"In a sauna play, we wear nothing but sheets, we'd be lame," says Miroslav Hanuš, a well-known actor.

Trying it out was fun because the game is fun and captures a bit of the mentality of sauna-goers. I like going there myself and one learns things here! Often the most intimate things that they don't even want to know. The sauna is sometimes not as much of a place of peace as one would think. It's a place where groups go to tell each other the "truth." Maybe it's more like that in smaller towns, and that's how Luboš Balák, the author and director of the play, goes to the sauna in Prostějov. So the play is partly based on reality. But you can find the same wise talk in any pub.

The scheme of the play is quite suggestive of the idea that there is a lot of room for improvisation. Do you often add to the lyrics, or are they fixed?

We all try not to add to ourselves, although it would be tempting to do so. But the actors are usually no smarter than the writer who's been writing it for a while. And as obvious as the stuff looks, it's well-written, it's polished, the author has played with words brilliantly. And if we're going to do some improvisation, maybe it's because we're going to get lost. Sometimes that happens because the conversation of those people in the sauna is a loose sequence of associations and reflections that don't really connect.

Something connects them though, doesn't it

Well, they're mostly connected here by the stupidity of those reasoners, but they jump from one to the other. Sometimes when we get lost in it, then we have to save ourselves with that improvisation, but it's more like we're trying to keep the text. But there's a lot of it, so sometimes it doesn't work... (laughs)

It definitely needs to be said that the play is 80 minutes long without an intermission, and the three protagonists on stage are basically talking constantly. Only occasionally do the actors move around on the wooden stepped sauna bench, or get off of it, while speaking.

In

the production you are, as is common for a sauna, scantily clad, do you still feel any shyness about it?

We are playing in sheets because it's in a sauna, but we wondered at the beginning if we would also play it completely naked. It's just that it's 80 minutes, after all, and we needed people to watch what we were saying more than "how we're doing." So we took the sheets. But occasionally, someone gets a shitty laugh, so we don't wear underwear underneath, just in case we're "embarrassed." But otherwise, we have no problem with it, we're not embarrassed. I'm a sunbather and a nudist, I like to be naked by the sea and swimming like this is my favourite. So really, the biggest problem is saying the lyrics correctly and not just playing in the sheets.

Let's move on from the game you played in Luhačovice to your other work. What new things are you working on now in the first few months of the year?

I'm directing a piece with Martin Hofman, known a lot from the TV series The Bridge. We're doing a comedy called Happy Easter. That's a Belmondo movie, but originally a play. We both love Belmondo and Martin as actors. So a little bit for fun, a little bit for a living, we're putting together this thing that we're going to ride. Another thing I'm going to do at the Rokoko Theatre, also directing. It's a musical. It's about Miki Volk, who was a rock 'n' roll bard who was still singing rock 'n' roll in the '80s, and even after the revolution he was still singing pure rock 'n' roll, even though it's kind of died. So it's the fate of the artist that fascinates me. I like this music too. I'll play in the game. Then I'm going to do a crime drama in Ostrava, but this time I'm going to be a criminal!

You've been on the other side of the law in the TV series 1st Department, and you were once in the legendary Criminal Adventures. But perhaps you were most noticed by the masses in the TV series Street. That's where you and your daughter are now, right? Did you meet each other for real on set?

My middle daughter, Eliska, who is a recent graduate of the theatre academy, plays in Street. She got into the show on her own, I didn't drag her in or harass her, as one can read on some discussions. But we meet during the series only in cattering, when we are waiting during the filming. Street has several storylines that don't intersect, so we haven't met on set yet. Maybe it will happen someday....

How would you compare this "never-ending series" where filming is very much a rush to acting in other series? The approach to making them is probably quite different, isn't it

Obviously, Ulice is a daytime series. An episode airs for say an hour, minus commercials, they have to shoot 40 minutes of net time a day. So 2 crews are filming at the same time. You can't compare it to HBO or CT shows that are shot like a movie. I mean, one picture at a time, often on one camera. Street is filmed like TV, so 3 cameras, almost everything is in the studios. The two crews film 12 hours a day and it's really hard work for the people who play the leads.

What else is different about this type of show?

It's interesting that half the nation can watch Ulica and cook and iron at the same time. And still get all the plot done. Well, that's the way it's designed to keep up. But now I've also seen that men watch quite a lot of the programme, although I'd have thought it was more of a women's thing. I have a specific example of this.

