Conversation between Małgorzata Subotić and Paweł Tomczyk with Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński
About two of them..
RZECZPOSPOLITA October 15, 1998
They were born on June 18, 1949. Both hold doctorates in law. Lech Kaczyński devised the formula for the Center Agreement, and Jarosław was until recently the president of this party. They held important positions in public life after 1989, including Jarosław Kaczyński being the head of President Lech Wałęsa’s Chancellery, and Lech being the president of the Supreme Audit Office in the previous term. Today, one is an independent MP, and the other is an academic at the University of Gdańsk.
Let’s settle this at the outset: who was Jacek and who was Placek?
Jarosław Kaczyński: – I was Placek.
Lech Kaczyński: – Sometimes we swapped roles and I played Placek, and Jarek played Jacek.
Was it your idea?
Jarosław: – I don’t remember.
Lech: – It was when I was supposed to go onto the roof.
Jarosław: – Yes, I went up because Leszek had a fear of heights.
The filmmakers didn’t know about this swap, of course?
Lech and Jarosław: – They knew.
Apparently, they couldn’t tell you apart.
Jarosław: – They could tell us apart because they were people with a keen eye, sensitive to images, operators, directors.
Lech: – But ordinary people didn’t recognize us.
How did you get into this film at all?
Jarosław: – There was a competition. Our uncle Stanisław Miedza-Tomaszewski simply tore a piece of paper from a notebook, wrote our names, and sent it. Did he tell you about it or was it a surprise?
Jarosław: – I don’t remember. We were very interested in film at the time, we read reviews, we were happy when Polish films won awards at festivals.
Lech: – Not just films. During radio broadcasts of athletics matches of the Polish “wunderteam,” we both got a fever from excitement. Jarosław: – And of course, we dreamed of acting in a film, but that dream was very abstract, like winning a million in the lottery.
Lech: – I don’t remember dreaming about it, but I also had no reservations about going to the first auditions. It was on Puławska, in a cinema hall. Over seventy pairs of twins from Warsaw and its surroundings showed up. There were even two sets of triplets.
Jarosław: – Twins with a reserve player…
Lech: – With spare parts, as we joked at the time. At the very beginning, we sat politely somewhere in the back, and then a handsome man approached us, who turned out to be a real count, Włodzimierz Grocholski, one of the plan managers. And he moved us from the back rows to the front.
What made them choose you?
Jarosław: – I think we were the most reliable candidates, due to our relatively mature age and decent alertness.
Lech: – We seemed promising.
Jarosław: – We probably provided the greatest guarantee that it wouldn’t end in failure. As a curiosity, I can also say that our competitors, whom we beat, were the Walendziak brothers.
Lech: – But they weren’t the last competitors. The last ones were called the Huber brothers.
So the guarantee provided by maturity decided it?
Jarosław: – Apparently, there were different factions in the film crew, including a very strong faction supporting the Huber brothers. However, our 12 years probably decided it.
When did you find out that you were the ones acting in the film?
Lech: – By the sea, near Cetniewo. July 26, 1961. I remember this date because I’m superstitious. Since then, I’ve considered this day a good one, although for thirty years nothing special has happened on this day.
Jarosław: – We received a telegram, meaning our parents did, inviting them to “finalize the matter.” I remember that term.
Lech: – I think it was “finalization of the boys’ participation in our film,” but maybe you’re right.
Jarosław: – It definitely included the word “finalization.”
Who was the most pleased?
Jarosław: – We both triumphed. The family was also pleased, no one was against it.
The division of roles took place without any discussion?
Jarosław: – I don’t remember how it happened. It might have started already when we were rehearsing with our grandmother during the auditions. We acted out scenes, and our grandmother sat and evaluated. She had been interested in acting for a long time and was a demanding critic.
Apparently, you played pranks on the set?
Lech: – But not on the set… For example, Jarek locked the production manager, and someone else, in his room. This room was in a less frequented part of the studio, and no one heard them shouting.
And then what?
Lech: – Eventually, he let them out. He listened to the “just criticism” and locked them again.
Where were the scenes shot?
Jarosław: – Mainly in Łódź, but it started in Łeba. Before we got on set, they took care of our appearance. First, our heads. The wigs didn’t work out, so in the end, they bleached our hair. And it hurt terribly.
Why?
Jarosław: – Because of the peroxide. Our hair was very difficult to bleach, and they had to “intensify” the peroxide.
