Rebengiuc was celebrated for his stage performances, appearing in plays directed by, among others, Ciulei, Radu Penciulescu, Andrei Serban, Cătălina Buzoianu, Yuri Kordonsky, Gábor Tompa, and Alexandru Dabija.

[2] His father Gheorghe, whom the two sons seldom met, was drafted during World War II, and died fighting in the Army during the Battle of Stalingrad;[2][3] Victor and his brother were subsequently granted a pension.

[3] After a period of collaboration with an amateur troupe located in the Vitan area,[3] Rebengiuc attended the Theater Institute, where he had for his professor actress Aura Buzescu, whom he credits, alongside Clody Bertola, with having inspired his technique.

[3][4] Among the artists who have shaped his work, Rebengiuc also includes the major Soviet actors Mikhail Zharov and Ruben Simonov, whose performances in films he followed closely, and his older Romanian colleague Radu Beligan.

[2] Rebengiuc's first drama role was as Biff in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, a performance which he regrets, describing its director, Dinu Negreanu, as an untalented person promoted over "political reasons".

[4] At around the same time, he began a collaboration with the Teatrul Mic company and director Radu Penciulescu, being, together with Leopoldina Bălănuţă, George Constantin and Olga Tudorache, one of the first actors to embark on the project.

[5] Collaborating with important stage directors such as Ciulei, Cătălina Buzoianu and Andrei Şerban, Rebengiuc won further notability for his performances in adaptations of Shakespearean plays (Orlando in As You Like It, Brutus in Julius Caesar, the title role in Richard II), as well as in those of Henrik Ibsen (Bernick in The Pillars of Society and the main character in Rosmersholm), Anton Chekhov (Michail Lvovich Astroff in Uncle Vanya), Oscar Wilde (Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest), Eugene O'Neill (Long Day's Journey into Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten) and Tennessee Williams (Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire).

[citation needed] During the late 1970s, Rebengiuc was also required to appear in a series of film productions that he admits were of little quality and mainly catered to the ideological tenets newly imposed by the communist regime and President Nicolae Ceauşescu (see July Theses).

[3] He acknowledges having managed to escape most other forms of endorsement for the communist leader's personality cult, but indicates that, without his permission, several of his performances were considered up for competition in communist-run festivals, and that he was sent a number of diplomas for his various roles.

"[3] Although set during the Belle Époque and based on works by Caragiale, the film's bleak atmosphere and irreverent tone alluded to the realities of Communist Romania, which caused it to be censored and ultimately banned before it could premiere.

The subtle criticism of authorities became a matter of scandal: just days after Faleze de nisip premiered, Nicolae Ceauşescu spoke in front of Romanian Communist Party officials in Mangalia, singling it out from breaking with the ideological requirements; as a result, it was banned from cinemas.

[3] The Moromete performance earned Rebengiuc several prizes, including one handed to him during the San Remo Film Festival in Italy,[1][9] and reportedly won Pintilie's praise.

The second of Pintilie's films to star Rebengiuc was the Palme d'Or-nominated drama Too Late, which discussed the failings of justice in post-communist Romania, where he played the role of Elephant Foot.

[4] He starred in several main roles in classical plays, and, as Nick Bottom in Ciulei's production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, received the UNITER prize.

[4][9] The same year, he was Fetisov in Hristo Boytchev's The Colonel Bird and appeared in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (directed by, respectively, Alexandru Dabija and Gábor Tompa).

[4] He collaborated with Kordonsky on three other stage productions: Nikolai Gogol's Marriage, Ion Luca Caragiale's Conu' Leonida faţă cu reacţiunea (which was shown only once, during a UNESCO festivity in Buşteni) and Mikhail Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog, where he was Preobrazhensky.

[21] Rebengiuc also resumed his work in television productions, appearing in the short series La Urgenţă (aired by TVR 1 in 2006–2007), and in several episodes of Pro TV's Cu un pas înainte.

