The performing artist – in this case the stage and film actor – must meet two, or rather three, directions of expectation. First, their vocation demands humility, an effort to convey as faithfully as possible the author’s thoughts and emotional–moral world. Second, they must preserve their individuality while performing, bringing their intellectual and spiritual convictions into harmony with the role they portray, without doing violence to that role. Third, they must also remain aware that the art of acting (and we would not be far off in extending this to film acting as well) responds in the most immediate way to the social reality in which the role is born – and not only responds but also has an effect upon it. To borrow Pilinszky János’s expression, the performing artist lives within this fiery “showcase of the present moment.”
In a 1987 radio interview, seven years after graduating from the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts, actor Károly Eperjes – still animated by the fervour of artistic beginnings but already possessing considerable professional experience – spoke about shaping a role as follows: “The golden ratio marks the point between consciousness and instinct,” adding that instinct makes up the larger part. In this definition he sketched out the artist’s character and the two possible paths: simply put, the actor who becomes the role, and the actor who plays the role. In the first case, the actor – by virtue of their innate gifts and talent – identifies with the role to such an extent that they genuinely become it. In contrast, there is the type of actor who, with sensitivity and empathy, imagines themselves into the role and seeks to perform it at the highest professional level.
The distinction between the two types does not imply a value judgement; it simply sheds light on the actor categories already identified by Péter Popper. On the instinctive and the conscious artist, and the ratio between instinct and awareness. Those in whom instinct appears more strongly may say what Károly Eperjes articulated: “The measurable and immeasurable ideals of acting are best fulfilled by those who unite instinct and consciousness in proportions that reflect an unforced version of their own personality” – as he stated to László Bérczes in 1989. Yet he also senses the seductive and dangerous side of this delicate balance:
“This is my greatest worry. I don’t know whether I’m acting right now, or rather when I’m on stage.” At the same time, he brings forth the actor’s dilemma. This is how Eperjes feels when instinct and consciousness do not appear in the harmonious proportion of the golden ratio: “I met the demands of the play, but not my own.” This reveal his constantly present artistic conscientiousness.
In a 1986 interview (Új Szó, May 16), he confessed: “I like to stay in character even during the intermission.” And not only during the breaks of a performance, but often outside them as well. This is the nature of the “burning actor,” and it was precisely this that Klaus Maria Brandauer warned him about when they met during the filming of Colonel Redl. In the interview, Eperjes refers to the internationally renowned actor’s advice: “Learn to do it as if…” Yet Eperjes adds: “I can’t, and I don’t even want to pretend.”
Zsuzsa Cserje wrote the following about the actor, who at the time had only been working for a few years: “Clumsy masculine charm, inhibited angularity, the strange mixture of restraint and explosive emotion – this characterises the art of Károly Eperjes.” She then discusses several of his roles to support her point. As Silvius the shepherd in As You Like It, he is “awkwardly in love,” who “follows his unworthy beloved like a loyal dog, across fields and thickets, in this world intoxicated by love.” As Fabrizio in Mirandolina, he is again “elementally in love.” In Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, the figure of the lover returns, this time in a harsh and alienated environment: “As much brutality as there is in this boy, there is just as much human vulnerability.” The critic concludes: “The unity of timid violence and violent fragility, springing from within, is what gives Károly Eperjes’s acting its essence.”
His character is well illustrated by a statement he made in 1986: “Playing is a joy for me that I can compare to nothing else. I can never get enough of playing.” It is understandable that his acting role models – despite their differences – are all passionate players to whom he feels spiritually connected: Imre Soós, Zoltán Latinovits, Lajos Őze, and later, as friends, Péter Andorai, István Bubik, and Sándor Gáspár.
In a 1985 broadcast of Stúdió 85 (April 30), he put it this way: “To rejoice together with one another,” meaning he is not a solitary player but a team player. Yet a year later, in Képes Újság (August 9), he added: “At other times, however, I need solitude. I wander alone in the forest and focus only on myself. If to no one else, at least to myself I confess everything honestly. My desire is to know myself better and better.”
He is not lacking in self-knowledge. He knows that he is sometimes impatient, but “I am primarily impatient with myself.” If shaping a role doesn’t go well – or at least if that is how he feels – he loses patience: “Because who am I to not be able to solve the task?” And he is prone to extremes. Then he adds: “thank God.” The true meaning of this half-sentence later becomes clear in his interviews when he speaks about a life lived in faith. The reason for his impatience with himself: “There must be something of the fool, the open-hearted one, the loud-mouthed daredevil in me,” which again can evoke the vision – and danger – of the “burning actor.” Many were rightly concerned about this, especially in light of the tragic careers of some of his role models.
