Andrzej Konopka

Most of what Andrzej Konopka does in Hot Spot (2026) is stand still and wait. He plays Jan 623, a man who has been given a number instead of a name and has not yet decided whether to mind, and for long stretches Agnieszka Smoczyńska's camera holds on his face while he waits for information the film never provides. We found ourselves watching him rather than the red and blue light behind him, because his was the only face on screen that seemed to be asking the questions we were. That is a real skill, and in this film it is also a problem: an actor can only wait so long before waiting becomes the performance.

It is his first lead, and it has arrived late. Konopka trained at the theatre academy in Kraków after a spell as a stagehand and props assistant in Warsaw, a job that teaches you to stay out of the way. Film and television came in the mid-2000s with small parts, and through the 2010s with supporting roles for Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland and Wojciech Smarzowski: the drummer in Smoczyńska's The Lure (2015), the police commander in Holland's Spoor (2017), a construction manager in Smarzowski's Clergy (2018). In Poland he is called a master of the second plan, which is a kinder way of saying the parts are not large. He has said himself that he is usually cast as the alpha male.

The pattern is commanders, doctors, priests and officials, and he has been busy inside it: the mayor in The Peasants (2023), a forensic pathologist in Colors of Evil: Red (2024), Hubert Raban in LARP: Love, Trolls and Other Quests (2025). We have not reviewed those and will not pretend to judge them. What we can say from Hot Spot is what the type has given him and what it costs. He carries authority without doing anything in the scene to earn it, and when Smoczyńska dresses him well outside his usual line, the authority is still there under the costume, which is the most interesting thing in a film short of interesting things. What the type has not given him is a way to drive a scene when nobody hands him a question. Noomi Rapace's Rana is certain of everything and Reika Kirishima's Ayka refuses to raise her voice; Konopka is left between them, waiting for the plot.

He has also said he would like someone to find the sensitive side he believes he has somewhere. Smoczyńska has gone looking, and Hot Spot is evidence that the search is not finished. Our advice would be a director who gives him a man with less rank and more to say. Holland and Smarzowski have each used him more than once, and either might be the one to do it.