Stefan Kostadinov Valdobrev (; born 20 May 1970) is a Bulgarian actor, film and theatre composer, singer-songwriter and filmmaker. He received classical training at the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia.
Valdobrev rose to prominence in the early 1990s, mainly with his hit songs, which made him extremely popular and gained him idol status in the Bulgarian music scene, twice being awarded as best male artist at the National Music Television ceremonies. Despite that he never quit his acting career and took part in numerous performances which have spanned a wide variety of genres from classical to contemporary drama, and from popular comedies to alternative, non-commercial projects, all staged by the most prominent Bulgarian directors on the most significant theatre stages. At that time Valdobrev gradually entered the world of film and theatre music and since 1992 has gone on to enjoy composing the original scores for more than 70 stage performances and 20 feature and documentary movies, winning many plaudits and awards for his work. In 2000 he received the Golden Rose film award for debut for the Dog's Home original movie soundtrack featuring Arabel Karajan. In 2008 he composed the music for Stefan Komandarev's highly acclaimed film The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, a Bulgarian-German co-production with Miki Manojlovic in the lead role, which won a considerable number of international awards and reached the Short List of The Academy Awards 2010 for Foreign Language film.
Although Valdobrev continued performing in theatre (Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, Muller's Hamletmachine, Anouilh's Eurydice), he gradually moved away from this area, and also from the music stage, to become more established as a film actor. In 2004 he got his break in Burning out, for which he received the Golden Rose for Best Male performance at the National Film Awards.
In 2006-2007 Valdobrev completed a film directing specialization at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU). After graduating from there he directed a few short films, TV programs and music videos. He made his director's film debut in 2010 with the documentary comedy drama My Mate Manchester United. Provided with the cameo appearance of the Bulgarian football superstar Dimitar Berbatov, the film won two international awards and was presented in the competition of the official selection of 21 major world film festivals: IDFA Amsterdam, HotDocs Toronto, ZagrebDox, Sarajevo and Warsaw among them.
After being away from the rock stage for almost a decade in 2012 Stefan Valdobrev decided to rejoin his old band "The Usual Suspects" and to start recording songs and performing live in concerts again.
Early life Stefan Valdobrev was born in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, the son of Maria Valdobreva (née Atanassova) and Kostadin Valdobrev, both civil engineers. His mother was descended from Macedonian refugees who settled in the Rhodope Mountains, and his paternal ancestors come from midst of the country, where the Thracian valley meets with the Central Balkan region. Valdobrev has a sister, Iva (born 1965).
Not that he was a bad student, but he found early on that he would rather immerse himself in arts or football than attend to his studies. According to his own account: "The good old socialist block of flats I lived in was in the middle of a magical Bermuda triangle in which I got lost – the stadium, the cinema and the circus. I spent all my time there – playing with a ball, wandering with my friends, sneaking into the ballerinas' trailers, acting scenes from films I'd just watched, so I often forgot to go home until late at night. The school was something in between, but never became a part of this triangle".
He played the piano for quite a long time, but then decided to quit and take up the guitar. He started to take an interest in the theatre and joined a local amateur company at the town's chitalishte – a common Bulgarian Art House, where a variety of different arts could be trained and practiced. Very soon it became like a home to him: rehearsing plays on the stage, studying the guitar in the basement, reading and writing poetry in the attic, writing music for his own lyrics. It was not long before he made his acting debut as the King in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. At the age of 18 he established himself as a songwriter, performing his first solo concert. Additionally he formed a rock band called "Alleya Alya" which made several studio recording sessions, all of them now missing.
Meanwhile Valdobrev attended the High School for Foreign Languages in Stara Zagora. For a Communist country behind the Iron Curtain which Bulgaria was at that time, this school was like a breath of fresh air – with a discipline not so strict and teachers being lenient and having a personal approach to each of the students. They soon noticed Valdobrev's wandering mind and lack of concentration in class and created a system which tried to help him study the English language better. They gave him constant tasks to listen to and write down lyrics of new songs, perform them with his guitar in the lessons and translate the words for his classmates. These everyday concerts were the real productive education for him and later, when he was traveling over the Black Sea resorts and Germany as a street musician, he already had a set-list of 300 prepared and well-rehearsed world hit songs of any genre.
In 1989 Valdobrev was accepted in Sofia University to study English philology, but soon quit and attended the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts to become part of what was later called: "the most successful acting class of the two highly praised Bulgarian professors – Krikor Azaryan and Todor Kolev". Together with his fellow actors and directors Galin Stoev, Marius Kurkinski, Kamen Donev, Stefka Yanorova, Koyna Ruseva, Kasiel Noah Asher, Lilia Maraviglia they formed the core of a New Wave in Bulgarian theatre.