Lech: – But I preferred that to having a wig on my head for several hours a day. Even though the hair grew back quickly, and the whole torture had to be repeated.
Jarosław: – They also gave us freckles. We were taken care of by makeup artist Mr. Szossler. An additional attraction in Łeba was that we were filming on dunes, which were then a training ground. There were still a lot of fragments left from Rommel’s army exercises. And there was a donkey. But there were problems with it because, contrary to the script, it didn’t want to throw us off.
Did it like you so much?
Jarosław: – It was a good donkey. Its trainer, however, was of rather strange habits…
Lech: – “Trainerologist,” that’s what he wanted to be called.
Jarosław: – He could tell Helena Grossówna, a star of pre-war Polish cinema who played our mother, that she didn’t look like she used to. Then he explained that he said it “with a garden.” The donkey didn’t want to throw us off, so they told us to wedge something into its groin, and it just stubbornly stood there. Like a donkey. In the end, we jumped over it.
Lech: – I remember the rooster didn’t want to crow either.
Jarosław: – The worst were the pelicans. They were made from goose skins, so they didn’t smell very nice, they had an electrical installation inside, which often malfunctioned. And they poured water, because it was a storm scene. First cold, but since you can’t pour cold water on children, they started pouring hot. They couldn’t get the temperature right. The wind for this storm was made using an airplane propeller. It was a bit overwhelming. This was the last phase of filming, hasty, the least pleasant. Of course, the worst part was that school was approaching again. With the pelicans, there was another story. Initially, they were supposed to slide down a line from the fourth floor with us on their backs. Mom, of course, protested, and they put dummies on the pelicans instead.
There were no stuntmen?
Jarosław: – It was quite a height, and the stuntmen couldn’t handle it. Besides, the first time, those pelicans with dummies indeed fell. Then, for the scene of falling into the water, they used a different method. There were stuntmen, young swimmers from a local club.
Jacek and Placek are at least at the beginning of the film two classic rascals who even treated their own mother unsympathetically. Did you have trouble playing such roles?
Jarosław: – “About two who stole the moon” was read to us aloud by Władzia, our 14-year-old housekeeper, when we were five. We laughed, we liked the book very much. But seven years later, when we were acting in the film, we had an absolute distance. If they had told us to shoot, we would have done it without batting an eye and without feeling that it concerned us. Just a film. Although, on the other hand, we probably wouldn’t have wanted to play Soviet pioneers.
Lech: – There was no identification with the role in the slightest. If we had any objections to the script, it was, for example, that in the book Jacek and Placek return to Zapiecek on horseback, and in the film, we walked. We would have preferred horseback.
How were the contacts with the adult world?
Jarosław: – Director Jan Batory and his wife, who was the editing director, were very nice. He really knew how to deal with children. There were many colorful people in the crew, but there were no – speaking in today’s ugly language – bum-like figures, which also often appear in this world.
Lech: – Most people treated us very warmly, but some crossed the line of good taste. The assistant production manager, for example, woke us up in the hotel in the morning with shouts: “Get up, get up! Grandma by the coat and to Łąkowa!”. Because then our grandmother was taking care of us, and the studio was on Łąkowa.
Jarosław: – The shooting lasted half a year. We had home care the whole time. First, our mom was with us, then our grandmother replaced her.
And during that time, there were no conflict situations?
Lech: – We weren’t allowed to watch the working scenes. Batory thought we shouldn’t watch ourselves at all. I think we only managed to sneak into the operator’s cabin once.
Jarosław: – We loved playing football. Leszek was a very good goalkeeper, and when the film management watched his saves, they were terrified we’d get hurt. They didn’t want us to play football, and we didn’t want to hear about it, because it was an entirely incomprehensible attack on our freedom. Every lost day on set increased costs, and the film’s budget was only seven million złotys. For comparison, “The Teutonic Knights” cost forty million.
Lech: – When we were shooting scenes near Łódź, the local bums sent a peer of ours with a proposal that they would “painlessly” break our legs, and we would take compensation and “give” them only a few pennies.
What were the acting fees?
Jarosław: – Forty thousand for both of us. Besides, they gave mom the equivalent of her salary plus sixty-three złotys per diem plus an apartment in the Łódź Grand Hotel. We also had two teachers. We really liked when there were overtime hours on set because then we didn’t have to study after work.
