Who Is Rade Šerbedžija

Rade Šerbedžija (also credited as Rade Sherbedgia in English-language productions) is one of the best-known actors from the former Yugoslavia. He was born on 27 July 1946 in the village of Bunić in the Lika region. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he was regarded as one of the biggest stars of Yugoslav theatre, film and television.

After the breakup of Yugoslavia he continued his career abroad. He gained international attention with his role in Before the Rain (1994) and went on to appear in a string of Hollywood and European productions. He is best remembered as Boris the Blade in Snatch, the Russian general Dmitri Gredenko in 24 and the wandmaker Gregorovitch in the Harry Potter films.

Besides acting, Rade Šerbedžija works as a director, musician and poet. Together with the writer Borislav Vujčić he founded the Ulysses Theatre on the Brijuni islands. His biography is at once the story of one artist and the story of the breakup of the country in which he grew up.

Early Life and Childhood

Rade Šerbedžija was born in Bunić, a village in the Lika region located between Korenica and Lički Osik. At the time, Lika was part of the People’s Republic of Croatia within the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.

His parents were ethnic Serbs who had fought with the Partisans in the Second World War. He was raised as an atheist, in a family that honoured the anti-fascist legacy.

His parents later lived in Vinkovci. In the early 1990s, during the war in Croatia, they left the town as refugees and moved to Belgrade. The event left a deep mark on the actor, who has since described himself on several occasions as Yugo-nostalgic.

Education

He studied acting at the Academy of Dramatic Arts of the University of Zagreb, where he graduated in 1969. According to encyclopedic sources, he began his acting training in the mid-1960s.

While still a student, he was already cast in leading roles in theatre productions and films. It was an unusually early start, one that foreshadowed a career spanning more than five decades.

Early Career

First Roles in Film and Television

He played his first film roles in 1967, in Iluzija and Crne ptice (Black Birds). His first major role came in 1968 in Gravitacija ili fantastična mladost činovnika Borisa Horvata (Gravitation), directed by Branko Ivanda, in which he played the title character.

In the early 1970s he appeared in Idu dani (Passing Days), Crveno klasje (Red Wheat) and Putovanje na mesto nesreće. At the same time he worked in television. The series Prosjaci i sinovi (1971), in which he played Matan Špalatrin, drew particular attention.

Stage Roles and Hamlet in Dubrovnik

After finishing his studies he worked as a stage actor at the Gavella City Drama Theatre and at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. Among his early stage roles were Oedipus and Richard III.

The turning point came in 1974, when he played Hamlet at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. The role made him a star and opened the door to the most important Yugoslav productions.

Rise to Fame

Films of the 1970s and 1980s

By the mid-1970s Šerbedžija was one of the most sought-after faces of Yugoslav cinema. He appeared in films such as Hajka (1977), Novinar (Journalist, 1979), Usijanje (1979), Povratak (The Return, 1979) and Variola vera (1982), in which he played Doctor Grujić.

The peak of this period was the role of the composer Vitomir Bezjak in Bravo maestro (1978), directed by Rajko Grlić. The film competed at the Cannes Film Festival, and Šerbedžija received his first Golden Arena for Best Actor at the Pula Film Festival for the part.

Further roles followed in Banović Strahinja (1981), in which he played Abdulah, then Kiklop (Cyclops, 1982), Una (1984), Pejzaži u magli (1984) and San o ruži (Dreaming the Rose, 1986). For the role of Tomislav K. Burbonski in Večernja zvona (Evening Bells, 1986) he won his second Golden Arena.

Television Series and Roles of Historical Figures

On television he created a series of roles that Yugoslav audiences remembered well. In U registraturi he played Ivica Kičmanović, and in Pesma the character of Mića Ranović. In the 1977 series Nikola Tesla he portrayed the title scientist.

He also played Josip Broz Tito in the television film Bombaški proces (1978), and in a film about the poet Ivan Goran Kovačić he played the lead. In the series Putovanje u Vučjak (1986) he played Krešimir Horvat across fourteen episodes.

