Pawel Szajda

Pawel Szajda is an American screen and stage actor who started his career with a commercial for the 1996 Olympics. Born and raised in Farmington, Connecticut, he landed a part in Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) after director Audrey Wells, unable to cast a Polish actor because of visa issues, chose him. In that film he played a Polish immigrant handyman. He continued acting on screen and stage while studying English literature and economics, spending a year at Bridgewater State College before attending Fordham University at Lincoln Center. His early credits include Venom (2005), the HBO miniseries Generation Kill (2008), in which he played Corporal Walt Hasser, and a leading role in Andrzej Wajda's Tatarak (2009), which competed at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival. He has also worked in New York theater and in 2022 took a recurring part in the Apple TV+ drama For All Mankind, playing the Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Poletov.