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Marek Probosz is an international stage, film, and television actor, who also writes and directs stage and film productions. He is the Winner of the Best New York Premiere for his show Norwid's Return (2022) and of the Best Documentary Show Award for The Auschwitz Volunteer: Captain Witold Pilecki (2018) which he directed and starred in at the world's largest one actor show festival -UNITED SOLO - on Broadway in NYC. Other notable stage credits include the role of Odysseus opposite award-winning British actor Henry Goodman in Philoktetes at the Getty Villa in Malibu. He starred opposite Oscar nominee Don Cheadle in "Tower of Babel" directed by Academy Award winner Jan A. P. Kaczmarek at Mark Taper Forum Los Angeles. He wrote, directed and starred in the original Odyssey Theater production of AUM or Tormenting of Actors. Probosz's theatrical adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Salome, which he wrote, directed and starred in, was cited by the Czech National Critics Poll as the Best Theater Production of 1987.
Probosz earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting from the prestigious Polish National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Lodz, Poland (1984), and a Master of Fine Arts degree in film directing from the prestigious American Film Institute in Los Angeles (1993).
He has over 60 starring roles to his credit. His film and television career spans roles in Polish, Czech, German, French, Italian and American productions and co-productions. In the United States, he most recently worked on Anna Nicole Smith biopic Huricanna, he plaid a father of a psychiatrist - staring Oscar Winner Holly Hunter. He also guest-starred in the feature film Love, Venezia and in CBS' Scorpion. He has had guest-starring roles on ABC's Scandal, CBS' Numbers, NBC's JAG and USA's Monk.
He received strong reviews from The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety for his portrayal of Roman Polanski in the CBS miniseries Helter Skelter. In 2014, he appeared in the Liam Neeson-narrated, 27 times awarded documentary Love Thy Nature. Probosz starred as the Polish WWII hero Witold Pilecki in the film The Death of Captain Pilecki (2006), which garnered the Special Jury REMI Award at the 2007 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival and has had screenings at consulates, universities and embassies throughout the world. In 2013, he recorded the audio book The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, by Captain Witold Pilecki, for Audible.com. The print book, on which Probosz's United Solo Festival performance is based, received the prestigious Prose Award for Biography and Autobiography from the Association of American Publishers and the Silver Award for Autobiography/Memoir from the Independent Book Publishers Association. It garnered excellent reviews from New Republic, Atlantic, Wall St. Journal, The New York Times Sunday Book Review, where it was chosen an Editors' Choice, and many other media outlets, and has been translated and published in foreign languages from China to Europe.
Since 2023 Probosz is touring with the one-actor show Norwid's Return, which he is both starring in and directing, and which in the last year has garnered global recognition and awards in New York and nationwide. This follows his success directing and touring with the multimedia stage production The Auschwitz Volunteer about Auschwitz infiltrator Captain Witold Pilecki, which was featured at American Jewish University, Hillel UCLA, and in venues in Canada and numerous cities in the U.S.
In Poland, Probosz recently starred in the docudrama film, The Burden (2023). He has guests tarred in the popular Polish TV series Father Matthew, and was a regular on the Polish TV series Under the Common Sky. In 2018, he worked on the Polish feature film Once Upon a Time in November (Best Film at Sicily's Taormina Film Fest 2018), directed by Andrzej Jakimowski, and Valley of the Gods (2019), directed by Lech Majewski and starring John Malkovich and Josh Hartnett. He was a regular in the most successful Polish TV series M For Love, and the longest ever aired Polish TV series Clan. He also appeared in the Polish TV series The Commission of Murders and For Good and for Bad.
Probosz has directed 28 hours of interviews with the world renowned writer and shakespeareologist Jan Kott. He has written 11 feature film screenplays, including his most recent thriller, Murderess. His short film Rebel, a psychological thriller on teen suicide, was a precursor to 2004's YMI, an unflinching portrait of the dark forces lurking in the lives of teenagers, which Probosz wrote, directed, produced and starred in, making his U.S. feature debut. The film had its world premiere at The Other Venice Film Festival, where it won the Audience Choice ABBOT Award. In 2016, he directed Highlanders Wedding in Istebna, a play written by his grandfather Jerzy Probosz, for Polish Radio. Probosz is the author of two books published in Poland: The novel Eldorado (2009) and Call Me When They Kill You (2011), a collection of short stories. He also wrote two theater plays AUM, Or Torturing Actors (1990) and Auschwitz No.432 (2018).
Since 2005, Probosz has taught in the UCLA Department of Theater, Film and Television. He has also taught at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theater Academy in Warsaw, Emerson College in Los Angeles, Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica and Williams College, MA. He has given lectures on screenwriting at international film events and has been a distinguished jury member at film festivals throughout Europe, including the Moscow International Film Festival and the International Theater and Film Festivals in Blagoveshchensk (Syberia), Muslim Cinema Kazan, (Tatarstan), IFF in Kyiv (Ukraine), Minsk (Belarus), Tomsk, (Russia), NNW Gdynia, (Poland) and many more. Probosz taught A Master Class - Acting For Camera at the world's largest solo theater festival UNITED SOLO at Theater Row in NYC (2018). During Spring 2021, Probosz was a visiting professor at Williams College, the number one ranked US college for Liberal Arts, where he also taught The New Summer Theater Program. As a special guest of the III Congress of the Polish Theater in Chicago, he taught workshops on acting for the camera. During the Closing Gala, he gave a lecture on Cyprian Kamil Norwid and delivered a stage performance of Kordian on Mont Blanc by Juliusz Slowacki. Recently, he gave a dramatic performance at the University of St. Thomas Houston, TX. Probosz presented the award-winning movie The Death of Captain Pilecki (starring Probosz) at Texas A&M University, College Station (2021) and at University of North Texas, Dallas (2022).
Probosz's work has been honored many times-most recently, he became a laureate of the OUTSTANDING POLE Award - USA in the Culture Category (2023). In 2022 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award of the Helena Modrzejewska Culture Club - MODJESKA PRIZE in Los Angeles, and the 2022 Pola Negri - POLITKA Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th POLA NEGRI Festival in Lipno, Poland - where he participated in the unveiling ceremony of his plaque on the Avenue of the Stars. Probosz has also received a Polish Diaspora Oscar - the GOLDEN OWL in the FILM category (Vienna, Austria 2018), the MORTUI SUNT UT LIBERTI VIVAMUS medal (London, 2011), and the Gold Medal - Knight of Humanity in Auschwitz for his portrayal of Witold Pilecki and in recognition of his outstanding services in sharing Pilecki's ideals and heroism worldwide (Auschwitz, 2011).