Katalin Bogyay, in the May 11, 1986 issue of Új Tükör, described Eperjes’s unrestrained vitality: “He is not a fashionable figure. He is not enervated: the strength of the earth is in him.” After the premiere of the film The Disciples, when someone asked him in a private conversation why he played the rural boy instead of, for example, the son of a well-to-do city family, he answered with natural sincerity: “Because Géza [Géza Bereményi, the film’s director] said that I am able to leave the farm.” In the film there is a scene in which the peasant boy says farewell to his father – a scene filled with “Eperjes-like” tension and drama, as he searches for his father among the haystacks for a parting word, and we sense that this farewell is something that grows into the universal.
Bogyay sees clearly: “There is, in him, an intellectual outsiderhood and the flailing virtue of those who seek the truth. Both are children of the primal force within him. He is not a bit-player in life either; his nature demands a leading role, and this does not depend on the length of the lines or the number of letters to be recited… Károly Eperjes carries the stubbornness and dignity of the village, of the people of Hegykő, but he also speaks fluently the language of the urban thinker.”
Not a bit-player, demanding a leading role… This remark characterises his life’s path in more than one respect. Even as a small child he dreamed of standing out. He would become an Olympic champion, and in sport he saw performance and the possibility of attaining something more. “I first sensed true performance in András Balczó,” he said in an interview on Petőfi Radio on April 14, 1987. He lived under the spell of performance from childhood onward. “Whatever you are good at, whatever you are talented in, whatever Fate intended for you – in that you must give everything, and thus rally people to a noble cause,” he said in 1987. He expanded this thought in an interview with Vas Népe (March 18, 1992): “I accept that I am a self-displaying person; I have a tendency for it, and if I don’t express it, there is trouble. But if I do express it, and through it I can bring joy to others, then it is my duty to do it at the highest level I can.”
Alongside his dedication to sport, his character-shaping and character-revealing abilities already manifested at a young age. In primary school he parodied his teachers with great skill, and later well-known public figures as well. Encouraged by this talent, he entered the national talent competition Ki mit tud? [Who Knows What?], but the responsible member of the jury – perhaps out of jealousy, seeing the talented boy as a potential rival – did not allow him to advance to the next round.
Eperjes’s self-knowledge and self-restraint are shown by the fact that he never capitalised on this quick, spectacular success, nor on the artistic solution of parody in later years. He refused to be satisfied with what, by his own standards, would have been cheap popularity. To this day, he performs such impersonations only in small, intimate circles of friends.
“He belongs to that middle-aged generation of actors who represent and practise Hungarian theatrical art at its highest current level, and who have earned well-deserved popularity not only in our country but all over the world through the iconic performances he has given in numerous award-winning Hungarian films. If his art had to be defined by something, perhaps the most important is that in every role he relentlessly puts himself to the test and goes to the utmost limits of the character he plays, yet without ever losing truthfulness, humanity, authenticity, or affirmation of life. This is what makes his performances unique, inimitable, and memorable every single time.” These were the words with which he was recommended for membership in the Hungarian Academy of Arts. The description fits well with something Károly Eperjes himself said in 1996 (Esti Hírlap, January 23): “These are the criteria of art: truth, goodness and beauty.”
The harmony and necessary interplay of goodness and beauty were defined by the ancient Greeks with the term kalokagathia. Eperjes expands this necessity (which is often pushed into the background in contemporary art) with the requirement of truth. In his life, this truth takes on a transcendent dimension, which beneficially appears in his art. His faith in God does not restrict him in artistic expression – indeed, it enriches him. Without analysing this, one can hardly understand Eperjes’s artistry.
“I am a Christian man… Nowadays humanity strives only for reality – without truth. But I will not give it up, I am a Christian father and an actor…” (Vasárnapi Hírek, April 1, 2001)
For this reason, he formulates strong opinions about the spirit of the age. “History is increasingly proving that liberalism is an even more dreadful mindset than communism. It proclaims total freedom, and in the trickery of the consumer society accepts and supports only what serves the glorification of matter. This is a global phenomenon, and it is now concentrated here… I believe that until the country awakens spiritually, nothing will change, no matter what.” (Dunántúli Napló, April 21, 1996)
His decision came as a surprise when he agreed to stand as a parliamentary candidate, and having entered Parliament, immediately resigned in favour of someone else. His reasoning becomes clear in the following statement: “A Christian, by virtue of the free will received as a gift, must engage in politics. What does it mean to ‘engage in politics’? It means dealing with the affairs of the polis, that is, the community. To concern oneself with society – therefore engaging in politics is obligatory. Whoever neglects this commits a sin…” The basis of political engagement is value choice, which is why he says: “One should commit oneself to values and then find a political party that represents those values in the best way before God and for oneself.” (“Az igazat mondd, ne csak a valódit” [lit: Tell the Truth, Not Only What Is Real], Kairosz Kiadó, 2020)
Speaking of the beginnings of his awakening in faith, he says: “...that is how I was raised. My mother and father were teachers, and even during the period of communist prohibitions we regularly went to church.”
