Krystyna Janda

Krystyna Jolanta Janda (born 18 December 1952 in Starachowice, Poland) is a Polish actress, film and theatre director, and singer who has become a cornerstone of contemporary Polish culture. Rising to fame with her breakthrough performance as Agnieszka in Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble (1976), she quickly established a reputation for portraying strong, complex women, a trait she continued in seminal works such as Man of Iron (1981) and the politically charged Interrogation (1989), for which she earned the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1990. Over a career spanning more than four decades, Janda has appeared in roughly one hundred films and performed in over sixty stage roles, ranging from classic Greek tragedy (Medea) to modern Polish drama, and has directed notable projects including the feature Pestka (1995). Her contributions have been recognized with a litany of honors: the Zbigniew Cybul­ski Award (1978), the Gold Cross of Merit (1989), the Gloria Artis Gold Medal (2005), the Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2011), and a Special Jury Award at Sundance (2019).

Beyond her artistic achievements, Janda has been an influential cultural entrepreneur, founding the private Polonia Theatre in Warsaw (2005) and later the Och‑Teatr (2010), as well as launching a cosmetics brand under her own name in 2015. She is a dedicated humanitarian, participating in European depression‑awareness campaigns and serving on the supervisory board of the Fundacja Okularnicy, which promotes the legacy of poet Agnieszka Osiecka. Married twice—first to actor Andrzej Seweryn (1974‑1979) and later to cinematographer Edward Kłosiński (1981‑2008)—she is mother to three children and resides near Warsaw, continuing to shape Polish cinema and theatre as a living legend.