Jana Ctverackova - Co Si Muzete Zahrat Anglicky May 2026

She sees language not as a barrier but as a costume. “A character isn’t just what they wear or how they walk,” she says. “A character is how they think. And thinking in another language is the most radical transformation an actor can make.” So, what can Jana Čtveráčková play in English? The answer is no longer a hesitant list of small parts. It is a confident declaration: She can play your protagonist. She can play your villain. She can play your Shakespeare and your Sarah Kane. She can play the woman who breaks your heart and the woman who steals the scene.

The next time a casting director in Prague, London, or New York asks, “Co si můžete zahrát anglicky?” they will already know the name. They will already have seen the reel. And they will already understand that Jana Čtveráčková isn’t just a Czech actor who speaks English.

Without a pause, Čtveráčková transformed. Her posture shifted. Her voice dropped an octave. For three minutes, she delivered a harrowing, slang-filled confession that left the room silent. When she finished, the director simply said: “That’s not an accent. That’s a soul.” Jana Ctverackova - Co si muzete zahrat anglicky

Her advice to young Czech actors is blunt: “Do not wait for the international casting director to find you. You must walk into the room and answer the question before they ask it. Say: ‘I can play your lead. And I can do it in your language.’” Perhaps the most famous answer to “Co si můžete zahrát anglicky?” came during a 2022 casting session for a Dutch-Czech psychological thriller. The director, knowing Čtveráčková’s reputation, asked her to improvise a three-minute monologue as a woman confessing to a murder—in English, with a specific regional American accent (Baltimore).

Many bilingual actors translate their emotional cues from Czech. Čtveráčková refuses. She creates a separate emotional memory map for each English role. “When I play a sad scene in Czech, I think of a specific memory. When I play it in English, I find a different memory—one that happened while I was speaking English. Otherwise, the emotion rings false.” She sees language not as a barrier but as a costume

She admits that performing for a native English audience versus a Czech audience is radically different. “For Czechs listening to English, they are forgiving of small errors. For Brits or Americans, they expect perfection. But here’s the secret: They also love a slight, unplaceable accent. It makes you exotic but not foreign. That’s the sweet spot.” Why It Matters: The Industry Need for Bilingual Actors The question “Co si můžete zahrát anglicky?” is becoming increasingly urgent in the Czech entertainment industry. With the rise of international streamers (Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon) shooting in Prague, there is a constant demand for local actors who can play “European” characters without dubbing. However, most of these roles are small: the waiter, the police officer, the nurse.

Before she even learns her lines, she spends two weeks working with a dialect coach to “lock” the sound of the character. She records herself reading a page of the script, then compares it to a native speaker’s recording. She marks every vowel shift and consonant drop. “If the ‘t’ in ‘water’ sounds like a Prague ‘t’, the audience will stop listening to the emotion and start listening to the accent,” she explains. And thinking in another language is the most

She got the role. Today, Jana Čtveráčková is not stopping at English. When asked “Co si můžete zahrát anglicky?” she now often counters with “A co německy? Nebo francouzsky?” (And what about German? Or French?). She is currently learning German for an Austrian film role and has a working knowledge of French for future theatre collaborations.