A distinctive, hoarse voice; big eyes and original beauty – this is how Ewa Szykulska can be briefly described. The actress attracts attention on the screen, but, as she herself admitted, her expressive stage personality did not always arouse only positive reactions…
Marian Sokołowski / PAP Ewa Szykulska (1980)
“Miss Jola is still haunting”
The actress told “Wysokie Obcasy Extra” how women attacked her on the street. For what? They were angered by… Szykulska’s character in “Samochodzik i Templariusze”. “A few women spat on me. For their husbands. ‘How the f**k are you behaving’,” the actress recalled. “‘You’re corrupting my husband’. And because it was on the screen, it didn’t matter to them anymore,” she added.
Indeed, the role of Karen Petersen, a slightly cheeky and independent girl in “Autochodzik i Templariusze” gave Szykulska greater recognition. However, a year earlier, in 1970, she was Miss Jola in “Hydrozagadce” — the first camp film in Poland.
Andrzej Kondratiuk demonstratively emphasized the artificiality and kitschiness of the story, both in the plot and in the dialogues, which vividly repeated the slogans of the propaganda of the time. “I am not made of sugar, I am not afraid of rain. I have an excellent umbrella – a domestic product. I bought it in the Central Department Store. So I can boldly go to the city,” says Miss Jola to Szykulska.
Here, the memories related to the role are better. “My muzzle smooths out and I smile,” said Ewa Szykulska in an interview for PAP. “It was a bit like a fairy tale, it seemed that in those times and in that reality, such a film had no right to be made. And yet it was made – and not only this one, by the way. So after all these years, I think it’s wonderful that there are people in the world like the Kondratiuk brothers, who do such surprising, fantastic things,” she added.
Ewa Szykulska, as she claims, likes her character in this film, although “Miss Jola still haunts her and doesn’t let us forget about her”. “But when I look in the mirror, I don’t see Miss Jola at all. Maybe because she was wearing a hat, and now I wear a beret,” she added.
Career in Soviet cinema
Popularity took its toll on her because of Karen’s magnetism, but one of the consequences of fame was not, fortunately for the actress, pigeonholing. Maybe because she was not afraid of experimenting. In Janusz Kondratiuk’s (she appeared in both brothers’ films) she could be a naive village girl, and in “Samochodzik” delicate and mysterious. Her acting balances on oppositions.
Maciej Belina Brzozowski / PAP Ewa Szykulska in the Television Theatre play “To Each His Own Deserved by the Mafia” (1980)
Szykulska is popular not only in Poland – she managed to make a huge career in Soviet and Russian cinema as well. She was eagerly cast in the East. She is also appreciated by young directors who invite her to independent projects – they know that the actress is not afraid of challenges. Proof of this is “Touch Me”, an independent film from 2003 directed by then students of the Łódź Film School Anna Jadowska and Ewa Stankiewicz. Szykulska played Ewa, a resident of a tenement house in Łódź; a woman looking for love.
Crazy in TV series
In the 1970s, in addition to the aforementioned roles in “Hydrozagadka” and “Samochodzik”, she also had smaller roles, including in such popular productions as “Potop” and “Janosik”. In 1981 she played in Machulski’s “Vabank”, and in 1984 in the sequel, “Vabank II, czyli riposta”.
The youngest viewers probably associate the actress with her roles in TV series. Szykulska has starred in “13th Precinct”, “Plebania”, sitcoms “Tenants” and “Neighbors” and “Blinded by the Lights”, which was appreciated by critics and viewers. In recent years, she has attracted attention as the Portierka in Netflix’s “Sexify”; although the series receives mixed reviews, her role is always considered its great plus.
Netflix Ewa Szykulska in Netflix’s “Sexify”
Recently, we had the opportunity to watch Szykulska in the TVN series “Mój agent” – the actress played the role of the oldest agent of the stars, Mira, who co-creates the Krantz Acting Agency, taking care of, among others, Magdalena Cielecka, Danuta Stenka and Grażyna Szapołowska.
— this is how the actress described her character in an interview with TVN.
In addition, Ewa Szykulska appeared in the films “Uwierz w Santa” by Anna Wieczur-Bluszcz and “Powstaniec 1863” by Tadeusz Syka.
