Laurent Winkler

Actor and dialect coach

Where are you from and what are you doing in Budapest?

I’m from France - I was born near Paris, but I lived almost all of my French life in Angers in the Loire Valley. Maybe what’s already interesting about my name is that it combines two cultures. My first name is French and my surname is a very common German name, in my case it’s from Austria. So there were already some links with Central Europe in my family and maybe it wasn't completely by chance that I arrived in Budapest. This summer it will be 22 years that I’ve been living here.

I'm now an actor and I have another job in the film industry, usually referred to as dialect/accent coach for French. One actor amongst thousands, but I’m probably one of the rare experienced coaches working on that niche.

What brought you to Budapest?

As I told you, my family is quite mixed culturally. It's not only France and Austria, it's also Italy, Northern Africa, Southern America, Germany and different regions of France, so we were always very open to different cultures. We travelled a lot when I was a kid. And this way, we could keep a bit of all the cultures of the family and discover other cultures as well. So when I had to study something, I went for languages. At university, next to my studies in English Language and Civilisation, later French as a Foreign Language, I’ve had the opportunity to learn different languages. That's how I began learning six or seven others, Hungarian was one of them. I met a lot of Hungarian students in Angers, my first Hungarian girlfriend at university as well. Then I went with her to visit Hungary and got in touch with a theatre company called Szárnyak Színháza, the Wings Theater, a so-called alternative movement theatre company, as they would then name it. I began working with them, while working at the same time with a street theatre company in France. We had a duo entitled “Made in France'' with a friend of mine, Christophe Aubert, who is still managing the Lez’Arts vers Company and plays regularly all over France. It was a clown duo, and how surprising, the topic was cultural differences and stereotypes. We were invited to festivals, but played in the streets as well, which is always challenging, but extremely rewarding as well when you catch the public’s attention and keep it.

Then, after a certain time, I decided that I would just stop acting. Let me give you the context. When I came to Budapest, I had a day job, I was teaching first in one, then several schools. And in the evenings, I would go to work with the theatre company. When I had vacations at school here, I would go back to France to work with the French company and to play in festivals, when we could. It went like this for around two years. And then I stopped for several reasons: I kept on rushing between my jobs, between two countries and basically my relationship with my girlfriend was at stake. Moreover, even though I worked a lot (!) I would barely make ends meet! That’s when I decided I should become a full time French teacher, and try to have a more “normal” life. I must admit I was also questioning my goals as an actor and a show creator…

How did you decide you wanted to be an actor?

I think acting for me comes from the anecdotes and family chronicles I've heard when I was a kid. The family cultural heritage came through oral transmission and old photographs: tales of travels, wars, but also everyday life through and in different countries, with quite different cultures. When we had family lunches and dinners, it was time for discussion, and always for memories, sometimes songs. I think I remember a lot of moments when I was just listening to my grandparents and my parents telling about their personal experiences, imagining those stories. I would always visualise everything, while I was also paying attention to the inflections of the voices and the accents. That's how I got interested in storytelling, for sure. For me, acting is serving a story, giving your voice and your body to incarnate characters. Also, it’s something fundamental for humankind, we as human beings transmit stories, myths, emotions and ideas since we've been able to talk. It is at the core of what makes us human beings. I see filmmaking, theatre making, novel writing as a way of giving a mirror to society- it’s all about trying to understand who we are. It’s partially kind of a collective psychoanalysis.

When I was a child I discovered theatre at school - the power of words, what happens when people listen to you when we are all together, embark on the same boat and join the same journey. It had a big effect on me and I began acting as a hobby when I was around 10 years old. With my schoolmates first, but I would also play alone, I would read plays alone and play all the characters. I remember Molière plays. I found it absolutely fascinating being in the skin of others, impersonating other people, trying to understand them, with their different accents, backgrounds and motivations.

In Angers, there was an important theatre stage (Centre Dramatique National des Pays de la Loire) and that was where I got the basics of stage acting, when I was a student. Later I received training as a street theatre actor, which was extremely popular in France twenty years ago. Physical theatre. Jacques Lecoq, a famous master in France, developed a technique based on mime, commedia dell’arte and clown techniques. I followed a cursus created by Paul- André Sagel, in a circus school run by a huge company of the time “Jo Bithume”, where we shared the rehearsal studios with acrobats, musicians and stage designers amid a camp of caravans. Working on your clown is incredibly demanding, but such a powerful and poetical way to get to the essence of acting. Unfortunately, people usually have a very bad idea of what a clown is or what it could be at least, but for me that’s really a wonderful basis. In fact, in the end the fundamentals are always the same, whatever you do - Stanislavski, clown, commedia dell’arte or any other system or tradition.

