Karol Sibielak

Karol Sibielak was born on October 16th, 1977 in Warsaw, Poland. When he was five years old, his parents moved to Austria in order to escape the then-communistic regime in Poland. His father Antoni, a journalist, and his mother Julita, a mathematics teacher, had a difficult time starting a whole new life in the foreign country. They did a great job, however, and made it possible for Karol, who became an Austrian citizen in 1986, to lead a normal life. Karol discovered his interest in acting rather late. His mother, who performed quite a few times in theater back in Poland herself, took him to a performance of Apollo 13 (1995). He was so impressed, that from now on he decided to pursue an acting career. At the age of 18, Karol passed his school leaving examinations. However, he did not go straight to acting school, but decided to study computer science, which is his second big area of interest. He thought that in such a tough business as the acting one, it could prove useful to have learned something more "real" to fall back on in case acting didn't go well. After finishing computer school, he worked as a software developer in an austrian bank. Having established himself as a computer scientist and having earned enough money to support himself, Karol started his acting education. He took private lessons in theater acting, including rhetoric, improvisation and mime. Within the scope of acting school, he performed in various theater plays from Bertolt Brecht, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Charles Dickens and others. He also did some external theatrical projects, the greatest of which was performing John the Baptist in the play 'Redentiner Osterspiel', which was performed, as originally written, in old-German language. Karol gave his on-camera debut in the year 2000 when he performed a tiny role in the Austrian TV series MA 2412 (1998). In 2002, he played in the movie Free Radicals (2003), directed by Barbara Albert. Recently, Karol played the main part in the austrian TV series Fladeranten Schau (2009), with more projects to come.