Dorina Lazăr honoured with the Gopo Lifetime Achievement Award

She is a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (2012), a distinction received from the French Ministry of Culture.

Corina Sabău, 19.09.2026, 14:00

Actress Dorina Lazăr received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Gopo Awards Gala. The distinction celebrates a career spanning more than six decades, as well as a body of work that has accompanied significant moments in the history of Romanian cinema, from the popular productions of the 1980s to the auteur cinema of the 1990s and early 2000s.

A graduate of the I.L. Caragiale Institute of Theatre and Cinematography, Dorina Lazăr made her stage debut in 1961 at the Bucharest Regional Theatre. Since 1969, she has been a member of the Odeon Theatre company, the institution to which she devoted the greater part of her artistic career and which she headed as director between 2003 and 2017. In recognition of her work in this capacity, she was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (2012) by France’s Ministry of Culture and Communication.

One of her most significant film roles remains that of taxi driver Angela Coman in Angela Goes On (1981). For this performance, Dorina Lazăr received the Best Actress Award from the Association of Romanian Filmmakers. More than four decades later, the character returns in a cinematic dialogue. In Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023), Radu Jude incorporates excerpts from the 1981 production and places Angela Coman in dialogue with Angela, the character played by Ilinca Manolache, who revisits many of the locations featured in the original film.

I asked Dorina Lazăr whether, with age and experience, comes a greater sense of freedom in acting. Her answer, however, shifted the emphasis from freedom towards vulnerability and emotion. Dorina Lazar: “With age comes fear as well, perhaps more so than when you are young. When you are young, you feel strong, invulnerable; you are not afraid of forgetting your lines, you do not fear stumbling on stage, nor do you worry about your appearance or the way you look. And yet, at every stage of a career, both the debuting actor and the one approaching the end of the road are haunted by the same fears and the same thoughts.

There is a famous anecdote about Sarah Bernhardt, who was in her dressing room before a premiere, alongside a young actress who was beautiful and very self-assured. Seeing how relaxed she was, Sarah Bernhardt asked her whether she was not nervous, and the young woman replied that she was not. The great actress then gave her the now-famous reply: When you feel nervous, then you will become an actress.
I too was extremely nervous when I worked on Radu Jude’s film. When I made films in my youth, I felt more confident; I knew the film crews. This time, however, I worked exclusively with young people and did not know anyone. What deeply impressed me was that I encountered an extraordinarily well-prepared team in every respect. The actors impressed me too; even the one who had only two lines did not hesitate for a moment. Everything had been rehearsed and prepared in such a way that, when it came to filming, everything would turn out perfectly.”

Looking back on more than six decades of her career, Dorina Lazăr avoids the notion of definitive moments or roles that might have ‘established’ her in a particular direction. Instead, she speaks of a journey that gradually took shape over time, of accumulation and of the joy of a life in which she fulfilled her dream of becoming an actress. Dorina Lazar: “May God grant you such an opportunity in life: to work, to work tirelessly, and yet never feel the fatigue, but rather feel as though you are living within a beautiful flow, like music. A life in which you listen to Vivaldi.

I do not believe that a role radically changes your behavior, but there are undoubtedly milestones that leave their mark on you. For me, The Art of Conversation, based on the text by Ileana Vulpescu, was such a milestone, particularly because of the impact it had on the audience.
I remember mothers coming to my dressing room with their children after the performance and telling me that what they had seen on stage had happened to them as well. The same was true of Napasta (The Misfortune), Alexa Visarion’s film adaptation of the play by I.L. Caragiale.
And in old age, God gave me yet another gift. At present, I am playing the role of a writer in a production called Unrest, written by Ivan Vyrypaev and directed by Bobi Pricop. Everything that happens in this play, everything written by this author, who was born in Russia and became a Polish citizen, is incredibly rewarding for an actor.

I have never performed a text in my entire career that was so rich and so full of meaning. We have been performing it for three seasons, and every time I read it again, I discover more and more meanings, new interpretations and new possibilities for acting.”
Dorina Lazăr’s filmography includes roles in films representative of several stages in the development of Romanian cinema, among them The Crossroads (1979, directed by Virgil Calotescu), Snapshot Around the Family Table (1980, dir. Ada Pistiner), The Mark of the Snake (1982, dir. Mircea Veroiu), The Graduates (1986, dir. Nicolae Corjos), The Oak (1992, dir. Lucian Pintilie) and Blessed You, Prison (2002, dir. Nicolae Mărgineanu).

In 2013, the actress returned in one of the leading roles in Bucharest NonStop, directed by Dan Chișu, adding a new character type to her already remarkable gallery of roles. (EE/Bill)