Fast Confession - Kamil Bartošek alias Kazma: I still Feel that the World Belongs to me

We have just finished Fast Confession, the camera switched off and you took off your glasses. But why do you wear them in front of the media all the time?

Image, nothing else. Once I started, so I continue in doing it, like Aleš Brichta.

He has no eye!

Well, he happens not to. (laughter)

In the beginning Leoš Mareš also wore a fur coat and nowadays he doesn´t any more.

In this respect it is perhaps a relic; I must admit that there are situations where it is not suitable. That did not exist in the past, I simply never took them off. I have moved on a bit...

Dům na prodej 7kk - Praha 6, 307m2, Praha 6

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Do you perhaps want to imply that you have matured? Do you feel grown up?

Not at all, I still feel like twenty and that will perhaps unfortunately be so to the end of my life. In this respect I am a bit stuck. I still feel as if the world belongs to me. (laughter) But one unwittingly matures...

Everybody knows how you´ve started shooting videos in a block of flats at the Garden City. Boom, ten years on and you are a star! What is it like? Did you sometimes think that this would happen, did you hope it would?

I have strongly wished it would. Don´t laugh, I know that it sounds superficial and foolish. But on the other hand, it has not happened by chance, I have chosen the path and never left it. I´ve been working on it for the last ten years; not on being a star, although it all started by this shallow ambition; I wanted to be famous, but today there is something entirely different behind it. I enjoyed what I was doing, I liked the means I had chosen. I have always looked up to people such as Mareš.

Is there someone else to whom you look up?

Look, not any more. It had been part of it; I have always been nervous by those people, it unnerved me, but today I have no problem to talk to anyone, I can address anyone… When I recall the situation when I stood face-to-face with Justin Bieber, who was shouting at me from ten centimetres who do I think I am, and to take those sunglasses off when I am speaking to him, and it was him, do you understand; I got into a situation where I started to stammer and did not know what to do. So yes, it was wild, but of course it was partially due to the situation, that we crashed in there, we had no business to be there …it was a mess.

I would ... myself ... from fear...

Well, it was certainly one of the most dangerous situations in which we found ourselves. I was also telling myself: hell, what am I doing here. As I say... nowadays it is like I say to myself: because of whom should I be quivering here…

Sure, I understand. It is still fun, you are shifting the borderlines ... When did entertainment turn into business?

Today it is already a great machinery and a project which requires a lot of people and things around. We have a production company, we have a studio, we have a foundation, we have a lot of things. It is such a colossus that it must necessarily be business so that all those involved could make a living.

However, primarily it has not started as a business, in that respect it is clean. But there is a need for it to be business so that we could go on, shift those borders, do even greater projects. It turned into a business when I started to accept money for it, but you know what… It was one thousand crowns banknotes in those days, I made one episode for three thousand. We are talking about different sums; today it´s business.

If I wanted you to host my graduation ball; do you still do this sort of thing at all?

Yes, I do, I am still a presenter. I go to festivals, company events, parties and a few graduation balls to satisfy the calling and crying youths. (laughter) But I do it rather than for money for those people, for them to be able to "touch me". But the demand is so great that I had to set those prices so that not everyone could reach me, because otherwise I would do nothing but drive around. So maybe the prices are higher, but the customers have always been more than happy with me and my performance. (laughter)

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These major projects such as The Table is Set take up an extreme amount of time and you don´t even know whether it will work, whether it will be broadcast. Who is paying it?

Clearly, much of it is gamble, a risk. We simply do not know. The only thing we have is experience, a system, we have gone through something… On this basis we can get closer to the objective. So far we have always managed. But there is a risk there, we try to eliminate it by having a drawn-up system of releasing the finances gradually. We have decisive moments when we say to ourselves whether it is worthwhile to continue to put money into the project, that we are so far that we will manage.

Otherwise, obviously our great patron is the Seznam search engine. That is a client for whom we produce One Man Show, and Stream also.

Can you tell us how much did that episode of The Table is Set cost...?

I cannot. (laughter) But every right-thinking person must be able to imagine those sums. As internet production goes, I would say that these are record-breaking, revolutionary kinds of money. Nobody can, in my view, come anywhere close to us as regards the budget or what we are producing here.

You are not interested in how much does it costs, or does that bypass you?

I am the producer of the programme, so I am the one whom does it concern the most, the one who is most interested in it. I can see into it, I distribute it, I get it, I negotiate about it, expend it. I am the one to bear all profits and losses of the project. To sum up - one part requires up to several million crowns.

Has anyone ever tried to bribe you for example needing to discredit something or vice versa, having heard that something is being shot and he doesn´t wish to appear in it?

We get offers prior to elections. That is a classic thing that politicians want something, anything - that´s a seasonal, standard matter. But that someone would come with a request of cleverly doing away with his wife, we did not heard that one yet, but I think that we could open up an agency for it. Clever kinds of fun… There are a lot of rich people here who simply need something to be arranged so that it would look good. I believe that we know how to do that. (laughter)

Have you been threatened for something that was done? Such as I will kill you, I will sue you…?

