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Joanna Kulig

Joanna Kulig (Polish: [jɔˈanna ˈkulik]; born 24 June 1982) is a Polish actress and singer. Noted for performing in different languages, she has worked in film, television and radio as well as on stage. She is the recipient of a European Film Award and two Polish Film Awards, and her work has been recognised at various film festivals. In 2018, Polish magazine Wprost included her among the 50 most influential Poles for her contributions to the cinema of Poland.

After an unsuccessful attempt at a career as a jazz singer, Kulig enrolled at the AST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków, graduating in 2007. She began performing on stage while still in drama school, debuting in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Her first starring film role in the 2007 drama Wednesday, Thursday Morning won her the award for Best Debut at the Gdynia Film Festival. She received further acclaim for her performance in the 2011 film Elles, which earned her Best Supporting Actress at the Polish Film Awards and Gdynia Film Festival.

Kulig became known for her frequent collaborations with director Paweł Pawlikowski. She appeared in three of his films: The Woman in the Fifth (2011), the Academy Award-winning Ida (2013) and Cold War (2018). Her starring role in the lattermost earned her widespread recognition and Best Actress accolades at the European Film Awards and Polish Film Awards. She had supporting roles in the drama films Lasting (2013), The Innocents (2016) and Woman Of... (2023), and achieved commercial success with Pitbull: Tough Women (2016) and Clergy (2018), both among the highest-grossing Polish films of all time. On television, she played the lead role in the sitcom O mnie się nie martw (2014–2018), and starred in the Netflix series The Eddy (2020). She made her American film debut in the 2023 romantic comedy She Came to Me.

Early life and education

Kulig was born on 24 June 1982 in Krynica, Lesser Poland Voivodeship. Her mother worked as a cook at a local kindergarten and her father was a folk poet. She was raised with four siblings—two older brothers and two younger sisters—in Muszynka. One of her sisters, Justyna Schneider, is also an actress and adopted their great-grandmother's surname to avoid confusion as their first names are similar.

As a child, Kulig sang in a church choir. She graduated from the Frédéric Chopin First Degree State Music School in Krynica, where she studied piano. At 18, she moved to Kraków, and enrolled at the Mieczysław Karłowicz State Music School Complex, from which she graduated in singing. In the meantime, she also completed the Kraków Vocational Technical High School for Hotel Administration. In 2007, Kulig earned an acting degree with a specialisation in singing from the AST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków. She was the first in her family to graduate from a university. Kulig initially wanted to be a professional jazz singer. She applied twice to study jazz at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, but was rejected on both occasions. She was also interested in conducting, but was also unsuccessful. She explained: "no one wanted me, so I went to university to do drama and singing," which started her acting career.

Career

1998–2018: Career beginnings and stardom in Poland

In 1998, Kulig won an episode of the Polish television talent show A Chance for Success by performing Grzegorz Turnau's song "Między ciszą a ciszą". She took part in the show's annual final, and came third. Turnau later invited her to sing with him on his 2002 album Nawet. Kulig also participated in season two of the Polish television talent show Idol in 2002. She was eliminated in the semi-finals.

In 2006, while still in drama school, she made her stage debut as Hermia in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theater in Kraków. In 2007, she starred in Grzegorz Pacek's drama Wednesday, Thursday Morning, which marked her film debut and earned her the Gdynia Film Festival award for Best Debut. She followed this with the titular role in the 2008 television play Doktor Halina. Kulig later admitted that seeing herself in the play on television convinced her to return to acting as she quit briefly. She said: "When I was trying to convince myself that it was over and I quit as it was not for me, Doktor Halina came on TV. I was impressed. I was sitting watching this performance and thought: 'Gosh, I'm really not that bad!'". Her performance caught the attention of director Paweł Pawlikowski, and he invited her to audition for the lead role in his film Ida. Although deemed unfit for the part, she impressed Pawlikowski who became determined to work with her on another project. While making his 2011 psychological thriller The Woman in the Fifth, he created a role that was not originally in the script specifically for her. In the film, set in Paris, she portrayed Ania, a Polish barmaid who falls in love with the protagonist American writer Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke). In 2011, Kulig was also partnered with Juliette Binoche for Małgorzata Szumowska's drama Elles, similarly set in Paris, in which she played Alicja, a Polish economics student who moonlights as a prostitute. The film premiered to mixed reception, though Kulig's performance received praise. Kevin Jagernauth of IndieWire opined that she "has the potential to be breakout star boasting a strong screen presence and an undeniable beauty". She won Best Supporting Actress at the Polish Academy Awards and Gdynia Film Festival. Aside from these two projects, 2011 saw Kulig appear in the war drama Remembrance, and star in the Polish comedies: Los numeros, Million Dollars and Dance Marathon. She earned a Golden Duck Award nomination for Best Actress for her performances in the last two.