Lech: – We liked wandering around the studio, where there were a lot of interesting things. They were finishing Munk’s “Passenger” there at the time. I remember we asked Aleksandra Śląska to show us what she had in her holster. Unfortunately, it was empty. Bogumił Kobiela, who was a very nice, friendly, and cheerful person, joined our table in the buffet several times. Marek Kondrat was also there, who was acting in “The Story of the Yellow Slipper” parallel to us. He was a year younger than us and also lived in the “Grand,” but in a regular room. Which filled us, the residents of the apartment, with understandable pride.
Jarosław: – We used to go to a fairground shooting range near the hotel together. As wealthy people, “working stars,” we could afford a lot of shots. We shot pretty well, even quite well. This caused amazement among the shooting range regulars because we were commonly mistaken for girls. We had long, blond hair. Boys didn’t wear such hair then.
And what were the damages in the apartment for which your mom had to pay?
Jarosław: Grocholski, a twenty-four-year-old guy – although he claimed he was twenty-six – was very youthful. A twelve-year-old could befriend him. He collected old weapons, not medieval, but from the Second World War era.
Lech: – He had explosives, smoke candles, TNT blocks, detonators. He brought TNT to our room and set it on fire. We liked it very much.
Jarosław: – It is known that ignited TNT doesn’t explode, it just burns. Once we extorted a smoke candle from him, and somehow out of curiosity, I started rubbing it. And within a few seconds, the whole room was filled with thick, sticky smoke. Fortunately, Grocholski was sick that day, lying in his room, a floor above. He ran down in just his underpants and neutralized the candle by scattering its contents. It smelled inhumanly. Mom had to pay for solid extra cleaning, polishing, and refurbishing the scorched furniture.
Why did you do it?
Jarosław: – Honestly speaking, I don’t know. Of course, I wasn’t some kind of lunatic, I knew you couldn’t set a candle on fire in a hotel, I intended to light it in a more suitable place. But curiosity won: “and if I rub it, what will happen?”.
Lech: – Thirty years later, I’m sitting in the office as the deputy chairman of “Solidarity.” Grocholski bursts in. I recognized him, “good day,” “hi,” he greeted. We chatted for a moment. He said: – I’ll be back in a second. He left, and I haven’t seen him since.
What happened then? After returning to school?
Jarosław: – Nothing. We dyed back to dark. And nothing.
No fears before the premiere?
Jarosław: – The film didn’t have a premiere, there was no ceremony. We were only at the children’s and youth club “Zygzaczek” for an unofficial premiere, a screening for club members.
Lech: – The children asked probing questions.
Jarosław: – They were very learned. It amused us greatly.
Really nothing changed in the approach to famous actors in school desks?
Lech: – In the first period of the seventh grade, we had rather average results, a lot of threes. And then the teacher told our father that it was because we acted in a film.
And you didn’t brag about lunches at SPATiF, the apartment in the “Grand”?
Jarosław: – We didn’t appreciate those achievements.
There was no reading reviews with flushed faces?
Jarosław: – I would be lying if I said I remember even one review. But I probably read them. We weren’t compared to Shirley Temple.
But your performance was positively evaluated. Why didn’t you become actors?
Jarosław: – Not for a second did I intend to be an actor. If we were gently steered in any direction in the family, it was to become scientists.
Lech: – And it was obvious to us that after studying, we should get a doctorate.
Jarosław: – At that time, I was fascinated by Atlantis. I wanted to be the Schliemann of Atlantis. He discovered Troy, and I was supposed to discover Atlantis.
Lech: – Even in the sixth grade, we received an offer to act in another film. We even went to screen tests, but only to skip school. It was “The Big, Bigger, and the Biggest.”
Jarosław: – I received another offer to appear in a film by phone when I was in my fourth year of studies. They needed an eighteen-year-old. They weren’t at all deterred by the fact that I was already twenty-one. I convinced them only when I said: – Sir, but I am 166 centimeters tall and weigh 73 kilos.
Do you often watch this film?
Lech: – We don’t specifically hunt for it, but it’s often on TV, then we watch at least a piece.
Do you sing the song ending the film yourselves?
Jarosław: “I’m a brave boy and you’re a brave boy, together we’re two brave boys.” We sang together, with false voices, but later, of course, two actresses dubbed their voices.
Your singing wasn’t very suitable?
Lech. – Not suitable at all.
PHOTO. MICHAŁ SADOWSKI and Jacek and Placek on the film set. PHOTO. FAMILY ARCHIVE