In the meantime, I was very engaged in the cultural life of my university, organising with a close group of friends the seasons of our student theatre company Les Tréteaux de l’Université, with around 100 members and about 10 shows every year, inviting professional stage directors, choreographers, music composers. I realise now how lucky we were to be at the centre of all these projects with a large financial support from the university and all the local institutions. On the side, I would take dance lessons at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine, where I had the opportunity to make friends with future professional dancers and choreographers I later saw on stage at Trafó in Budapest! One of the best venues in the world, in my opinion! The other big advantage of studying there was the opportunity to attend and work for the European First Film Festival Premiers Plans. Once again, I met numerous filmmakers there and later worked in Hungary with some of them, who had begun their international career there. In the meantime, I went on with my academic studies, to be a teacher of French as a foreign language, a good way to travel and have a day job. First (and in the end, final) destination: Budapest.

How did you feel about Budapest when you moved here?

When I arrived here, I did not really fall in love with the city at first sight. It was only when I got to meet more and more artists that I fell passionately in love with Budapest. Especially twenty years ago, it was still a moment when you had a strong underground culture here. There was something absolutely mysterious, because people would do art of everything without any money. But you would need to search for these places, you had to get the right piece of information to know where they were, it was a little bit like finding your way to rave parties. Places full of artists working together in theatre, dance, experimental cinema, fashion… There was something that was absolutely amazing, a very good energy which I felt for the first ten years. And then things started to change for different reasons. But for a decade or more, I would go out in the evenings and weekends to different places to see what was happening and it was pure magic, it was absolutely amazing. You could feel that there was really something happening in Budapest. At some point, when I was not anymore with my first girlfriend and I didn't have a very good reason to stay here -not acting anymore, teaching but even as a private teacher you would not earn that much money- I stayed, I guess, just because I was in love with the town. I still dream of that period, as if it had been a pure hallucination. I’m glad I could live through this golden age!

Then there was a moment when after around ten years of creative silence, I went back to singing. There is this experimental choir called Soharóza, still existing and then lead by Dóra Halas. We would work for weeks or months on shows that we would then perform in different places, at the Kelenföldi Erőmű (Kelenföld powerplant) for instance. And that was the kind of thing that we would do - people from all horizons creating music, improvising with the audience, performing in improbable urbex places. That was my way back to artistic life at a moment when I needed to reconnect with art creation.

At that same period, I performed with two performers, Márcio-André de Sousa Haz who had just arrived from Brazil, and an ex-dancer and amazing performer, Buday Enikő. We were welcomed with open arms by Júlia Bársony at Müszi, which was an amazing venue of thousand-square metres of workshops on the top floor of an old building on Blaha Lujza square, for artists and anybody who felt well there- you had performers, concerts, experimental theatre, all kinds of things, including a kind of suspended garden on the rooftop. Some companies had their office, there was even a hairdresser!.

It was an amazing time, you could go every night all around Budapest and find concert places with free entrance, or almost for free, meet a lot of artists and find new projects to work on while having a blast of a party.

And then ten years ago or so, just by chance, I was in one of those places and a friend, an actress, bumped into me on a cafe terrasse. She told me that they were looking for somebody to work in a Swedish film, somebody who could improvise in French. I had not been acting for ten good years, I was just curious to see what a movie casting looked like. So I went there… I got the role (!) and I discovered that there was a big international film industry in Budapest. It was beginning to expand drastically at that moment. There has been a boom over the last five, six years which made it possible for me to regularly work again as an actor, which has become my main job, my second job being dialect or accent coach. I could use all the experience that I had accumulated, mainly while working as a French teacher, being specially interested in sounds,and also having worked with sound performers, being very interested in sound poetry and performance. And all the singing lessons I had taken too! Plus, of course, a recurrent job as a coach for the annual singing contest of the French Institute of Budapest, where I got to know so many young artists, such as Boggie (whom I later coached on almost each of her albums, but also Szeder, another great singer, who fell in love with French language).

Have you been working in the theatre as well?

I was on stage briefly a few years ago, acting in English, but it's very difficult to find the right projects. I'm very picky with theatre, because it takes much more time than a film production for me. And if you have to play in a theatre production it means that on these days, you won’t have the opportunity to work on films, which pays much better. So it’s a financial and artistic choice not to be on stage.

If I work on a stage production, I want to be sure that I'm going to absolutely love it! I cannot work on a theatre project for which I'm not super motivated. I have to be absolutely mad about the project! And it's very rare that I find something that I'm absolutely passionate about in theatre. Unfortunately!

