Badar Sandor

Badár Sándor (born 8 February 1964 in Jászberény) is a Karinthy-gyűrű-winning Hungarian actor and humorist. He attended the drama section of the Horváth Mihály Gimnázium in Szentes, where his classmates included Hevesi Tamás, Ternyák Zoltán and Jantyik Csaba. After school he worked for 12 years on the railway, first as a points operator and then as a traffic officer. He lives in Budapest and is involved in giving children pony rides.

His distinctive humor, his improvisations and, not least, his characteristic figure made him an exciting personality of contemporary Hungarian film. He is a good friend of Szőke András and a constant performer in his works; they also appeared together in telephone commercials. He does not like to learn text and most often improvises during filming. He is a practitioner of stand-up comedy; since 2003 he has performed at the Dumaszínház and occasionally in the FábryShow as well. As an unofficial record, he once spoke to the audience for seven and a half hours at the Szegedi Ifjúsági Napok. His son Tamás is a magician.

His awards include the Film Critics' Award (2004), the Szentes Városért Emlékérem (2008), the Bonbon-díj (2006, 2011), the Karinthy-gyűrű (2013) and the Magyar Arany Érdemkereszt (2025). Among curiosities, just before the 1992 Winter Olympics he took part in a dog sled race held in Albertville, where he finished 17th; the race was a pre-Olympic event and was not part of the official Olympic program. In 2011 he participated as navigator in the Budapest-Bamako rally, about which a film was also made.