Say!!!

After I performed in Stardance, we were invited to various balls for pre-dancing. Well, when we were in Kamenica nad Lipou, they told me about a friend of theirs who is a professional fireman. They're tough guys, but he's also an avid watcher of Ulica. But he also loves sports. So when he's sitting in the guardhouse on his tablet he's into sports and he's also watching The Street on TV, but he's also ready in that uniform to go out. But the locals there say, "As long as there's no fire when the Street is on, he might not even go..." (laughter). Then there are many men who watch it for their wives, so but maybe not exactly happy...

Back to the Stardance you mentioned. You were the oldest participant in the last edition, yet you made it pretty far. How do you remember this dance competition and how challenging was it for you?

It was physically demanding. Basically four months of training for three or four hours six times a week at first. Then five hours as well. Saturdays, Sundays, it just kept going... I made it to the sixth round. The poor bastards who didn't get kicked out by then had to train for another month. I was a little glad to get out. I went into it with gusto though, because I've always loved to dance and I did it with vigor, but at this intensity at my age of sixty-six, it was enough. I'm otherwise more of a walking friend, I don't like to run, extreme feats in sports don't impress me. So my body was quite surprised and eventually wanted to check out already, my knees still hurt a lot.

So your wife is a choreographer, was there stage fright towards her in Stardance?

Her field has little to do with ballroom dancing though, just that both involve coordinated movement. A lot of people assumed that my wife and I had "extra workouts" in the living room, but we couldn't because Jana (the wife) doesn't really know. So from the beginning, only my dance partner Adrijana taught me everything for the competition. Compared to my wife, I already knew so much more in ballroom dancing because I used to go to dance classes, while she did conservatory and ballerinas from conservatory don't go to dance classes. So I didn't have any stage fright in front of her.

On the dance floor, your wife and your three daughters at least supported you from the audience...

I kind of took it as an obligation from them. I told them before, "Look, I'm pretty busy as an actor and director, but I have this offer to do Stardance. So you decide if I should go there. And they said I should, so they had a certain obligation to support me. Of course, the support was gratifying.

And your other daughter is following in your acting footsteps. Is it pure joy, or did you discourage your offspring from following a similar path?

Youngest daughter Jindřiška has now passed the entrance exams for DAMU and will be a freshman. I didn't discourage them from it at all. I'm happy in that profession and if they do as well as I did, I think they'll have a great life. The profession can be a little tough and it's even harder for girls. There are fewer roles and at a certain age it's totally a problem. Plus you have to meet "your" director and have roles, otherwise you can be a great actor but only at home in the kitchen. But I wish them well. Even if I lose my position in the family...(laughs). I used to be the only actor who stood on stage and could, for example, bring tickets to a sold-out show.... But I wish the girls well and I understand them completely. They're passionate about it, they want to do it, so I think they're in the right place.

I have one more thing to ask. I hear you like to ride your motorcycle in some sort of vintage Esenba helmet? Do you have an old Jawa as well, or what do you ride?

I don't even have a separate license for a big bike. But I've been riding motorcycles all my life. First on a Babette, then it was some Chinese scooter. Used to be that a car license was also valid for a 50 motorcycle, now it's also valid for a 25-footer. So for my 50th birthday I saved up for a Vespa Hundred and Twenty-Five

(It's a legendary brand of Italian scooters)

. I like the retro style, the design brings me joy. I ride it in the winter, everyday, all the time. As one cycles around Prague from filming to dubbing and theatre, it saves a lot of time, you park everywhere.

What's that vintage helmet?

It's a policeman's helmet from the socialist era, I bought it sometime in the 90s when they changed the equipment. They used to sell those great leather overalls then too. Well, the helmet is also with leather around it and a little lion that still had a five-pointed star. It was sold as unused. I used to ride in that helmet mostly in the summer, but it turned out that the five-pointed star didn't really stay on. It looked sturdy, but it was just a sticker. So not only history, but the helmet proved that the five-pointed star doesn't belong on our lion's head. I was recently pulled over by a "fellow" cop who was also on a motorcycle. He said it was funny, but warned me that the helmet would be long past its useful life and that I should get a proper one. So I only use the old one rarely anymore.

Categories: Company, Luhačovice, Theatre, City of Luhačovice, Interview