In Hungarian, that wouldn't really be possible for me. I'm more or less fluent, but still not at the required level. If you work with Hungarian companies you have to work very fast and you have to be more precise on how you communicate.That's why I do not work much on stage. I do a few things - usually I'm hired as a narrator for musical pieces, I've done a few of these. Or if you need somebody to read texts in French, like voice over jobs for documentaries or commercials, for instance.

Tell me more about your experiences in language teaching and coaching and if you could connect it with being an actor.

I love playing with words, acting, learning languages, teaching languages and teaching French to other actors. It's all linked with my family, my cultures. When I look at it, in fact, it's all very logical and coherent.

Because not everybody had French as a mother tongue in my family, not everybody had the same origins, the same cultural inheritage, I first builded my identity on the place I was growing up, a calm bourgeois city of Western France and its surroundings, but also on the description of other places and people in different countries and on different continents. It was not only about the visual aspect, but also the sound landscapes, the way people move and stand, the mimics… It was all about opening to other cultures during my childhood, about transmission and translation…and later, as I became a language teacher, it was as well about having other people open to the culture of the country I was born in. I’ve taught hundreds, maybe thousands of people. I've worked with people from the age of four to, I don't know, seventy-five. I've worked with businessmen, diplomats, civil servants of several governments at a time when political changes occurred as well, but also officers in the army… I had the opportunity to meet so many people!

I would work with some of them in one-on-one sessions for years. So there's always a moment when you get to know the people quite well. You get to know their psychology, as well as their habits. I use this experience for my acting jobs and I'm quite lucky because my archetype panel as an actor is quite large, though mainly men of power: officers, nobles, kings, businessmen, surgeons, scientists, and of course teachers. I use what I've seen in other people of course. The thing is when you're a teacher, if you are really interested in transmitting, you have to understand what's happening in the head of the people you are working with. So it's not only about having the knowledge and just putting it on the table. It's about helping other people consider another point of view on the world,and have them try to understand what is so strange for them in the Other, in the stranger. And in the end, reconsider their own identity. Take some distance with it, to know it better. That's something that is so useful as an actor as well. You have to understand the psychology of somebody else. You have to think differently. On a more personal level, I think it's all about understanding, trying to understand myself through others and also make sense of life. That's what I really love about this activity. Clearly more than a job, it’s a passion and a philosophical journey.

How, with all those difficulties, were you able to still not give up on the city or on your craft?

I adapted to the situation. Is there anything more human? When acting on theatre projects seemed pointless and too difficult financially, I focused on teaching French for almost a decade. I was lucky the second time I had to change career. I was not that motivated anymore as a teacher. I had lost the huge energy you need to be a good one. I guess also I felt frustrated because I stopped believing that I could do something in the field of arts.

The very first casting I went to taught me that maybe there was something, that maybe I could go back to my first love, acting, and get a role from time to time. And then slowly it became my main job. But now, after 10 years, again I see the limits of what I can do in Hungary. In my situation, you rarely have the opportunity to show more complex acting skills. At the same time, I should feel lucky that I can live off my art, of course… Well, the verb “survive” seems to be closer to reality, in fact. No whining. I’m just trying to describe the situation as accurately as possible.This money issue is the same in every country, for sure. But the economic conditions have dramatically changed in Hungary recently. That's why I'm not absolutely sure I'm going to stay very long. We’ll see, I've been saying this for twenty years now, so… It sounds almost like a running joke! It’s not easy to leave Budapest. It's kind of a trap, especially after such a long time here, building connections and a professional network. Though I guess it would probably be the same in any country and any city. One thing is that you always stay a foreigner. Except maybe in big cities like Montreal, New York or LA, Berlin or London, where there’s a long and constant tradition of cultural mix and where a huge number of people are continuously in transit, you don't have that many places where everybody can feel that they are absolutely welcome, easily integrated. I don’t exactly have this feeling here. I feel like Budapest is and has always been cosmopolitan to a certain degree only. To be frank, the expat community does not try to mix that much either. The majority of them do not even try to learn Hungarian. Ok, not the easiest language… It took me 5 years to become kind of fluent. Though, despite all I just said, I feel like a “Budapesti" and part of my current identity was forged by my life in Budapest, artistically as well.

