Guy Roberts: Czechia felt truly free in way I hadn’t experienced in US
US-born Guy Roberts founded and heads the Prague Shakespeare Company. He can also currently be seen on TV screens around the world acting in the fantasy series The Wheel of Time, whose third season has just kicked off. Our conversation also takes in Roberts’ Czech roots, expertise as a fight coordinator, involvement in a big-budget Jan Žižka biopic and lots more.
How did the young Guy Roberts catch the acting bug?
“Well I thought I was going to be a painter, because I was mostly raised by my grandfather, who was a painter; I thought I was going to follow in his footsteps.
“And then one summer, when I was 15 years old, I had heard about this movie called Hamlet that was made by this guy named Laurence Olivier and he won a bunch of Oscars for it. So I thought, I’ll watch that and see what that’s about.
“And the easiest way to describe it is I think I had something akin to a religious experience watching this film.
“Because here was this man speaking the most profound words to my angsty teenage soul – I’d never heard thoughts like this.
“And he lived in a castle, he had a sword fight that he won, even after the bad guy poisoned him, he kissed two really pretty women – and I just thought, My God, what more do you want out of life?
“Laurence Olivier really changed the course of my life.”
“So from that moment on it was Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare. I started a Shakespeare club at my school and we would do crazy things like meet at 7 in the morning to read sonnets [laughs].
“Then I just set myself on a path to read everything I could about Shakespeare, to see every production I could, to watch every film.
“Laurence Olivier really changed the course of my life.”
To digress for a second: You’re from Texas and you had a Czech grandmother as well, was that the case?
“I do. So my mother’s father, 100 percent Czech, and the family emigrated in the early 1900s. They came to Galveston, which is a big port, and there are a lot of Czechs in Texas.
“She died when I was very young, but I have a few memories of her. And I think something in my DNA responded the first time I came to Prague.
“I had a very clichéd experience that I know many people have had, but my second day in Prague I was walking across the Charles Bridge and I just thought, Huh, I’m going to move to the Czech Republic.
“I think there was something about, obviously, the beauty of the Czech Republic. I didn’t know it at the time, but maybe I was trying to catch something of ‘pohoda’ [ease].
“And there was something about the spirit of the place; it really seemed like this was the kind of country and the kind of place that was truly free, in a way that I hadn’t experienced in America.
“I think especially I was responding to the great Czech tradition of theatre. To be in a place where theatre is so respected, where a young person can say, I want to be an actor, or director, and the first response is not, Well, what are you really going to do with your life?
“That was incredibly powerful for me, because even though I was a very successful American theatre director and artistic director and ran my own theatres and had a lot of success in America, there was a still a constant battle to justify your existence as a theatre artist, especially in Texas, where I was living.
“I was the artistic director of the Austin Shakespeare Festival, which is a great organisation, and Austin is a great city.
“But I think the very approach fundamentally in the Czech Republic, and in the EU in general, to the importance of art, the value and importance of theatre, was something that I really responded to.”
Why were you in Prague when you had that revelation?
“The city of Austin gave me a grant to come here and direct a production of Macbeth, with a multilingual, multinational company called Moloko.
“Once I got a taste of Prague I knew I had to come back.”
“So I was here, paid for by the city of Austin, with the idea that I would then return to the city of Austin and share my vast European knowledge.
“But unfortunately for the city of Austin, or fortunately for them and myself, once I got a taste of Prague I knew I had to come back.
“So I went back to Austin, I resigned my position, and six months later I was back in the Czech Republic and I started the Prague Shakespeare Festival.
“We’re now called Prague Shakespeare Company, but at the time we were called Prague Shakespeare Festival.”
Did you spot a gap in the market? Or how did you think this endeavour was going to work?
“It was really interesting – I think I was in a way at the right place at the right time.
“When I came here there was this tremendous response to this production of Macbeth, which was performed in English.
“And I realised that Prague at that time was really the only major European capital that didn’t have a professional English-language theatre consistently doing work.
“There was excellent work by some expatriate artists from time to time, but something consistent, like a season where you’re pursuing long-term goals, didn’t exist.
“So I thought there was an opportunity to create the English-language theatre of the Czech Republic but make Shakespeare the core of our work.
“And that was 18 years ago, so we’re now in our 18th season.”
How long did it take for you to get the whole thing up and running? It must have been a major undertaking to start a theatre from scratch.
“It is, but I had run theatres in the United States, in New York and also in Texas, so I was familiar with it.
“In some ways creating theatre is really just about how much capacity you have for pain and suffering and torture [laughs], and it doesn’t matter whether you’re doing it in the Czech Republic or anywhere else in the world.
“Creating a theatre in a foreign country, in a language that is not the native language is especially challenging.”
“Of course it hasn’t always been easy, and there’ve certainly been dark times, particularly with funding and things like that.