Theater critic Silvia Dumitrache, who called the show "lively and dynamic, tense and troubling", highlights the fact that Rebengiuc created a "rather positive" portrayal of a negative role, serving to cast "an even more tragic light over the play.

"[29] Rebengiuc was also the lead in another TNB production, Legenda Marelui Inchizitor ("The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor"), adapted by Radu Penciulescu from Fyodor Dostoevsky's eponymous parable.

"[4] Despite being confronted with recruitment campaigns before 1989, Rebengiuc never joined the Romanian Communist Party[4] and felt that his role in Heart of a Dog was "representative" of himself, owing to the anti-communist undertones in Mikhail Bulgakov's play.

In an iconic moment, he held up a roll of toilet paper to the camera, urging viewers and members of the television staff who had promoted Ceauşescu's personality cult to clean up after themselves.

[3] On 1 May 1990, at the height of the Golaniad events, Rebengiuc read a Protest of the Romanian Intellectuals, expressing solidarity with the students gathered in University Square in opposition to the National Salvation Front.

[16] It was signed by 27 cultural personalities, among them civil society militants (Gabriel Andreescu, Doina Cornea, Radu Filipescu), journalists (Cornel Nistorescu, Octavian Paler), essayists (Gabriela Adameşteanu, Ana Blandiana, Petru Creţia, Ştefan Augustin Doinaş, Ion Bogdan Lefter, Romulus Rusan), visual artists (Horia Bernea, Sorin Dumitrescu, Mihai Stănescu), actors (Irina Petrescu, Florin Zamfirescu and Rebengiuc's wife Mariana Mihuţ), musicians (Corneliu Cezar, Teodor Grigoriu, Johnny Răducanu), scientist Edmond Nicolau and filmmaker Lucian Pintilie.

[3] Since 2002, Rebengiuc has been a member of the non-governmental organization Asociaţia Revoluționarilor fără Privilegii (Association of Non-Privileged Revolutionaries), alongside Ion Caramitru, Dan Pavel, Radu Filipescu, and others.

In February 2007, as parliamentary forces voted in favor of an impeachment referendum against Băsescu, Rebengiuc joined Tismăneanu and 48 other intellectuals in signing an open letter condemning the move.

"[38] Warning that, together with the break-up of the Justice and Truth Alliance, this kind of reaction had fermented "a political crisis", they also supported Băsescu's stated goals of stamping out corruption and granting the public opening the archives of the communist secret police, the Securitate.

[3] In January 2007, Rebengiuc and Perjovschi also spoke out on the issue of cultural policies, protesting against the state-run Center for Cinema Production: together with actor Florin Piersic, Jr. [ro], filmmaker Radu Afrim [ro], and critics Mihai Chirilov, Alex Leo Șerban, Marius Chivu, and Daniel Cristea-Enache, they endorsed an online petition which condemned the institution for its decision to grant funding to the projects of controversial director Sergiu Nicolaescu, and for failing to finance young and internationally acclaimed directors such as Cristi Puiu and Thomas Ciulei.

[40] His participation in the project was the topic of criticism: commentators argued that the station was using the slogan in the political battle leading up to the 2009 election, and thus reflected its patron Sorin Ovidiu Vântu's option for the anti-Băsescu parties and trade unions.

[41][42][43] Journalist and academic Bogdan Iancu, who entered a polemic with Realitatea over the issue of covert political support, suggested that there was a contrast between Rebengiuc's stance during the Revolution (the toilet paper episode) and his lending credibility to what "reeks of manipulation intelligently packaged in the suave discourse of social responsibility".

[41] In contrast, writer Cezar Paul-Bădescu found the campaign "laudable", describing it the start of a "moral revolution" and believing Rebengiuc's role to have been "as usual, extraordinary", but noting that Realitatea had itself failed at maintaining the journalistic standard it implicitly advertised.