[1] In 2017, he received the Polish Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of painter Zdzisław Beksiński in the biographical film The Last Family.

[6] He was one of the co-organizers of the 1968 student protest at the University of Warsaw in response to the banning of Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) directed by Kazimierz Dejmek by the Polish communist authorities.

[7] Already in the 1970s he gained much fame following his appearance in numerous films directed by Andrzej Wajda, notably Without Anesthesia, The Promised Land and the Man of Iron.

For his role in Wajda's 1980 Dyrygent Seweryn received the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 30th Berlin International Film Festival.

Among them were Claude Régy (La Trilogie du revoir and Grand et Petit by Botho Strauss), Patrice Chéreau (Peer Gynt by Ibsen), Peter Brook (The Mahabharata), Bernard Sobel (Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, The Good Person of Szechwan by Bertold Brecht, Tartuffe by Molière), Deborah Warner (A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen), Antoine Vitez (L'Échange by Paul Claudel), Jacques Rosner (The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov and Breakfast with Wittgenstein based on a novel by Thomas Bernhard), and Jacques Lassalle (Jedermann by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and The Misanthrope by Molière).

[17] In 2016, he won the Best Actor Award at the Locarno International Film Festival for his portrayal of painter Zdzisław Beksiński in Jan P. Matuszyński's 2016 biopic The Last Family.

[19] In 2023, he won the Polish Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Jacek Lusiński's 2022 drama film Śubuk.

[20] He has three children with three different wives: a daughter, Maria Seweryn (born 1975) with his first wife, Polish actress Krystyna Janda, and two sons, Yann-Baptiste and Maximilien.