“Creating a theatre anywhere is challenging. Doing it in a foreign country, in a language that is not the native language is especially challenging – but it also has enormous rewards.
“And there’s such a vibrant community here in the Czech Republic, so many terrific artists who are native Czechs or are from other parts of Europe, or they’re from the UK or Canada or the United States.
“So it’s a very exciting place to be and I’m continually amazed, as I work throughout the world and experience cultures in other countries, I’m still in awe of Czech actors and theatre makers, because I still think the Czechs are doing some of the greatest theatre in the world.”
As well as running your theatre, you’re also an actor there and you have a family and you do other acting. Where do you find the energy for all of that stuff?
“I don’t know if I do find the energy [laughs]. I have an amazing 26-year-old daughter, who’s on her own and doesn’t need a lot of help from me now, but I also have four- and six-year-old boys.
“And I think that the greatest asset in my life in many ways is my amazing wife, [actor] Jessica Boone; she’s able to pick up the slack when I get tired and old.
“But, you know, Prague affords the kind of opportunities that you maybe wouldn’t have elsewhere.
“This is an especially exciting week for us, because both my wife and I were involved with a television show that has been shooting in Prague, The Wheel of Time, and season three has just come out.
“That opportunity to be part of a television show as big as that in significant ways like we were and also to have our theatre and create theatre work is really the best of worlds.
“Our children are at a terrific Czech-English school. So in so many ways we’re so lucky and so appreciative here.”
I’d like to come back to The Wheel of Time in a few moments but also Prague Shakespeare Company tours as well. Have you done a lot of tours and what are the logistics like? It sounds like hell getting this whole operation on the road and going to, I don’t know, India or the US.
“No, it’s incredibly exciting. And it’s a big part of our identity.
“We have been extremely fortunate: We have toured to Africa, in the Middle East, we’ve toured to India, we’ve toured across Europe and many times to the United States.
“And I think that goes to the core of our work, because our artistic company… we all work with Shakespeare – mostly in English, we sometimes add other languages – but I really view Shakespeare as the United Nations of theatre and in a way the United Nations of humanity.
“Because whether you’re in Asia or Africa or North America or South America right now Shakespeare is being rehearsed and performed and worked on all across the world.
“I really view Shakespeare as the UN of theatre and in a way the UN of humanity.”
“So for our internationally-based company, we’re rooted in Prague but our artists are from all over the world. So for them to be able to take these great works and tour them throughout the world is an enormous privilege.
“Last year especially we had what probably might be our most exciting project ever. We had support from the EU’s Creative Europe fund to build a co-production of Hamlet with the Bremer Shakespeare Company in Germany and the Odesa Academic and Drama Theatre in Ukraine.
“We took these artists from these three different countries and we created a production of Hamlet where at any one point any of the 12 actors in the show might become Hamlet.
“So you have old Hamlets and young Hamlets, male Hamlets and female Hamlets. And it’s performed in German and Czech and English and Ukrainian.
“That has been a very exciting project for us. We’re about to tour it to the Gdansk Shakespeare Festival and perform on Shakespeare’s birthday, April 23. And we’ve been selected this summer to open the Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival in Verona, Italy with that production as well.
“And I think that production illustrates the best of the kind of work we want to do. We want to do these big, important plays that somehow speak to the human condition but are also uniting people from all over the world and finding ways that we can share our common humanity.”
Obviously you need to use Prague theatres for your own performances. But how much otherwise are you connected with the world of Czech theatre?
“We have a home theatre, Divadlo Na Prádle. It’s our home base and that’s where we do many productions.
“We also have a terrific long-standing relationship with Divadlo Bez zábradlí and the Heřmánek family, and I’ve directed productions in Czech there for them.
“And we’ve also had a very long-standing relationship with Národní divadlo [the National Theatre]. So we have performed at the Estates Theatre [part of National Theatre] with over 30 productions over the past decade.
“It is an important privilege and great honour for us to play at the Estates Theatre. We just had a performance of Venus in Fur in February, and we’re about to perform there again on April 26 with a production of Macbeth.”
The Estates Theatre is one of the great theatres of Prague. What was it like the first time you stood on the boards at the Estates Theatre?
“I would say the Estates Theatre is not one of the great theatres of Prague – I would say it’s one of the great theatres of the world.
“To be on that stage, where so many legendary performances have occurred, is absolutely extraordinary.
“I’ll certainly never forget the first time I walked on the stage and the house lights came up.
“We’ve been so lucky to work there so many times. We have a terrific relationship with everyone at the National Theatre – we’re so grateful for it.
“I would say the Estates Theatre is not one of the great theatres of Prague – it’s one of the great theatres of the world.”
