Irony, Stubbornness, and Healthy Cynicism: Hristo Mutafchiev, the Man Who Never Gives Up

Hristo Mutafchiev is among the most prominent contemporary Bulgarian actors and socially engaged figures. Chairman of the Union of Bulgarian Actors, recipient of numerous awards for cultural contribution, and a voice with a distinct presence in public life. But beyond the stage, his role as a citizen, a man, and a patient reveals another horizon—one of personal transformation, respect for medicine, and the effort to treat health as a value rather than a given.

In a conversation with Healthcare Magazine, Hristo Mutafchiev speaks with irony and realism about health as a personal responsibility, the meaning of trust in medicine, and the need for a human touch—on both sides of the system.

I. Health Beyond Symptoms: Values, Choices, and Life

How has your understanding of the word “health” changed over the years—not just as the absence of disease, but as an attitude, a behavior, and a long-term vision?

Hristo Mutafchiev: Considering that I was hit in the head with a wet rag (Editor’s note: the stroke suffered in 2010), I certainly have reason to change my thinking about health. Because if that “wet rag” hadn’t hit me, I wouldn’t have changed at all and would have continued doing whatever I wanted. After that incident, I began to realize that the greeting “Be healthy!” and its meaning is far more important than having money or buying a new car.

It turned out that those things don’t matter at all. The only thing that matters is being healthy so that you can buy that car, build a new house, or have more money. And this change made me realize that it’s good to take a little more care of myself. I’ll say something cynical that probably won’t make it into the interview, although if I were in your place, I’d leave it in: “There was an old man in Karlovo, Grandpa Risto. Hristo like me—in Karlovo they call them Ristovtsi, and they call the little children Ichovtsi. About 10 years ago, Grandpa Risto met me and said: Icho, you should know, grandson, that when you turn 50, you’ll realize that besides a male sex organ, you have other such things too.” Because before, it never occurred to me that when it hurts in the upper left part of the abdomen, right under the ribs and slightly behind the stomach, that’s the spleen. Now at 50, you say to yourself, “Wait, do I have a spleen too? And lungs… Me?!” In other words, you start to realize that you have many organs you need to take care of.

In an interview, you said that you love life and that the trial of the stroke, or “your incident” as you call it, was given to you because only you could have made it through. Why?

Hristo Mutafchiev: Yes! A journalist asked me: “Why did you climb out of the grave?” And I told her: “Because I love literal life. I love smoking fine cigarettes, drinking expensive whiskey, and being with beautiful women. They don’t have that there! And that’s why I climbed out of the grave and continued living.” Regarding what you’re asking, another journalist asked if I ever ask myself: “Why me?” and I replied, “Well, no… because only I can come out of this whole thing alive.” That is my answer.

Living, however, living… is something different from life. Life is what you are a part of, but living is something you provoke yourself, and because I love to provoke my living, that’s why I love living. For me, this interview is also living; I could have refused and we would never have met.

After everything you’ve been through—what does “having a tomorrow” mean to you?

Hristo Mutafchiev: Having a tomorrow? Well, that’s the best thing that can happen to me. To wake up in the morning and see that I’m alive. And since I’ve opened my eyes and seen the sun, it means I’m alive. And since I’m alive, it means I have to get up, get ready very quickly, and go out and live this life. That’s what “having a tomorrow” means to me.

I am a soldier; I can’t lie in bed until 10:00 AM while something is happening outside without me. How would that work? Nothing can happen without me!

In a world of accumulating stress and an ever-accelerating pace—what choices help you maintain balance? Both in your personal and professional world, where in one of your roles you defend the interests of actors.

Hristo Mutafchiev: First… well, they chose me to defend them, so I will do it, and second, I believe I can bring order to the system in one way or another. I have the character for it, I have the strength, I’ve built a name and it works—just when the secretary of the respective ministry hears that I’m there, that I’m entering, the minister’s door is already open. This gives me the opportunity to negotiate conditions that I believe are right for the path we are on. So, my choice is this: the work in the Union of Bulgarian Actors and, above all, the theater. I’m not talking about cinema or television; I’m talking about the theater. I have made my choice. Yes, I stand by it and I will defend it.

