Biography

He refused to repeat his part of Mr. Pudil from Sanitka (1984) in Sanitka II (2013). The part was eventually rewritten as Mr. Tatousek and Jirí Lábus was cast.

He turned down the part of Madman in Zralok v hlave (2004), eventually played by Oldrich Kaiser.

The leading part of Dalibor Vrána in Garçon, sauve toi ! (1981) was written for him specifically. However, director Ladislav Smoljak decided to cast Josef Abrhám instead.

He was considered for the part of Mr. Prokop in Sakalí léta (1993), eventually played by Josef Abrhám.

He was considered for the part of Mr. Pumplne in Vlak detství a nadeje (1989), eventually played by Stanislav Zindulka.

[on his first film role]: "In 1973 I came to Semafor Theater and shortly afterwards I shot my first comedy role in Jáchyme, hod ho do stroje! (1974). I had small part for just three days of filming, played a character of such a hysterical hothead, as the director Oldrich Lipský wanted me to do. I had no idea that by doing that, I would fall into such typecast for decades."

[on voice acting in O utrzeném sluchátku (1976) and its many follow-ups]: "I didn't personally know either Milos Macourek or Adolf Born at that time, but one day Mr. Sebestík, the producer of Short Film, called me and said that Mr. Macourek had written such a story and Mr. Born was going to draw pictures for it and that they want me to do a voice-over. It wasn't originally a series, but they were short films that were shown in the cinemas before the main program. I came in and said I couldn't dub at all, which is true, I tried maybe once, but he said it didn't matter, they needed to read the text: "But please, like if water is running from the tap". The text was maybe five pages long for each episode, other such cartoons is about two, and when Mr. Macourek came to the set he said: "And Mr. Nározný, I'm not cutting a sentence". So I read it, I read it, they wanted it even faster, so again, well, in the end they were satisfied."

[on Vladimír Mensík]: "We did several movies together, some TV fairy tales, and also some other things in TV. We got along on personal level - and I'm proud of that. I've been to his house and seen his huge library. He had read almost everything, especially poetry. There was a lot of pressure on him to write a big book about himself, but he never did. What came out on the gramophone records or his TV stand-ups is only a fraction of his fascinating personality. And why didn't he write anything? He always answered that: "Never mind, I would have write, but then I would have no time to read everything I want to, like Karel Capek or Ernest Hemingway." He was an extraordinary man, a great actor and a wonderful colleague."

[on Talíre nad Velkým Malíkovem (1977)]: "Unquestionably one of the worst comedies, if not the worst, that Barrandov Studios has made and where I have unfortunately performed. A script from the 50s that had been drying in the studios for a long time, until someone pulled it out in the late 70s - I guess they had nothing else to pitch at the meeting. They gave it to the director Jaromil Jires. He was an excellent director, but not for comedies. In his defense, the script was already terrible."

[on future of Europe]: "We'll die, but our tombstone will say we were humanitarians... It's still a good life in Europe, but it was a good life in ancient Rome before the end. Even on the Titanic everything was fine; they had first-class champagne until it went down, and the music was said to be good even when the Titanic was sinking."