GAYLETTER

Polish actor Mateusz Banasiuk is staring in Floating Skyscrapers, the second film by ‘In The Bedroom’ director, Tomasz Wasilewski. It’s a hot and steamy, but also searingly deep, story of a professional swimmer, Kuba, who’s life changes after meeting the very handsome Mikal. Only problem is Kuba has a long-term girlfriend who he’s comfortably hetero-co-habitating with. Mateusz, who is straight, played the role of a confused gay man, very convincingly. He was also a pleasure to chat with and had no problem taking his shirt off for some pics, which we appreciated. Floating Skyscrapers had its world premier at the TriBeCa Film Festival and is now playing.

How old are you Mateusz? I’m 27 years old, but as you saw I look really young, when I was flying to New York I asked the flight attendant to give me a beer and she asked me: “How old are you?” She thought maybe I was under 21…

Yeah, I can see that, you have young skin. Yeah and I feel young inside, and I usually play young guys, I’m trying out a mustache as you can see, but it doesn’t help…

You played a swimmer in the movie, are you a swimmer in real life? I like swimming very much, it’s like a meditation for me, I feel good in my body when I train, and sometimes when I go to the pool a lot I feel addicted to it. But just before the movie, Tomasz (the director), asked me if I can swim and if I thought it was possible for me to do all the scenes alone? Because sometimes in movies, people will jump into the swimming pool and someone else will swim for them. I had 4 months with personal trainers in the swimming pool, and they taught me what I have to do to look professional, to look like a real swimmer. I am a good swimming actor.

When did you start acting? I never treated acting as a real thing, I was swimming, I was playing in a band (I’m a drummer) I was doing some art with my friends, with children of actors, because my father is an actor and some actors wanted their children to make something together and we were doing plays, travelling around the world, but I never took it seriously. After high school, I didn’t know what to do… I did some movies, I went to film school in Warsaw, after that, I went to drama school, I did some theater. The first time I was on a TV set I felt all this magic, that all the crew was there for me.

Is this the biggest film you’ve been in? This film is the biggest thing I’ve ever done. It’s a main role in a big, fantastic movie. Plus the script was very interesting to me. When I got this script at the casting, I knew this is what I really want to do in my life, that’s why I am an actor to make movies like this, when I was talking with the director Tomasz, I felt this is a very good guy, he knows what he wants, he’s got very good taste, and great ideas, I knew I could trust him. We spent hours and days talking, talking and thinking about the movie.

Before this I did a couple movies, other big roles, but not main roles, in Poland we have something called Television Theater (something between theater and a movie) and I did main roles in that, and I also performed in theater. But this is the biggest.

So, you are a professional actor haha!? Yeah, I am a professional actor, I work a lot, yeah, I also play in soap operas, in the movie industry I have to do a lot, I had 4 months to prepare for this movie, but I couldn’t do only this film, I had to do other acting jobs to make money.

Why did you take this role? Come on it’s a main role! Haha, I am not in a situation where I can choose, I am not Brando, De Niro, DiCaprio, whatever. I can’t choose, I go to castings to make movies. The answer was easy — but of course this film is controversial because Poland is conservative, it’s not like the United States. We are maybe like 10 years behind you. I might have some problems in Poland because of this movie.

Because you played a gay role, but you are not gay? Yeah…

But you were comfortable playing a gay role? Hmmm comfortable because of the situation, I felt very protected by the other actors, I knew that nothing wrong was going to happen.

Were you comfortable kissing a man in the film? We did lots of rehearsal, but not these kind of scenes, mostly dialogue because dialogue is the most important thing in the movie, we didn’t try it and I knew it was going to happen. The first kiss it was a bit of a problem but, the more, and more and more times it happened it became not a problem. It’s a barrier because when you do something for the first time you are really afraid of it because you don’t know what it means, and when you just do it, you can see that nothing happened, I am still alive. This wasn’t the hardest moment. This wasn’t the hardest scene.

You didn’t blow up. I didn’t blow up, there were moments in this movie that I was really afraid of.

Which moments were those? Like with my mother when I met her in the apartment, when I had to tell her how sorry I was for what I told her, these were much harder moments than taking off my clothes or kissing a guy — these were real acting moments. When you have to show up, when you have to feel something real.

When I was in Warsaw Film School, there was one teacher that taught me the method that you have here in the NY school in The Actor’s Studio, because she graduated from that school, she always told me to be in the moment, not to play but to be, so in the movie I always tried not to play, but to be, to be in the moment. To be Kuba (his character’s name).

Did you learn a lot about what is it to be gay? Did you gain a better understanding about the struggle that a gay person goes through? I don’t think there’s a difference between a gay guy and a straight guy, I think that there is no difference, come on!

There was a moment in the movie when you were with your girlfriend and you ate her pussy because you had something to prove to yourself. Did you put yourself in that position and did you realize that a lot of guys have to do that in real life? Yeah, even when I was flying here I was talking to a flight attendant and he told me, yeah, this is my story. It’s a hard situation for young people because sometimes you know nothing about yourself and you have a lot of questions, but you don’t know the answers. You are lost and I think every young guy goes through these difficult times, gay or straight.

Kuba (the character you played) was really confused. Yes, that was the main thing that he was really confused.

Did you like the guy that you were playing? Yes, and I really understand him, I understand why he did what he did. I liked him and I really sympathized for him. I liked him because I was with Kuba together for a couple months and we got used to ourselves. We spent a lot of time together.

How did you manage to create these emotions and make them feel so real? Are you just a good actor? There were some moments that I was afraid of, when I was in the swimming pool because I wanted them to look real, I was afraid to play with Marta Nieradkiewicz (Sylwie, who played my girlfriend) because she was such a good actor, during rehearsals she was so, real, so real, I was afraid that I was not with her.

Have you ever been bullied? Yeah many times, lots of people are aggressive for no reason, one time I was walking with my girlfriend at the time and I passed some guys and they started to scream to me “Gay.”

What did you do? I turned around and I just told them that I am not gay. They wanted to kick my ass still, but I just turned around and left.

Do you have gay friends in Poland? Yes a lot, because I live in Warsaw, the capital city and the most liberal city in Poland, and I am an actor and lots of actors are gay. I don’t see any difference between them and other friends.

So that probably made it easier for you to play this role, the fact that you don’t see any difference… Yeah, my old friends, from my childhood, when I told them that I was making this kind of movie, they were like “Noooooo, oh my god did you kiss a guy? OMG noooooo,” I am still friends with them, but they are different. Poland is like it is, so they can have problems with it, but I don’t care. Everything has to change, we have to go on… I don’t want to change the world, I don’t want to change Poland or their mentality, I just want to make movies, I want to make good movies about people, about what they feel, about what they are trying to say and what they are trying to hide — this is what I am really interested in, not about changing the world. You know it’s not like Miss America, world peace, all of that bullshit.

How do you feel about men looking at you as a sex object? It’s a compliment, come on!