter, he was on the set of the Paweł Pawlikowski film Ida, which would receive four awards at the 2013 Gdynia Film Festival.

In the story that takes place in the 1960s, Ogrodnik plays a young saxophonist, who stands as an obstacle in the path of the heroine of the film. His character is a combination of James Dean and Zbigniew Cybulski – both legends of virile charm in the 1950s.

In 2014, audiences saw Ogrodnik in Anna Kazejak’s The Word. He also appeared in the TV drama series Bezdech.

Asked if he was afraid of falling into the vortex of show business, he replied with a tranquil tone: 'When you don’t feed something, it doesn’t live. It’s not worth it to involve yourself in show business, it’s a small part of this profession'. He refused a proposal to take part in a popular series about soldiers in which he would have been paid 20,000 złoty (almost 5,000 euro) for 10 days of work.

Instead, he is looking for new challenges:

"I would like to play a murderer. A psychopathic person composed of ambiguity. These roles show how easy it is for us to be caught up in a trap of manipulation and the fact that we can never really understand another human being."

He does not slow down. In 2015 he played a drug addict courier in Jerzy Skolimowski's thriller 11 minutes alongside Agata Buzek, Andrzej Chyra and Wojciech Mecwaldowski. He also portrayed the main character, Tomek, in Maciej Bochniak's debut feature Disco Polo, which told the story of the Polish transformation of the 1990s in the rhythm of disco polo.

In 2016, Jan P. Matuszyński's The Last Family premiered. In the film, honoured with awards in Locarno and Gdynia, Ogrodnik portrayed the tragic translator and radio presenter Tomasz Beksiński, while Andrzej Seweryn played his famous father, the painter Zdzisław Beksiński. His role was described by some as a bit hysterical; so energetic, that sometimes exaggerated, but it wasn't seen necessarily as a flaw. For example, Tadeusz Sobolewski wrote for Gazeta Wyborcza:

"I don't mind the exaggeration in Ogrodnik's portrayal of Tomek. In the movie, he is treated as a big kid, which grants him the viewer's sympathy. We look at him from the point of view of his parents. If we were stuck in complete literality, we could criticise Forman's portrayal of Mozart in 'Amadeus', which showed the genius composer as an (alleged) idiot."

Ogrodnik played one of the leading roles in Piotr Domalewski's intimate family drama Silent Night, the film that won the Gold Lions at Gdynia Film Festival in 2017. The actor was triumphant, too – he won an award for best male leading role, and soon celebrated another win at the Polish Film Award: Eagles ceremony. In an interview for Gazeta Wyborcza, Ogrodnik said:

"I started building my character the way I usually do. I'm quite used to having a very specific idea of a character. […] However, eventually instead of reacting or doing something in a manner the character would, I ended up doing what I felt like doing. […] It worked out. Following Piotr's advice, I gave up on looking any further. […] Unlike with my previous films, I kind of felt like I wasn't really building a character. But there clearly is a character in the film – perhaps brought about by the director, whose intentions I started to sense with time."

The year 2019 started out with Ogrodnik appearing in a bit part in Dark, Almost Night directed by Borys Lankosz, but the year's true hit starring the actor premiered some months later at the 44th Gdynia Film Festival – namely, Icarus: The Legend of Mietek Kosz directed by Maciej Pieprzyca. Ogrodnik played the leading role in the biopic based on the life of Mieczysław Kosz, a pianist and one of the leaders of Polish jazz who tragically died at 29. In an interview for Dziennik.pl, Ogrodnik commented on portraying yet another real person (other roles of the sort include The Last Family and You Are God):

"An element of truth forces me to be more attentive. It's different to prepare for a role based on a real person. I try to be as reliable as possible, as it's my top priority not to hurt anyone. In fact, it's journalistic work – an incessant attempt at staying objective."

Once again, Ogrodnik faced the challenge of creating a character who had a disability – Mieczysław Kosz was visually impaired. The effort, which also included losing weight and learning the moves of a piano player, paid off. Ogrodnik won another award for best leading actor at the Gdynia Film Festival.

In 2020, Ogrodnik played an important role in Maciej Bochniak's eastern Magnezja – he joined forces with the film's co-writer, Mateusz Kościukiewicz. The duo played a pair of conjoined brothers bound by the ribcage. The actor also had his comeback to the small screen in Jan Holoubek's Rojst '97, where he played the character he created for the show's first season, only this time 13 years older.