He recognized the poetry of Žižkov, where the plot of the film Fešák Hubert (1984) takes place Karel Heřmanek already as a child. It was there that he was born on October 17, 1947. He studied construction engineering and thought about architecture. Then he was interested in film directing, but since it was difficult to get into FAMU, he tried acting. Finally, they accepted him at JAMU in Brno.
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In Brno, a significant class met – Jiří Bartoška, Pavel Zedníček, Jana Švandová. After school, Heřmánek, Bartoška and Zedníček joined Brno’s avant-garde theater Na provázku. After the season, Heřmánek left again with Bartoška and Zedníček to the Drama Studio in Ústí nad Labem, and soon they turned this theater into a cult scene, where audiences from all over the country flocked. In January 1974, the play Diogenes the Cynic premiered here, which was staged with them by the director Evald Schorm. Later, together they also prepared Páral’s Professional Woman and other productions.
In 1976, Heřmánek returned to Prague and until 1990 played in the Theater Na zábradlí, where he created – especially under the direction of Evald Schorm – his most important theater characters, for example in The Brothers Karamazov: “It was always a miracle with the director Schorm. He was the spiritual leader of the whole theater, even in the darkest times, the theater did very well with him,” he said in an interview.
When this scene fell apart, Heřmánek also left and founded one of the first private theaters in the Czech Republic – Divadlo Bez zábradlí. Some fellow actors – Jiří Bartoška and Pavel Zedníček – helped him get the new theater off the ground. It eventually found its seat in the palace of Adria. Today it is popular with the audience, for example the director Jiří Menzel worked there.
He made his debut in front of the camera in 1972 in the TV movie Udmer bábí leta in the steppe, a train honked, but the film fell a bit flat. Then, for example, he appeared as a young highway bridge builder in Štěpán Skalský’s film Hřiště. He began to appear more in films at the end of the 70s, for example in the films On the Poacher’s Trail, A Woman for Three Men, Death of a Hitchhiker. He also played in the family comedy Krakonoš and skiers or in the drama Hádí jed. At the IFF in Portugal, he won the prize for the male acting performance in the film Dobré svetlo from 1985, directed by Karel Kachyna. In total, he had over 140 roles in film and television, including series.
In Hynk Bočan’s successful fairy tale S čerty nejų žerty (1984), he portrayed Lucifer in his darkest darkness, he also played in the Oscar-winning film Kolja (1996) and in the TV series Zdivočelá země (1997). For example, he played in five loosely connected comedies by Hynek Bočan from the 1980s (Boss, that’s a thing!, Boss, come back!, Boss, let’s do it!, There’s a horse in the yard, boss!, This castle is haunted, boss! ) or in Kachyň’s comedy Where, gentlemen, where are you going? After a longer hiatus, he appeared on the screen in the 2005 comedy Tales of Ordinary Madness, in 2015 he appeared in the film Hunters and Victims (2015), where he also starred with his son Karl, also a successful actor. He last appeared in a minor role in the Danish historical drama Bastard (2023).
Karel Heřmánek was also known for dubbing, his voice was used by Doyle (Martin Shaw) from the British TV series Professionals. And in the dubbing studio, he also met his second wife, Hana, who allegedly went to see him at the Theater Na zábradlí and who became a well-known announcer and presenter. They had three sons together, Heřmánek has two more daughters from his first marriage.
In 2022, Heřmánek received the Golden Shoe for his outstanding contribution to cinematography for children and youth at the Zlín Youth Festival. “It was pleasant, we had fun. It was an excellent cast, an excellent crew was there, Hynek Bočan was an impeccable director, the script was beautiful. I enjoyed the work,” Heřmánek said at the time about the fairy tale S cherty no jest zerty.
