Ákos Orosz received the award for the most promising newcomer from the theater critics. The member of the ten-year-old Maladype Theatre is not an Adonis, but he has proven his talent in many leading roles.

- How did you feel when you found out that you were awarded?

- It was uplifting when they said my name. The fact that I was nominated came as a surprise. My mother saw this on the Internet, I found out from her. Piroska Mészáros and I were in the same class, and Péter Bercsényi was my classmate. They were even nominated. We also discussed that whoever wins that night pays a round, so no one came out of it that badly.

- You attended the class of Gábor Zsámbéki – Sándor Zsótér, obviously you had to work a lot and hard.

- I finished high school at two or three in the afternoons, and the hardest thing for me to get used to at university was that classes started at nine in the morning and we rehearsed until midnight.

- Once, when we met, you joked about your big ears. Did you have a problem with your body shape?

- I still have. I have to pay attention, because six or seven kilos can swing up and down on me quite suddenly. It doesn't look good when I'm down. I'm also going bald and I'm not the typical pretty guy. Of course, this is not a problem, I just have to be aware that because of this, I mean something different on stage than if a guy with the shape of Adonis appeared. When we played the game at university, if you were to abstract from someone's personality, who they are perceived to be, they told me that they would think of me as a truck driver, a melon seller, who is sometimes even aggressive.

- But you do not play such roles.

- Because perhaps the most important thing is not what one looks like, but what one wants to communicate, how one thinks. After all, a truck driver can also be in love, smart, and good at math. Just as a boxer can be lyrical. This is perhaps even more interesting. While I know if I walk into a club, I won't be the first one the girls turn to, or the one excitedly waiting at the art gallery because I look so good.

- But you play characters, like Platonov or Figaro, that you have to fall in love with.

- Love, or whether someone is attractive, doesn't necessarily have anything to do with looks. Self-identity, self-belief and being able to really pay attention to others are much more important. I've had long relationships in recent years, and that's what's kept me focused off the stage.

- It is a strange situation that in The Marriage of Figaro they have to believe that Marcelina, played by Mari Törőcsik, is in love with Figaro, played by you.

- Mari brought up several times during the rehearsal process how old she is, and how young we, the male members of the troupe, are in comparison, and yet she pretends that she is in love with us and expects us to be in love with her. It's strange because I, for example, don't see it as much as it is. Her soul is young, her behavior youthful, her thinking modern. Her aura is so strong that it overwhelms me, and that makes me pay attention not to how many wrinkles are on her face, how she looks, but to what an endearing personality she has, how attractive she is.

- As you sit across from me, you seem like a gentle guy. From where do you get so much cruelty and aggression to play, for example, the mass-murdering dictator King Ubu or Lorenzaccio?

- There is a part of my personality that includes greed and aggression. For example, I can get angry all of a sudden. I can't stand injustice very much when I encounter it, I often get angry and use inappropriate words. I use these experiences when cruelty and anger are needed on stage. It is important that I can test myself in productions of completely different styles and in different situations at the Maladype Theatre.

- The profession already absolutely recognizes it. Would you like to be recognized on the street or in a cafe?

- After the release of the film Made in Hungary, relatively many people recognized me for a while. I had a similar experience with another film, Days of Desire. Recently, more and more people are contacting me from those who saw me in the theater. It's flattering when they come to me, but they usually find me in very strange situations. For example, when I lay outside on the beach with my girlfriend, or on Hármashatár Mountain, when I bounced a soccer ball on my head shirtless. On stage I accept that they are watching, but elsewhere I don't think about it. So sometimes I feel like they opened the door at me. I guess I don't want to be greeted on the street. It is important to have a private life that is mine.

Gábor Bóta, Vasárnapi Hírek, 2011

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek