The actor who “was born in the wrong country, was born in the wrong time”. Adrian Pintea was struck down by melancholy far too early

Adrian Pintea is one of the best-known and best-loved Romanian actors of all time, and this despite the fact that he passed away far too soon.

More than 15 years after his death, Adrian Pintea continues to be a symbol for younger generations of actors, and even now he is adored and, at the same time, missed by Romanian audiences.

Adrian Pintea, a soul too sensitive for the world around him

He was born on 9 October 1954 and died on 8 June 2007, leaving behind a huge void. He changed the face of theatre and cinema forever, and his passing saddened the hearts of tens of thousands of fans across the country.

On that early summer day in 2007, Adrian Pintea died on a hospital bed at Fundeni, suffering from cirrhosis and complications from a dental abscess. Together, the two conditions would prove fatal.

Melancholic and eternally in love, Pintea had suffered through each break-up throughout his life, each time taking refuge in the theatre, among other things. These break-ups would influence the way he played his roles, the actor being the pure definition of nostalgia.

He dedicated himself to each role he played, and Hamlet, Henry IV and Iancu Jianu would bring him immortality. He seemed to be the reincarnation of Mihai Eminescu, playing the great poet himself in the 1989 film Un Bulgăre de Humă, directed by Nicolae Mărgineanu.

About the actor’s childhood, his sister would later say: “Adrian was a wonder of a child: very beautiful, sensitive, affectionate – especially towards his mother. He was extremely generous – he would give his last toy to any child he wanted – and sickly, which is why, even though he was older, I always took care of him”, she told “Adevărul”.

He had a passion for drawing since he was a child, spending hours at a time at this hobby, and he is also said to have had an uncanny talent for oratory, for which his colleagues were often to his advantage.

“If we didn’t want to be listened to, all we had to do was ask Adi to keep the Romanian teacher talking. He always had something to ask in these cases, and we would sit in awe listening to their debates to which none of us could add a word. And time flew by, and we were happy that Adi had escaped us. This happened over and over again. The teacher had probably figured out the trick, but he took great pleasure in discussing with him things in literature that only they knew and only they understood,” Mariella Simon, a former high school classmate, recounted, according to the source.

He has had a hard time getting over his mother’s death: “melancholy as it gets”

Oana Pellea, who was his good friend for many years, still talks about him fondly. “Adrian. Eyes. Soul. Many books. Super sensitivity. Enormous talent. Melancholy to spare. Culture to match. And talent again, and sadness beyond this world. I think he was born in the wrong country. He was born in the wrong time.

He was romantic, encyclopedic structure, knew how to love painfully and even lived painfully everything, like any great conscience. It was assumed loser by the choice of humanity in a cold, technical century. I think he was in another life a horse. Perhaps in the next… in this world he got along best with horses and not with people. Horses knew him for who he is in his truth, in his essence, humans did not.

I loved him, admired him, recognized his worth and ached for his superb melancholy after a beautiful world. He called me “mother” because I was his mother in “Hamlet” in Craiova. When his mother died, he called me at night and asked me how I had coped when my mother died. I replied that my mother also helped me from the other side to get over her earthly loss. I told him to trust his departed aunt, for she too would help him. She did. Since then he called me “mother”.

Since he left I miss him, but I know he’s wheeling this big sky riding a beautiful horse and feeling free at last and happy. Isn’t that right, Adi?” she added, quoted by adevarul.ro.