He recalls one of his most beautiful memories related to faith (as he himself calls it) in the aforementioned book: “If one day I could make a film about underground Christianity during communism, I would certainly include this scene.”
Let us pause his testimony here. When the interview volume was being prepared, Magyar Passió [Hungarian Passion] – the film directed by and starring Károly Eperjes, completed in 2021 – was perhaps already taking shape. It offers, with the force of ancient Greek tragedies in Christianised form, a portrayal of the era of Christian persecution. The film includes the very scene that Károly Eperjes later describes based on his childhood memory. His parents, both teachers, used to travel to other villages for Sunday Mass, where fewer people knew them.
“My father used to stop at the edge of the village if we went to a ‘reddened’ village for Mass – places where he knew there were many informers, where people were heavy-hearted and harsh, but the priest was good. We waited there, at the edge of the village, for the sound of the bells. My father calculated when the reading of the Gospel would likely be taking place. We reached the church around the time of the Gospel reading. In the countryside, the church and the pub are usually opposite one another, and the informer would be puffing himself up in the pub window. But my father knew that the informer could not stand there for more than ten minutes, and so we waited until he thought everyone had gone into the church and no one else would arrive, and when he turned away, heading to the counter for his shot of brandy or his spritzer, that is when we went in.”
Eperjes gave voice to his worldview on 22 April 1989 in the weekly Film Színház Muzsika:
“…I know that my path is straight. A path I can stand by. My original ideas have not taken a great blow. I had only thought that I would blaze even more brightly at this age. It’s all right, the fire is burning. But I thought that at this age it would not yet be embers. And yet it already is.”
He holds that art can only be regarded as true art if – regardless of its concrete subject matter – it possesses a transcendent dimension. It was the lack of this dimension that prompted him – as recorded in Vas Népe, 18 March 1992 – to say: “Last year I returned five roles. Because the scripts were not good. There was no love of humanity in them.”
For art, he stated in Magyar Nők Lapja, 25 June 1993, “…is a comradeship with the devil by the grace of God, and the grace of God must not be lost even for a moment, must not be gambled away for any temptation.”
About his inner spiritual struggles, his turmoil, his outbursts of emotion, he speaks thus in the aforementioned interview volume:
“But I experience that if the work can be made sacred (and then it is no longer merely work but a blessed act), the audience ‘rewards’ it from the auditorium. This is why I do not like to take part in work that drags me down. Even when I accept a role in, say, a classical play, I can feel lonely during the work if the director ‘aberrates’ the piece along the way, washing all sacrality out of it. More than once I have slammed the door behind me, run out, and said: ‘Godless people!’ Unfortunately, by doing so I also ended up blaspheming. I went into a church to pray; my colleagues followed me; then I returned and apologised.”
This statement does not contradict but rather reinforces the striving of a fallible yet upward-reaching man and artist: Eperjes is never confrontational, never provocative, never judgemental, but firm and consistent in his value judgements.
His worldview, he maintains, helps him avoid becoming a “burning-out” or “burned-out” actor, and instead, progressing ever further in his career, to reveal ever more maturely and deeply in his art the pursuit of truth alongside the “beautiful-good”, the kalokagathia.
He evaluated several of his roles and the works he appeared in according to the following worldview-aesthetic conviction, as stated in the interview volume:
“If we look at art only in itself, then no matter how high the level: it is only a craft. The artist fulfils his full mission – the carving of men in the likeness of God and the act of teaching – only if he accepts that he himself is a creature, and the image of God. Otherwise, his art will not be art at all, only a profane act.”
In an interview on 2 June 2002 (New Man), he explained his view of history in relation to the Széchenyi film: “There are two views of history: the view of reality and history, and the view of truth and history. And since we – Christian Hungarians – walk the path, stand in the field of truth and life, we examine the past in the light of the truth-oriented view of history, in the light of salvation history.”
In this way, the confession published in Népszava on 29 November 1997 can be understood – and functions – as an ars poetica: “I would like to spread the culture of love and life on stage, in film and in everyday civil life. These forms of existence cannot be separated. I am not willing to compromise.”
In his artistic work – as a director – he senses this principle in the works of János Taub, with whom he has collaborated several times, and he holds the same to be valid in the art of Anatoly Vasiliev and Andrei Tarkovsky.
Finally, a few words about Károly Eperjes the teacher. He still teaches at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Kaposvár, and since March 2016 he has served as Head of Department. One theatre director, praising him upon his election to the Hungarian Academy of Arts, described him as follows: “He is a dedicated and committed teacher who works with his students with incredible energy and zeal.”
Among his students, “I have met people who are well prepared, educated with taste, humble in their work, excellently trained, talented, and who have held their ground not only professionally but also as human beings even in the most difficult situations.”
[2022]