“And one thing this amazing light designer, named Přemysl Janda, will do is he keeps everything dark and then when actors and the company walk on stage for the first time he’ll throw the lights up – and you can literally hear people gasping for air as they see the beauty of that stage.
“It’s a very special privilege and we’re incredibly honoured to play on that stage.”
At one point the British ambassador, Jan Thompson [in Prague 2013–2018], was a member of your troupe. Did that bring any issues to do with protocol or anything like that?
“First of all Jan Thompson is an extraordinary diplomat – she has an incredible career, diplomatically – and also an extraordinary actor.
“And we were incredibly grateful and lucky that we got to spend time with her. I don’t know how she juggled her schedule.
“I would say we had to be a bit mindful of security and things like that and we wanted to be very careful about how we conducted ourselves, to make sure we were a company worthy of the British ambassador to the Czech Republic.
“But all in all that was one of the great privileges of our theatre – to be able to work with someone as talented and smart, and really as exciting, as Jan Thompson.”
Do you, like a lot of Prague actors, also do lots of little parts in movies and ads and that kind of thing?
“I did some of that when I first came here. But I’m not really just an actor. I also am a director and I’m travelling and directing around Europe and the US as well.
“And as I get a bit older I get a little bit more selective.
“I had tremendous fun being in the Jan Žižka film with [director] Petr Jákl and of course on The Wheel of Time. But I really try to focus my energies, especially now having these two young boys with Jessica.”
You mention the Jan Žižka film, which is called Medieval in English. It cost CZK 500 million, it’s the most expensive Czech film ever. Did it feel like a CZK 500 million production? The figure for me is kind of mind-boggling.
“What I’ll say is that was some of the best three of four months of my life. Everybody on that film, they were just terrific people.
“We knew we were trying to make something significant, something important, to spread the legend of Jan Žižka.
“We just had the best time making it. The friendships I created on that film I think I’ll have for a lifetime.
“And we had a blast and we got to work with, you know, Sir Michael Caine [laughs].
“So it was a terrific experience. Any time you can get a little dirty and bloody and fight, that’s a pretty good time.”
You mentioned also The Wheel of Time, which is a big fantasy series on Amazon Prime Video and the third season has just begun. Your character is Uno Nomesta – what exactly is the role?
“I play a character called Uno Nomesta. Uno Nomesta rather famously was killed in season two – but then at the very end of season two magically comes back to life as one of the mythical ‘heroes of the horn’, these great heroes of the past that live throughout the centuries, coming back in moments of great need.
“It was a real pleasure for me working on The Wheel of Time, and all the work that we continue to do on the show – and as we continue to promote it and celebrate [developer and showrunner] Rafe Judkins and the fantastic writers on that show.
“But for me it was also deeply personal, because as a young adult I had read all those books already. So being able to play Uno, which was one of my absolute favourite characters, who I identified with – something about the gloriously grumpy nature of the character spoke to me – was just a joy.
“I think what Rafe has done on the show… when you have someone holding the centre like Rafe and [star] Rosamund Pike, you’re in pretty special company already.
“But there’s a spirit of generosity that both they and everyone on that show have that makes everyone on the show better, makes everyone work harder.
“It’s been a great learning experience and a great privilege. And hopefully we can keep doing it for many years to come.”
Are your younger kids old enough to watch it?
“Probably not now. It’s probably a little too bloody and violent.
“But I have a couple of eye patches [as worn by Uno Nomesta] from the show and they’ll put those on. They don’t quite understand what it means yet, though.”
You also get invited to fan conventions, is that right?
“Last year was a really exciting year. I was lucky enough that I was invited to three major Wheel of Time-specific conventions.
“So I got to go there and share my love for the project – and my love for everybody who works on the show. We’re enormously proud of it.
“The fans for Wheel of Time are terrific. And since the book series was written so long ago – the first book came out in 1990 – that there have been fans for decades of these books, and the show.
“So it’s a real privilege to interact with all of them.”
Excuse me if this question is a bit inappropriate, but when you go to these conventions, are you meant to charge for selfies? Is it the case that if you don’t charge it’s a kind of no-no?
“Well, yeah, you do have to pay a fee, and really for someone like me it’s not such a big deal.
“But there is a sort of a precedent and there are kind of rules that agents get involved with and things like that.
“But, you know, it was a real pleasure meeting everyone and signing all their special items that they have – in some cases they’ve had them for a really long time.
“It’s something I’ll definitely cherish.”
Is it hard to go from a big production like that into something smaller? I presume you’re getting treated royally working on The Wheel of Time?
“Well, everyone is incredibly nice. But I would say that the one thing that growing up in theatre teaches you is how to be flexible and adaptable.
“And yes, there are times when you get the taste of that rarefied of the film and TV world when you have a driver and things like that.
“But there’s also so many things that quickly bring you back down to earth.
“And I think with something like both Medieval and The Wheel of Time was really rooted in the great desire everyone had to make something significant.
