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The actor: There’s no trust in young talent

Costas Gakis, born in 1977, is no ordinary actor. A lover of music, particularly the guitar, who studied in the history and archaeology department of Athens University, Gakis won the Dimitris Horn Prize for only the second performance of his life. The role was in «Katsarida» (Cockroach), the hit play last season by his childhood friend and close colleague Vassilis Mavrogeorgiou. The production is being staged again this year, until December, at the Neos Cosmos Theater. Paradoxically, his unorthodox trajectory has protected him from the drawbacks of the profession. He acknowledges that his experience has not been typical of the Athenian theater world. «There is huge unemployment among young actors, and even if you are working the basic wage is not enough to live on,» Gakis says. And he says he perceives a serious lack of trust in young artists. «If you are 40 or 50 before you get your first serious job, you have so many things that you have wanted to do,» he says. «The challenge is to say what you have to say at the right time.»

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