Career
Acting
Theatre
Even before their graduation, Valdobrev and his friends were very active in acting or staging in professional theatres like the Academy Drama Theatre or the Youth Theatre. Such kick-start performances as Sam Shepard's Angel City, Georg Buchner's Leonce and Lena, William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Goran Stefanovski's Black Hole, Chekhov Revue and others appeared between 1991 and 1993. In June, 1993 Valdobrev became a member of the troupe of the National Theatre, but some time later he had to start serving his 12 months' mandatory military service, so eventually moved to the Bulgarian Army Theatre (actually, a civil repertory theatre sponsored by the Ministry of Defense, with a leading status in the cultural life). He spent there 10 years, taking part in many significant performances like Georg Buchner's Woyzeck, Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Eric Bogosian's Suburbia and Jean Anouilh's Eurydice. In 1997 the independent theatre company La Strada, formed by the popular director Tedi Moskov produced three major hit performances in collaboration with the Bulgarian Army Theatre: The Master and Margarita (presented at the official selection of the Avignon Theatre Festival), Commedia del Servitore (a co-production with the Avignon Theatre Festival) and Fantasmagorii. As one of the cast Valdobrev spent the next five years touring and presenting the plays at the most prestigious European theatre festivals.
2007 marked a significant turning point in his career. After an absence from the theatre stage for a few years, Valdobrev returned as a freelance actor for a beneficial collaboration with the Paris-based Comedie-Francaise Bulgarian director Galin Stoev, who started occasionally to return home only to stage the texts of the prominent contemporary young dramatist Yana Borisova. Small Play for a Children’s Room (2008), Pleasantlyscary (2010) and People from Oz (2013) became remarkable events in the theatre life and were many times awarded for best performance, best play, or best director.
Film
In the early 1990s Valdobrev made quite a few appearances on Bulgarian National Television, mainly as a participant in a students' show with a cult status named "Coo-Coo". Despite this success he subsequently decided to turn to film for more challenging roles. While struggling to establish himself in cinema, he took small parts in international co-production B movies. His onscreen career began in 2000 with the supporting role of the tricky Communist activist Popadamchev in the Bulgarian-Macedonian production Warming Up Yesterday's Lunch. The TV comedy Encounter (2003) gave him his first leading role as a clumsy journalist who falls in love with his cousin's girlfriend. 2004 was the year of his big movie break when he took on the lead in Burning Out, a love drama by director Stanimir Trifonov, set in the immediate post World War II period. Valdobrev’s performance of the romantic Italian doctor Enrico Corsa, separated from his Bulgarian wife and sent to a Communist prison camp, from which he finally escapes, has been described as fine, deep and centered , and brought him the Best Actor award at the Golden Rose National film ceremony. Valdobrev was cast as Mitko, an expert of campaigns in the team of his American colleague Tim Knight (Ross McCall) in the 2007 United States-Bulgarian political thriller Trade Routes. Taking the chance to play opposite the Italian prominent actor Sergio Castellitto, Valdobrev decided to make a cameo appearance in the 2007 TV war drama L'Aviatore, performing an Italian Jew, rescued by the Genoese skilled-pilot Massimo Teglio (Castellitto).
In 2008 he collaborated with director and friend Stefan Komandarev in his highly acclaimed film The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, performing the supporting character of the Bulgarian emigrant Stoyan. The film enjoyed a rich festival career, won many nominations and awards, was released theatrically in 72 countries worldwide and reached the Short List of The Academy Awards 2010 for a Foreign Language film. That same year he starred opposite the Bulgarian born French actress Natalia Dontcheva in The Glass River, a mystery film by Stanimir Trifonov in which Valdobrev portrayed the obstinate priest Peter, a hermit who is experiencing a crisis of faith and trying to discover the secret of the Cathar-Bogomils, whilst crossing paths with an unknown visitor to his village, the French symbologist Ellen Tibaud. In 2012 Valdobrev played the lead role in the road comedy drama Migration of the Belted Bonito - a film by the Bulgarian independent and critically acclaimed film-maker Lyudmil Todorov. Valdobrev portrayed the poor and dreamy painter of Orthodox icons Simo, who, together with his close friend and neighbour, finds the most unorthodox way to make ends meet, with them both setting out on a comical journey from their modest village to the Black Sea shore. Critics praised the film as being "one of the finest comedies of the newest Bulgarian cinema".
Music
Film and Theatre When he was still in the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts Stefan Valdobrev was assigned to compose the music for almost every one of the performances he played in. This is how he gained skills directly in practice. By the end of his acting education he had already written the scores for 10 stage performances. His work garnered attention, providing him a long list of commissions to the professional scene. He then enjoyed a long period of productive years, composing the music for more than 70 theatre plays and 20 feature and documentary films, receiving many plaudits, awards and nominations.