“So people were there with a purpose, people were there because they wanted to bring the best of themselves and bring out the best in others. And that really helps a lot.”
You’re also a member of the Society of American Fight Directors – your coordinate fight scenes for theatrical productions. When you do something like that do you have to have a background in martial arts?
“So I have a lot of experience in fake fighting – and it’s very different than real fighting.
“I think the most important thing with choreography and staged violence is that it’s really like a dance. You rehearse it so many times, you practice it so many times, that you could literally do most of it blindfolded.
“It’s very careful and safety is always the most important thing in those situations.”
Have fashions changed in that kind of choreographed violence? If you watch an old movie, for example, it can be laughable how the punch misses by so far but the guy still falls.
“I think everyone’s gotten a lot more sophisticated on ways of filming that kind of work, and also as staged violence progresses as an art form.
“Certainly when I was working on The Wheel of Time and Medieval with the amazing stunt coordinators and stunt artists from Merlet and Filmka the level of training they all have is extraordinary.
“You walk into the Wheel of Time stunt gym and you’re basically walking into a room of ninjas. And they help us mere mortals look the best we possibly can.”
As a viewer do you like that kind of hyper style of fighting you get today? I find it over the top, though I guess it’s not aimed at me.
“Well, it’s really fun to do. I’ll say that.
“You know you can really tell a terrific fight by how the edits are done and how long you go without the quick cuts.
“You know you can really tell a terrific fight by how the edits are done and how long you go without the quick cuts.”
“It’s really been amazing to learn about that, to wake up every day and go train for an hour or two.
“It’s really exciting. It’s like being a kid on the playground and you’re eight years old and you put a towel around your neck and suddenly you’re Batman or something.”
Earlier you mentioned that you work with Ukrainian actors on this EU-level project. A friend of mine who knows you told me you do other work also with Ukrainian actors – could you talk about that please?
“Sure. When the war broke out in Ukraine several years ago we wanted to help any way we could, but we really didn’t know what to do.
“For a moment I thought, I’m going to go to Ukraine and fight. And then my amazing wife quickly told me I would shoot my foot off and that wasn’t the best way for me to contribute.
“So what we did was we opened the doors of our theatre, Divadlo Na Prádle, and we sent out word to all the Ukrainian refugees that if you were a theatre artist, a film artist, a painter, a musician – Come to Na Prádle, we want to try to help.
“We did a big private fundraising campaign to raise money and support for Ukrainian artists. And since that time I’ve opened the doors of the theatre and given these displaced Ukrainian artists a home.
“We’ve had several productions with some amazing artists, where they can continue to create their art, they can do things that help them earn a living, and continue to live and have a successful artistic life.
“We’re enormously proud of it. We’ve never received any financial support from any governmental agency for that; any of the money we’ve provided for that we raised our own, or we provided a service out of our own budget.
“But I think it’s important, because, you know, if something like that happened here, or anywhere that I was, I would hope that some other theatre artist would open their doors to us as well.”
As far as I’m concerned, all right-thinking people were horrified by the full-scale Russian invasion. But most of us didn’t think of going and fighting for the Ukrainians. What drove you to even have this thought?
“First of all, it was not a wise thought, because I would probably do more damage to myself than anything else.
“But in this world so often right and wrong is not black and white and can be quite grey – and this seemed to me to be a very black and white issue.
“I wanted my sons and my daughter… when presented with something like that, you have to take some sort of a stand, take some action.
“There’s a terrific quote in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus: Action is eloquence.
“And I think you can define action in several ways. I very quickly decided my personal action on a battlefield would not be a help. But opening the doors to our theatre and giving people who are here as refugees a life in the arts could be action that was eloquent.”
My final question: What does the future hold for you, and for the Prague Shakespeare Company?
“We have a lot of exciting performances coming up. I’ve mentioned our Macbeth at the Estates Theatre on April 26 and our giant EU coproduction of Hamlet, which will play in Gdansk and Verona.
“But looking ahead even beyond that we have one of the most significant theatre training programmes in the world every summer, where we bring over 70 professional Shakespeare experts, people who are changing the world with Shakespeare, to Prague.
“We have an amazing number of students, we put on shows and we create a dialogue with our artists from India, the United States, Canada, all over Europe and the UK.
“And that kind of work I see as vitally important to continuing the next generation.
“Looking ahead to the fall, we will bring Lauren Gunderson, who is probably the most produced playwright of the last decade in America, to Prague as she works on a new play about Shakespeare, which is something we’re very excited about.
“But I think we’re at a unique time right now, with everything going on in the world – with all the challenges politically, socially and economically – to really go back to our roots, in a way, and figure out what can Shakespeare and the classics share with us about our past, to help lead us to what is hopefully a brighter and more exciting future.”