II. Medicine Up Close: Encounters, Trust, and Human Care

Inevitably, you have met many doctors. Each of us keeps in memory doctors who have left a mark. Which names would you mention—people for whom you feel respect and gratitude? Tell us!

Hristo Mutafchiev: There are, of course. Zhoro Georgiev, who opened my skull here in Sofia at “St. Ivan Rilski.” He and Asen, a young guy who operated on me together with him. I am very grateful to both of them. I am very grateful to Zhoro Matev from Burgas. He admitted me in Burgas and provided the initial care necessary so they could put me on a plane and bring me to Sofia. Of course, the head of the rehabilitators at the “St. Naum” Hospital at the 4th kilometer, which is where I belong (Editor’s note: laughs)—Emil Milushev. Academician Milanov helped a lot throughout the recovery process. And two of my now very close friends in life, the two rehabilitators who worked with me and with whom we fought regularly (Editor’s note: laughs). Well, yes, one of them, Petar Kolev, would push me: “Lift your arm, lift your arm,” and it already hurt. And I’d tell him: “Stop now, or I’ll smack you with my right hand.” And the other, Kalin Boshev, would come into the room in the morning and because he would tease me, I regularly threw my pillow at him and he’d throw it back. I had a lot of fun with them. They came up with all sorts of ways to provoke me, to get me moving, to get me active. Pepi Kolev even went so far—because he was thinking about how to build my walking model so I wouldn’t limp—that one day he said to me: “Okay, in the theater, when you have to play a character with a limp, how do you do it?” And I told him I use a trick and put a pebble in my shoe when I want to limp. So, that morning he came in and put a pebble in my shoe and told me we were going for a walk. We started walking and I began to limp not only with the affected leg but with the other one too. And he, laughing, said to me: “This is the first time I’ve seen a stroke patient who limps with both legs.” We teased each other a lot. He tried to restore my motivation for life by using my character. Something that is very important for every doctor. Firstly, because in my opinion, the way textbooks are taught is very flawed. Every patient should be treated as an individual, personal case. You should use their character and motivate them based on that. As long as you unify all patients, there’s no way they can have a full recovery.

There are definitely many doctors I would like to thank for many things. There are many doctors. And I do it, I thank them. I don’t shy away from it and I don’t hold back. Every time I can show respect and appreciation to the entire profession, I do so.

How did your experience change the way you look at doctors and the system as a whole? It’s no secret that due to the workload and the system, doctors in our country are sometimes cynics.

Hristo Mutafchiev: But I like that. I think it’s very important. Cynicism saved me from many things. The moment I realized I couldn’t move my left arm, when I woke up in bed and on top of everything started looking for it because I didn’t know where it was—I had no sensation in it and was searching for it. And then Pepi Kolev asked me: “Looking for your little hand, my boy?”… I laughed. The first joke I told after the stroke, when I woke up from the coma, was the dirtiest joke in the world. And I told it to both my mother and my wife. I know why I did it, though—because it pulls me out of depression. I don’t like depressions; for me, they are a waste of time. That’s not my game; I can’t fall into depression because I don’t think it’s a useful thing. I can’t imagine how someone falls into depression and can’t get up and run and do some work to get over it. What I mean is that to avoid falling into depression, to avoid staying in bed for three months self-pitying and crying that I’m not what I used to be… I turned into a terrible cynic. And that pulled me out of the holes. Before the stroke, I wasn’t such a cynic, or at least not to such an extreme. For me, this cynicism is such a normal thing that I can tell the dirtiest possible joke to two beautiful women without thinking twice about whether it’s polite or whether I should do it. Before the stroke, I was moderate and considered many things. After the stroke, I stopped; I simply don’t care.

