At 16, the young Czech actor Jiri Madl was poised to become a professional ice hockey player, but an elbow injury prevented him from pursuing this dream. Faced with a serious change in his plans and armed only with his experience in high school plays and drama classes, he auditioned for - and ultimately won the leading role - in Karel Janák's comedy Snowboarders. Awarded the Czech Lion for the most successful film of 2004, Madl was simultaneously the youngest person ever named to the Personalities of the Czech Republic list by the Czech "MF DNES Magazine. Following the success of Snowboarders he took on three more comic roles: Taming Crocodiles he starred together with a french actress Clemence Thioly. Madl has been passionate about learning foreign languages, having studied at several institutions including learning English at the British Council, Italian at the Instituto Italiano di Cultura, and German at the Goethe Institute in Berlin. Now 27, Jiri wrote and directed his first feature film To See the Sea.