Kulig received her second Polish Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Jacek Borcuch's drama Lasting, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was described by The Hollywood Reporter as "fine-tuned on every level". Later that year, she appeared in Pawlikowski's Academy Award-winning drama Ida, and in Eun-jin Pang's film Way Back Home. Initially considered to play the title character in the former, she was instead cast in a smaller role of a nightclub singer. Kulig also had a small part in the 2013 blockbuster Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which required her to wear prosthetics. In 2014, she was cast in a leading role on the Polish sitcom O mnie się nie martw, starring as Iga in its first nine seasons until 2018. Kulig next starred in the romantic comedies Sophie Seeks Seven (2014) and Warsaw by Night (2015), and in the commercially successful films Disco Polo (2015) and Pitbull: Tough Women (2016). Disco Polo, directed by her husband Maciej Bochniak, saw her in the role of a disco polo star Gensonina. In Pitbull: Tough Women, Poland's highest-grossing film of 2016 and the seventh highest-grossing Polish film of all time, Kulig played a policewoman Zuza. She also portrayed Sister Irena in Anne Fontaine's critically acclaimed 2016 World War II drama The Innocents inspired by the true story of Polish Catholic nuns who became pregnant from rape by Soviet soldiers stationed near their convent.

2018–present: International recognition

Kulig's international breakthrough came in 2018 when she starred in Pawlikowski's historical drama film Cold War. The film marked their third collaboration, which prompted Pawlikowski to call her his "muse". The part of Zula, a woman in post-war Poland who joins a folk music touring group, was once again written by Pawlikowski with her in mind. Kulig was drawn to the role as it required her to sing and dance, allowing her to showcase her talents; she trained with a folk group for half a year in preparation for the part. In the film, she notably performs the traditional Polish folk song "Dwa serduszka" ("Two Hearts"), termed by Vulture as "the movie's unofficial theme song". Mark Kermode of The Observer wrote that she "delivers a star-making performance of astonishing range and depth", and Mick LaSalle of San Francisco Chronicle stated that "she takes the role of a lifetime between her teeth, chomps on it, pounds it into the ground and never lets go for a second." According to Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter, "in a fair world ... Kulig would not only be a serious contender for a best actress nom, but would quickly become an in-demand actress in Hollywood, too." Kulig received the Best Actress Award at the 31st European Film Awards, and the Polish Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. That same year, she played local priest's pregnant girlfriend in Wojciech Smarzowski's film Clergy, which went on to become the highest-grossing Polish film of all time. Due to its themes of child abuse, corruption and alcoholism in the Catholic Church in Poland, the film caused controversy especially among right-wing groups in the largely Catholic country and led to a nationwide debate about the role of the church in the Polish society. In 2019, she was cast in the recurring role of Johanna, titular character's mother, in Amazon Studios series Hanna.

Kulig starred as Polish jazz singer Maja in Damien Chazelle's 2020 Netflix musical drama series The Eddy. The character was originally intended to be American, but after meeting with Chazelle the part was rewritten for her. In 2021, Kulig was cast as the lead in TVN thriller series Spider's Web playing a spider behaviour specialist trying to unravel the mystery of the death of her mother and sister. She served as one of the jurors of the Un Certain Regard section at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. That year, she had a starring role opposite Gilles Lellouche in the action thriller Kompromat directed by Jérôme Salle. The film was released to mixed reception, and of Kulig's role Paste's Andy Crump wrote: "Diminishing the shine of an actress as luminous as Kulig is an impressive feat, but she's left darkened as Lellouche's object of desire, unable to perform beyond the single dimension given to her."

In 2023, Kulig appeared in Rebecca Miller's romantic comedy She Came to Me alongside Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway, Marisa Tomei and Brian d'Arcy James. The film marked her cinematic debut in America. She was Miller's first choice for the role of a Polish immigrant Magdalena as she regards her "the greatest Polish actress, I know". Despite the mixed reception of the film, Kate Erbland of IndieWire found Kulig's performance "heartbreaking", and David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter thought that "only Kulig ... registers as a compassionate presence grounded in a modicum of truth." Kulig next starred as a wife of a man transitioning to a woman in socially conservative Poland in Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert's drama Woman Of..., which premiered at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival to critical acclaim. She also had a supporting role in Michael Keaton's 2023 noir thriller Knox Goes Away, and made a guest appearance in Apple TV+ 2024 World War II miniseries Masters of the Air. Reviewing the former, Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood said that "she makes an impression as Knox's faithful lover". In Masters of the Air, she played a Polish war widow who crosses paths with Major John "Bucky" Egan (Callum Turner) during his stay in London; a fan of director Cary Joji Fukunaga, she accepted the role as she wanted to work with him.

Personal life

Kulig is a practicing Christian. Aside from speaking Polish—her first language—she speaks English, French and German, and has performed in those languages. In 2009, she married film director and screenwriter Maciej Bochniak. On 14 February 2019, she gave birth to their son at the UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center.

An ambassador for Anna Dymna's Against the Odds Foundation—an organisation helping adults with intellectual disabilities—Kulig has supported its efforts on numerous occasions. In 2023, she was honoured with St. Brother Albert Medal for her charity work for people with disabilities, which she dedicated to her mother. When accepting the award, she said: "Moments like this show that it is worth helping others. Thank you mum for teaching me that."

Kulig starred in the autumn-winter 2018 advertising campaign for fashion retailer Reserved, alongside Jeanne Damas. In 2018, Polish magazine Wprost included her among the 50 most influential Poles for her contributions to the cinema of Poland, and Glamour Poland named her Woman of the Year. She also ranked fourth on the former's 2019 list of the 50 most influential Polish women. In 2023, she became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.