Jiří Lábus

Olda (Kaiser) and I were known for doing various practical jokes. And one day, it was in the second half of April of 1989, the phone suddenly rang at my house. 'This is the State Security.' He said his name, some lieutenant. I said: 'Hello.' 'Mr. Lábus, please realize that the fact that I'm talking to you is not some sort of joke.' They knew I was doing various practical jokes with Kaiser. 'Can we talk to you sometime soon?' I said: 'Yes, when?' And he said: ‘What suits you best? Maybe on Friday?' It was Wednesday, I remember that very well. I said: 'I can make it on Friday morning.' 'Okay, then at ten o'clock in the morning come to Bartolomejska street, do you know where that is?' I said: 'Yes, I know where it is.' 'Someone will be waiting for you there and will take you to the office.' 'Okay, okay.' Well, I had a cinema ticket for the movie The Prague Five that afternoon at Lucerna at four o'clock. I had agreed to go. I was sitting at home, about an hour had passed since the phone call, and suddenly the doorbell rang. I was still living in my parents flats. I went to open the door, there were two guys. ‘Hello, Mr Lábus. State Security. We need to talk to you now.' I said: 'But I have a ticket to the cinema at four o'clock.' 'And you can't return it? We have a car here, so we'll take you there, straight to Lucerna.' My father, who had gone shopping, just appeared in the door. He said: 'Where are you going?' I couldn't say I was going for an interrogation, he would have flipped out, I couldn’t do that, could I? So I said: 'They're producers from Gottwaldov, we’re going to arrange some filming.' They stared open mouthed. So I left with them and went to Lucerna. There I returned the ticket and we drove to the State Security Headquarters. We arrived and went to the office. The first one came with me and in the office there was this intellectual, a handsome man with a beard - he really looked like an intellectual. He said to me, and I remember this: 'Mr. Lábus, what are you doing to us?' 'That's what I wanted to ask you.' 'You know, you’ve signed all those petitions.' I said - and I looked him in the eyes: 'Listen, I've known Mr. Havel for a long time. And he is such a decent person. I'm sure that if you had had the petition in front of you, you would have signed it too.' And then he said a sentence that I will never forget: 'You know, I also used to work in the culture industry.' That was it for me, this. And then he started showing me photos of me going to Wenceslas Square every day of Palach's week. I said: 'Ah, well, this is before the sprinkling, here it is after the sprinkling.' And then he asked: 'And you don't mind not acting in films?' 'I wouldn't want to act in that shit anyway,' I said. He looked surprised. And then he said to me: 'Well, listen, you signed that A Few Sentences petition in the theater. Who brought it there?' I said: 'It was already there when I got there, everyone signed it, right?' And then I found out why they called me there. May 1st was approaching. And he asked me: 'Mr. Lábus, will you and Mr. Kaiser go to the parade?' 'No, I'll watch the parade on TV.' They sighed with relief. They were afraid. We were at the height of popularity, because of that show Maybe Even A Magician Will Come. They were afraid that we would do something during the parade. That's why they invited me there. When I said I was going to watch it on TV, they calmed down and sent me home."

"I was still a part of Ypsilon Theatre in Liberec. I received a call from the Barrandov Film Studios that the Major Zeman series was being filmed. I had already seen some of the episodes and to begin with they were these kind of detective stories. ‘And this episode, Mr. Lábus, is about that hijacking of a plane.’ I remembered the incident. 'Kind of like a hijack thriller.' Oh well. I was in Liberec and then arrived in Prague. I had the script at home, in Prague, but I was still rehearsing in Liberec, as I had some plays to prepare for before their premiers. I arrived in Prague just before the start of the first shooting day of The Thirty Cases of Major Zeman series the night after a theatre play. And it was really late by the time I arrived, and I, moron, didn’t even read the script. I just quickly learned the interrogation scene for the next day. I came to Barrandov and one of my colleagues said: 'Do you know what we're shooting?' I signed the contract for Major Zeman, about the hijacking of a plane. She said, 'It's not just about the the hijacking.' And I said: 'So what's it about?' 'They are combining it with criticising that Plastic People group.' And I said: 'What?!' I had already signed the contract. Only then did I start reading the whole script. 'Jesus Christ!' But what could I do? I had already signed the contract. This is how it happened.'