Teaching and Theatre Projects

Šerbedžija was also a teacher. He taught acting at the University of Zagreb from 1979 to 1981, and then at the University of Novi Sad from 1987 to 1991.

He was also one of the main supporters of the KPGT project, a Yugoslav theatre meant to unite actors from different republics into a single ensemble. By the time he left his homeland he had played more than forty film roles.

Leaving Yugoslavia and the Film Before the Rain

Towards the end of the 1980s Šerbedžija appeared for the first time in films released in the West. In 1988 he acted in Hanna’s War and Manifesto.

As wars began in Yugoslavia, he left Croatia and first settled in Serbia, and then in Slovenia. According to media reports, one reason was an unpleasant incident at a Belgrade club in 1992, after which he left for Ljubljana with his wife and daughter Nina.

He then went to London at the invitation of his friend, the actor Anthony Andrews. There he met the Macedonian-American director Milcho Manchevski, who gave him a role in Before the Rain (1994). For that performance he received the Critics Award for Best Actor at the 51st Venice International Film Festival.

In London he also became friends with the actress Vanessa Redgrave, at whose home he stayed for a time. Together they founded the Moving Theatre Company, in which he appeared in productions such as Brecht in Hollywood.

International Career

Hollywood Films

After Before the Rain, roles in foreign productions followed. For his part in Broken English (1996) he received the award for Best Foreign Performer at the New Zealand Film and Television Awards.

In Hollywood he played Ivan Tretiak in The Saint (1997), then appeared in Mighty Joe Young (1998), Polish Wedding (1998) and Stigmata (1999). He also acted in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

In 2000 he appeared in three highly visible productions: Clint Eastwood’s Space Cowboys, John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2, in which he played Dr. Nekhorvich, and Guy Ritchie’s Snatch, in which he played Boris the Blade. That part remains his most recognisable one.

He continued to work with well-known directors. He appeared in Phillip Noyce’s The Quiet American (2002), and later in Batman Begins (2005), The Fog (2005), Shooter (2007), Fugitive Pieces (2007), David Yates’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010), X-Men: First Class (2011) and Taken 2 (2012).

For his role as Athos Roussos in the Canadian film Fugitive Pieces (an adaptation of Anne Michaels’s novel, directed by Jeremy Podeswa) he was named Best Actor at the Rome Film Festival, and he was also nominated for a Genie Award and a Satellite Award.

Television Roles Abroad

On the small screen he is best known as the Russian general Dmitri Gredenko in the sixth season of 24, broadcast in 2007. He was credited as Rade Sherbedgia at the time.

He also appeared in the television production South Pacific (2001) as the French planter Emile de Becque, then in Spooks (2003) and Surface (2005). In 2014 he appeared in six episodes of Downton Abbey as the Russian prince Kuragin, a long-ago love of Violet, the Dowager Countess, played by Maggie Smith. He later acted in The Blacklist, Strange Angel, Slow Horses and The Old Man.

The Ulysses Theatre and Return to the Stage

In the early 2000s Šerbedžija and the writer Borislav Vujčić founded the international Ulysses Theatre on the Brijuni islands. Performances take place on the island of Veliki Brijun, mostly at the Minor fortress.

The theatre was launched with King Lear, in which Šerbedžija played the title role. By his own account it is one of the most demanding parts of his career, and he has performed it more than a hundred times. It was announced that he would play King Lear for the last time in the 2026 season.

In a co-production between the Ulysses Theatre and the National Theatre in Belgrade he appeared in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2019). For that role he received the Zoran Radmilović Award, the Croatian Theatre Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the Orlando Award.

Director, Musician and Poet

He made his directorial debut in 2016 with the film The Liberation of Skopje, in which he also played the lead. The film was North Macedonia’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

Poetry and music are a constant part of his public life. He has published four books of poetry and several music albums, and he is known for his poetry readings. With the Bosnian singer Kemal Monteno he recorded the ballad “Ni u tvome srcu”.

At the concert titled For Myself, For You, For Others, held in 2024 as part of the Ljubljana Festival, he performed accompanied by the band Zapadni kolodvor, with whom he has appeared before Slovenian audiences several times.