Here in Hungary, life for local artists has always been hard and the competition is harsh. Let’s forget the glamour image the media sell. As an actor, as a dancer, as a musician… ninety-nine per cent of people hardly meet their ends, a big part of them really just survives. When you see foreigners coming, well, why would they have more opportunities? They just have different ones. My only luck was that I'm a French native speaker. But nevertheless like the others, I have to fight every day to make a living. Anyway, all artists have to fight continuously from the moment they decide to take this path! But yes, it happens that you have this feeling that you're not always absolutely recognised as legit. Or the feeling that you’re just the cheap local ersatz of an actor, especially for all these “one liner” roles and sometimes even the short roles you get on international productions. Most actors in Western European and Northern American countries would be amazed to get these small roles as regularly as I do. Still, this very special situation does not really help assessing my accomplishments as an artist. Difficult not to feel like a fraud and doubting my real skills.

It’s extremely hard not to question what I’ve really achieved. Kind of a status based on the number of roles I got on big productions? And what about my art?! Being in front of a camera can not be a goal in itself for me. I need to explore more complex characters, which I rarely do, when filming here. While that’s the core of my interest in acting: exploring human complexity. Hence the question: what do I need to change? Place? Approach to my work? Or even profession? And then just explore acting as a personal research and a hobby? I don’t have the answer. Maybe there’s no answer, just a research, a continual questioning that fuels my passion.

There’s a very strange feeling in Budapest: it's a place where you feel that you have all kinds of opportunities. And at the same time, it's a place where very fast you understand that, in fact, it's probably just a mirage or an illusion. A lot of things are happening and at the same time, it's very difficult to do anything fulfilling or very personal as a foreign artist. Even though, sometimes it happens, as with my collaboration on Marcio’s first feature film. It’s a good place to (re)start, but I’m convinced that you need to leave if you want to develop further.

The amount of experience that you can get in Hungary working on international productions can really help at the beginning. But after a time it really depends on your occupation. If you're a producer, if you work as a technician on films or series, you'll get a lot of experience at an international level. You can decide to stay here and you'll make enough money, sometimes even a very decent amount, or you can decide to go abroad. Some people, especially Hungarian directors, DOPs who began here, do this and some of them have success stories in the US or the UK. As an actor, you need to make a huge leap of faith, and restart almost from the beginning, as casting directors will not know you abroad… And finding an agent to represent you is another subject! In some countries, you just can not work at all without being represented. On the other hand, if you stay here, there will surely be a moment when you’ll feel frustrated, even bitter.

After more than 10 years in the film industry, I think I have quite a realistic overview on the situation in Hungary and elsewhere. I'm not sure that's the case for everybody unfortunately. And it sometimes hurts a bit to see all the illusions surrounding my profession. The “fame factor” is a huge distorting prism. I think this happens less in the theatre or in the music industry; people are much more aware of the hard work required, because of the more apparent technicality. Whereas in the film/tv industry, there’s still this cliché, especially today with social medias, that success is easily reachable. People couldn’t be more wrong about this. Even if you can always find some exceptions.

Anyway, what does it mean…to be successful? …to make a career? And otherwise, what really deeply drives you not only as a performer, but more generally in life? I’m afraid these are vital questions not everyone wants to ask themselves, when they consider working as an actor.

If you’re not in love with the process, but in search of a status… I’m afraid you’re going to be utterly disappointed.

Being a part of projects/productions that in some manner help societies digest their changes, their evolutions and help them rethink their past, present and future… by storytelling, by expressing various points of view on our world- and appreciate working for a few days, weeks or months with a group of people dedicated to creating together…all that seems healthier to me as a basis to engage a part of your life and energy in the film industry.

That said, for all the reasons I’ve stated earlier, I'm not sure it’s such a good idea for me to stay here for a much longer time. Moreover, it has become very difficult economically, after the change of status for independent workers. It's hard for everybody in my situation, even when you work regularly! And Budapest has become almost as expensive as any western city. Not for the foreign productions, but for people like me! So as the song says: should I stay or should I go? Maybe both at the same time. But I can not build my future only here, that’s for sure.

Would you have an idea where to go?

Wherever I can find more interesting opportunities. Maybe stay based here for a while, and search for new challenges outside of Hungary.

For me it's just about not giving up on my goals, what drives me. I need this, this is my personality. If I don't follow my impulse to do what I really like, I won't live for long, that's just the way I am. It's just about understanding your psychology and what is giving you your impulses in life. For a very long time, when I became a teacher, and though I loved teaching, I was really denying all this. It did not help. It had a depressing effect, indeed. And even with all the difficulties, I don't think I've ever felt more myself than while acting. What a strange thing, isn’t it?

But to answer and conclude. This city has certainly changed my life. And confronted me with my inner conflicts more than any other town could have done. So… I probably have a love/hate relationship with Budapest (?)

Now, do I need to find another place like this for the next chapter of my life? Anyway, wherever I’ll go, I’ll bring that part of me that has matured here.

I strongly believe we belong to the places where we’ve lived, for “worse or better”.