You mentioned that motivation is different for different patients, and that for you, the fact that doctors are cynics helped, but surely there are people whom it repels, doesn’t help, or hinders…

Hristo Mutafchiev: Well… I’m not so sure. I think this cynicism works on both sides. Yes, doctors may be cynics, but a large part of them also have a sense of humor and know how far they can go with cynicism and where they can’t. And cynicism is a release. I mean, it’s a necessity for them too, and they know when and in front of whom.

How did your loved ones go through what was happening, your wife?

Hristo Mutafchiev: It was much harder for her. Like any lady, she is much more fragile, with a different way of thinking. The first thing I said to my mother was: “Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Don’t be scared.” That’s what I say. That’s it. I know what was going through her head and my wife’s head, and because I’m a nervous person, one day I said to my wife: “Come on, go out, work out, live this life, what’s your problem!”. Without understanding that this doesn’t work. Much later, I realized that the only thing that would have worked then was to hug her and say: “Don’t worry, honey, everything will be fine. Everything will be okay!” That’s what she needed to hear, but I tend to think everyone is like me.

III. Recovery and Resilience: The Body, the System, Society

Do you believe that art—through its emotionality and ritualism—can be a resource in the healing process?

Hristo Mutafchiev: I do. A few years ago, a wonderful Bulgarian actor, Nikolay Nikolaev—Bate Nikolay—had created laughter therapy and would go with an ambulance to clinics for children with cancer and make them laugh. And they felt far better than the state he had found them in. He brought them joy, he inspired a different kind of faith in them. And you know, I have an incident that made me very angry and shocked me. At the 4th kilometer, where I was staying in the rehabilitation ward, the ward above me was for children with cerebral palsy and other mobility issues. And there… when I wanted a drink of water or needed something, there was a bell above the bed… I’d press it and they’d come flying, breaking their necks to bring me whatever I needed. I went upstairs to the ward to talk to the children, to cheer them up, to give them some spirit, to take pictures with them if you will. And I saw a little girl, paralyzed, who couldn’t reach her water from the cabinet. And she was struggling, struggling… her eyes welled up, and I stood up, limping, went over, and gave her the water…. Well, I asked myself then: “Why do you have to be named Hristo Mutafchiev for the world to revolve around you? Shouldn’t this be valid for every living person? Every living person. What is this child guilty of that her name isn’t Hristo Mutafchiev?” I went out and caused a massive scene in the ward, I was screaming… What I mean is that the attitude toward everyone should be the same as it was and is toward me at this moment.

In this line of thought, what are the deficits of our system?

Hristo Mutafchiev: Probably the pay is low too, so they can’t find orderlies. Probably also the fact that this famous Bulgarian industriousness is no longer a fact; rather, laziness is greater, it takes precedence. We’ve given birth to new proverbs: “I’ll work as much as they pay me” or “For this much money—this much work.” In the sense that the attitude the Bulgarian used to have—being empathetic to the pain of others, being loving, being a Samaritan… those things are gone. Everything has been replaced by: “What’s my salary, that I should run around washing these people’s backsides…” Which is a pity!

You mentioned the initiative of your colleague Nikolay Nikolaev—Bate Nikolay. Are these the kinds of partnerships you would like to see—between artists, medical professionals, and institutions?

Hristo Mutafchiev: Why not. I can tell you that an actor like Bate Encho would also do it; he is a man with a strong heart, and Nencho Ilchev, who does magic tricks. These are models of perception, and it only requires a conversation and persuasion. There are enough actors who have good hearts and a good attitude toward people. And I doubt there is any person at all who, at the sight of a sick child, wouldn’t go and try to bring out a smile. You’d have to be a complete blockhead or an incredible piece of trash not to take a step in that direction.

If you could set a common stage—for artists and doctors—what message would you want to resonate from it?

Hristo Mutafchiev: Both professions heal. Doctors heal the body, and we heal the soul. This is a treatment that is necessary for a person to be whole.