Jan Cina’s the kind of talent you don’t often see in Czech cinema. Luckily, filmmakers realized it in time. Though just 29, last year for him was like a dream — a dream few of his peers will ever have a chance to live. How did it happen? It’s 2002, Cina is a fresh-faced fourteen years old, and Zdeněk Tyc’s social drama Brats is hitting the Czech silver screen. Cina shines in this story of a Czech couple who adopt two Roma boys and come face to face with society’s narrow-mindedness and lack of understanding. As the older of the two sons, Cina is a natural in front of the camera — nothing at all like the typically sweet child stars who can be so irritating. The acting on display is unsensational, and yet promising of a big future. Will the promise come true? Yes, it will. Throughout his years as a student at DAMU (Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague), and after graduating, the young actor worked mainly in television. But while TV series are a good place to practice acting technique, they aren’t good for much more than that. Cina had roles in several series (Cold Feet, Comeback), but luckily never got stuck in any of them for too long. Then, in 2011, he got his first chance to work for HBO Europe, winning a role on the show Terapie, based on the Israeli series BeTipul (known to most viewers from the US version, Treatment, starring Gabriel Byrne). This was the key moment in Cina’s career thus far, marking the start of his work in higher-quality projects. In 2014, Cina played the starring role in Places, a drama about friendship, directed by the talented Radim Špaček.

Although the film wasn’t as critically well received as Špaček’s previous two, Cina’s performance was hailed as a standout, and in 2016, the actor got a well-deserved promotion to the big leagues: HBO Europe cast him as a lead in the miniseries Wasteland. With his subtle build and curly hair, Cina calls to mind more a spoiled prince or a classroom nerd, but the makers of this dark drama took a chance — and it paid off. Cina’s Lukáš, who runs into trouble with the law because of drugs, is one of the most articulate characters on the show — and, from a viewer’s perspective, also one of the most credible. Currently, Cina’s ascent to the Czech acting elite continues. Thanks to the internet series The Term, released in late 2016, he had a chance to try his hand at a new format, not yet common in the Czech milieu. And now he is getting attention from a truly mass audience through the TV show Your Face Has a Familiar Voice, a variety show with popular personalities impersonating the looks and voice of other famous figures.

Eliška Křenková, Cina’s costar from Wasteland and colleague from DAMU, has taken a different path. Before studying acting, she was a committed dancer, graduating from the prestigious Duncan Centre Conservatory. Still, she’s hardly just a dabing of arthouse and indie film. Křenková first tried her hand at acting on TV, appearing in 2005 in the soap opera The Street. She followed this with the popular TV series Tell Me a Story, about the dark period following the 1968 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, then rounded out her TV career with another much-loved series, The Wine Growers.

After a number of smaller roles in the movies, the first serious part Křenková played was in an adaptation of The Angels, directed by Alice Nellis based on the novel by Michal Viewegh. She played one of the four main angels, the young rebellious one. The film itself wasn’t a particular standout, but it helped Křenková make her name among Czech moviegoers. Her next part was in Family Film, directed by Olmo Omerzu, who is one of the most talented fi lmmakers in the Czech Republic today.

Křenková played just a supporting role in this drama about a family in crisis. Yet she drew a lot of attention with the authenticity of her performance, bringing an unexpected quality to the otherwise negative charakter of Kristýna, adding mystery and eroticism. Omerzu immediately cast her in his next film too. Now we’ve gotten a little ahead of ourselves, though — we forgot to mention Křenková’s role in Wasteland, the HBO Europe series. This is far and away the biggest jewel in her fi lmography up to now, and despite the darkness and chaos that dominates the atmosphere, Křenková literally shines in her role as Klára, the elder daughter of mayor Hana Sikorová (played by Zuzana Stivínová).

Václav Neužil, the last of our rising stars, graduated from the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. After his studies, he performed on several local stages (National Theatre, Theatre 7, HaDivadlo), before moving from the Moravian capital to Prague, in 2006, to take up an engagement with the Dejvice Theatre, one of the most popular and critically acclaimed companies in the country. Neužil became a part of the permanent troupe, starring in numerous choice roles.One of the actor’s most original performances was his impersonation of Mick Jagger in Brian, staged by Miroslav Krobot. It came as no surprise, then, when film directors took notice of Neužil’s exceptional talent (and considerable good looks). The first to give him a substantial role was Jitka Rudolfová, who in her 2009 debut, Dreamers, and her 2013 follow-up, Delight, describes the joys and troubles of people coming up on 40 who are just as unsecure as they were when they were 20. Neužil featured in both. Next, in 2015, he played the bumptious Prince Norbert in Alice Nellis’s epically rich adaptation of the classic fairy tale Seven Ravens. Soon after, he played the jealous husband of the main character in the comical fiction documentary Lost in Munich, an alternative take on the 1938 Munich Agreement, directed by Petr Zelenka.

The roles offered to Neužil just seem to get better and better. This past year, he starred as Josef Valčík in the internationally acclaimed Anthropoid, depicting one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of Czechoslovakia, the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich. This gave Neužil his first taste of a major international production. Now, Bohdan Sláma, one of the most respected Czech directors, has him as the main character’s son in Ice Mother, released in February 2017. And in January, Czech Television began airing the 10-part series Svět pod hlavou (The World Beneath Your Head), with Neužil playing the policeman who travels from the comfortable present into a past inhabited by servile monsters.