Greatest Achievements

The greatest achievements of Rade Šerbedžija span several decades and three continents. On the domestic scene, two Golden Arenas from the 1980s and a series of television shows that marked Yugoslav television stand out.

• The role of Hamlet at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival in 1974, which made him famous.
• The Golden Arena for Best Actor for Bravo maestro (1978) and for Večernja zvona (1986).
• The Critics Award for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival in 1994, for Before the Rain.
• The Golden Arena for 72 Days (2010), directed by his son Danilo, and for Fishing and Fishermen’s Conversations (2020).
• Roles in Hollywood films such as Snatch, Eyes Wide Shut, Space Cowboys and Harry Potter.
• The founding of the Ulysses Theatre on Brijuni.

Personal Life

He first married Ivanka Cerovac in 1969. The marriage produced a son, Danilo (born 1971), a film director, and a daughter, Lucija (born 1973), an actress. The marriage ended in divorce in 1987.

He met his second wife, the director Lenka Udovički, in Subotica in 1990. They married on 30 June 1991. Lenka is the sister of the Serbian politician Kori Udovički. They have three daughters: Nina, Vanja and Mimi (Milica Alma). The girls spent their early years in London, and the family later moved to California because of the actor’s career.

Šerbedžija owns property in London, Hollywood, Rijeka and Zagreb. According to reports from 2011, he spent most of his time in Rijeka with his wife. He is a citizen of Croatia, Slovenia and North Macedonia.

He has called himself Yugo-nostalgic. On several occasions he has said that an artist must be a kind of dissident, pointing out wrongs in society. In 2017 he signed the Declaration on the Common Language of the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins.

Trivia

• In English-language productions he is often credited as Rade Sherbedgia, and his surname is sometimes transliterated as Serbedzija or Serbedjija.
• He also played Nikola Tesla, in a 1977 television series, and later Tesla’s father in the film Tesla: Iznad mašte.
• Before leaving Yugoslavia he played Josip Broz Tito, and abroad he has often played villains, which is why the media describe him as an actor who plays imposing figures on both sides of the law.
• After Batman Begins he was reportedly asked to repeat his cameo in The Dark Knight but declined. This detail has not been confirmed by multiple sources.
• In a 2019 interview he said Hollywood did not impress him, and that glamour and the willingness to do anything for success irritate him.
• His children, Danilo and Lucija, also work in film.

Awards and Recognition

• Golden Arena for Best Actor, Pula: 1978 (Bravo maestro), 1986 (Večernja zvona), 2010 (72 Days) and 2020 (Fishing and Fishermen’s Conversations).
• Critics Award for Best Actor, Venice Film Festival, 1994 (Before the Rain).
• Best Foreign Performer, New Zealand Film and TV Awards, 1996 (Broken English).
• Best Actor, Rome Film Festival, 2007 (Fugitive Pieces).
• Genie Award nomination, 2009, and Satellite Award nomination, 2008 (Fugitive Pieces).
• Best Actor, Monaco International Film Festival, 2006 (Short Order).
• Zoran Radmilović Award, Croatian Theatre Award and Orlando Award for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
• Vladimir Nazor Award for Lifetime Achievement in Film Art, 2019 (his second Nazor Award).
• Mary Pickford Award of the International Press Academy for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to the Entertainment Industry, 2019.

Legacy and Influence

The legacy of Rade Šerbedžija cannot easily be reduced to a single role or a single country. He began as a star of the shared Yugoslav stage and became one of the few actors from the region to build a lasting career in world cinema.

His path, from Bunić and the Zagreb Academy to Brijuni, London and Hollywood, is often cited as an example of an artist who stayed attached to the region he came from even when he was forced to leave it. Through the Ulysses Theatre he continues to bring together artists from different countries.

His children, Danilo and Lucija Šerbedžija, have carried on the family tradition in film, and Danilo’s film 72 Days brought his father a fourth Golden Arena. Rade Šerbedžija turned eighty on 27 July 2026 and remains active on stage, in film and in public life.