(born the 2nd of March 1929 in Łódź) – Polish film, theatre and television actress, and theatre director. She graduated at the Theatrical Director Department of the National Theatre College in Warsaw. In 1970 together with her husband Jan Machulski she founded theatre circle for children and youth by the Ochota Theatre in Warsaw, subsequently turned into a school by the Polish Centre of International Association of Theatres for Children and Youth, which has brought up many Polish actors.

(selected excerpts from interview)

WHO IS SHE

„I am a truth-telling person.”

Sense of Truth and Dignity

The values, which I personally regard highly have not vanished. The sense of the value of truth and dignity of human being is what I find in many people. They do exist, are present. They just must be taken out to the foreground. One has got to help people in getting these values out to the open. (…)

Truth

As a young girl, I decided that I shall not lie. Well, yes, I discovered that it helps me, that due to this, I can come to like difficulties. Since lies are means of avoiding responsibility, a short-cut. In effect, lies lead on to a situation in which this short-cut starts to crumble everything in our life, shatter into pieces everything around us, change it. Lies become very hard to overcome. We begin to fall into a deeper and deeper hole, and at a time, when we like to overcome the difficulties, the truth lets us overcome them.

Tell the truth. It is a token of one’s strength.

Honesty

Honesty lets us choose wisely. I am very much convinced of that.

Trust in oneself

Truth, which wins inside of us, is a confirmation of responsibility. It gives us the strength, if we can last in it. If we have the courage to persevere, it gives us delight. Even when it becomes difficult, it usually ends up with that, we become to trust ourselves. And if we come to trust in ourselves, this means that we can rely on ourselves. We can go on living. We can go on helping. And if our attitude is to help others, making life easier for others, not just ourselves, then its’s worth a try. We then come to feel a kind of warmness surrounding us.

Openness to exploration

In order to find the best solution in a conflict, one should be open to explore various alternative paths. And then such pathway shall be discovered, the one, which is most human, most mature and which leads on to the wisest of goals. This is so since at times the truth, which is not underpinned by wisdom, does not stand the test of time.