Look those we not even proper treats or anything, maybe in the past, but nowadays few people would dare. All those things that we do are done so that mainly nobody is injured. Legal action… sometimes they come, it is part of it, but when someone says that they will sue you, they will most probably not do it. Each programme is accompanied by legal actions filed by those who are discredited there, such as TV Prima, Czech Lion Awards. But we have a team of lawyers who deal with it, it does not concern me very much. Within the framework of my protection the lawyers do not even bother me.

It there something in the pipeline now that we can look forward to?

(laughter) You can bet, but I will not tell you anything. I would have to kill you then. (laughter)

How much did fame change you? One of your colleagues and friends says that you are still the same kind good boy…

I hope that that´s the case, that I did not change much. Kazma is a role, a kind of alter ego that I sell. But at the same time there is my own world, which I am trying to protect. I don´t need people to know everything about me, who I am. It is a game. But at the same time it is a bit schizophrenic, I admit. I can't say about myself that I have remained the same, that´s up to others. But it is clear that it will change something. The whole of this world, the busy craziness of Prague... I am an ordinary boy from a village, where nobody is in a rush to get anywhere. So in this respect I have certainly changed because I have seen and experienced so many things about which I had no idea that they exist. But it is about your attitude; and I hope mine is good, at least I am trying to do it so that I could say it and I think that in the end I remained to be a good man, not the same but a good one.

Am I not to expect some star mannerisms then?

No; I am against it and throughout my career I have laughed at those celebrities and I still find it funny to this day. (laughter) People whose credit is elsewhere, act posh here, as if it´s all below them. It is funny.

How do you treat fans, or rather female fans? How do you cope with brunt of the invitations to a date or even a wedding?

It is my daily bread, but to respond to all is not in my power. I am glad when I manage to publish something at least time to time. But when someone in the street comes up to me and politely asks to take a picture with me, I have no problem. Sometimes it is a bit difficult, but that´s part of it. The photos are a phenomenon; I think that I took more photos then Karel Gott, because in his time only people from television and journalists had cameras. Nowadays everybody has one.

And what about all the women? Does all that attention massage your ego?

(laughter) Well you know that it does, and whose it wouldn´t, when you come into a club and everyone knows who came and show some interest in you. One is never alone. I have received so many offers…

For example now at one ball, one girl came up to me if she could take a picture with me, so I did, turned round and continued my conversation, but she kept standing there, so I asked her what was going on, and she tells me: "I have to make a confession; I did not come to take a photo, but to ask you whether you would sleep with me, have sex." It shocked me completely... I gentlemanly refused her offer. This simply happens.

Your girlfriend Andrea must have the nerves of iron...

It´s not like that, it´s like this, she is beautiful more than the world itself, wherever she goes, and she gets attention from men in the same way. We would have to both go crazy. I think that we have a healthy set up, it´s cool. Of course it is super, it is hard to resist and not to be a sinner… (laughter)

I will not torment you any more with it. Tell me, at the beginning you earned a few hundred, today it is another song entirely... What do you enjoy to spend the money on?

It is not that I would enjoy it. I don´t see expensive cars, stupid things, designer things, not at all. To me shopping is tiresome, I keep postponing it as much as possible. Once a year I take some (girl)friend shopping, to advise me. I prefer to spend on the energy, people, to move our shared dream forward. When we come up with some idea, I like to invest in it; into those projects.

Wait, you want to tell me you put your own funds into those projects?

You can bet I do.

Oh, I didn´t know. Are you happy?

Yes, I am. You have just caught me in one of those stages. I think it is okay to sometimes be unhappy, that duality in life works well, you wouldn´t even know that you are happy if you haven´t sometimes been unhappy, too, and vice versa. That is the scale. Now I have a beautiful period of my life, I have a lot of energy, lot of things are going well. I have a path and objective ahead of me. I feel great.

What will you do when you are fifty, sixty, will you still be doing these crazy projects?

(laughter) I hope so, but I cannot imagine it, like we are sitting here, devising where and how we will get over a fence ... But it would be nice. I have an idea in my mind, the way I want this to develop. But in fifty years time I could be somewhere in Florida or Hawaii and I should be that man that lights up his cigars by banknotes … (laughter) But not really - look we have some general plans and ambitions and I know that we can do it and that we will succeed. I do not know what will be in so many years, but it would be a mistake to stand rooted to the spot.

Thank you very much for the interview, I am looking forward to the next project.

Editor´s Note.: This interview took place before the affair when he "tricked" Leoš Mareš. Although Kamil got the opportunity to comment on the whole affair, he refused. Apparently it is not necessary. On social networks he irritates Leoš Mareš that he is w waiting for the keys from his Ferrari….