Interviewed: Elena Olkhovskaya
It may seem to an uninitiated person that only millionaires, or, in extreme cases, those who have a couple of hundred thousand to buy a "house by the sea" go to the Emirates for vacation. Fortunately, this misconception has become less and less common in recent years, and in the open spaces of Dubai there is no, and you can meet people whose faces we know from popular domestic films or performances.
So, by chance, during the May holidays, when many of our compatriots enjoyed the Boeing Boeing performance at the theater of the Madinat Theater complex, we were lucky to meet and talk with the wonderful Russian actor Mikhail Politsimako, who flew with his wife Larisa to the Emirates relax.
Michael, how and when did you feel that you want to become an actor? Or do you, like many descendants of acting dynasties, simply had no choice?
You know, until the age of 17 I was not going to become an actor at all, although I was born in an acting family and spent all my childhood behind the curtains of the Taganka Theater. My mother, pregnant with me, played performances there, and then I was born, and somewhere around the age of three my parents dragged me to the theater. Then I grew up and went with dad to shoot. For me, the theater-movie situation is very organic. I don’t get nervous when I get to the theater, I only worry when the premiere or some important performance is released. But even then, these nerves are more internal than external. From the side they are not visible. In general, it somehow happened so that in addition to Yeralash, in childhood and youth, I acted in films with my dad together. Somehow I just got tired of sitting on the set, and I played the son of a counterfeiter. The film was "perestroika" and was called "Swamp Street or anti-sex agent." It was directed by Mark Eisenberg, who later immigrated to Germany.
At school, I, in principle, all the time bullied and joker in the classroom. It was natural to me. Then in the eighth grade I was transferred from one school to another, and I had a class at the Historical and Archival Institute. My class teacher once told me: “Listen, you have a very good memory. You need to go to the historical and archive”. And I really had some kind of “trick”, I can still reproduce the historical dates in my head, and the geography was very interesting to me. I liked to remember the location of countries, the name of their capitals.
Fortunately, my parents never told me where to go. The only thing my dad helped me in, and for which I am extremely grateful to him, is that I did not join the army. Because my call came in 1994, just then the first military campaign in Chechnya began. And then I was engaged in swimming, and I had a fairly large and strong figure, so that I fit well with the standards of the Airborne Forces. Therefore, my dad somehow saved me from the call by giving someone important theater tickets, drinking with some majors, and so on. And I did not go to the army.
So you went to study. Where?
When the question arose of where I should go, my mother said: "Take a ride, read something in" Pike "(Boris Schukin Higher Theater School or simply" Schukin School "ed.)." I went to Schukinskoye and got into an atmosphere familiar to me from childhood. I felt that I was not quite in the same situation with other applicants, and the teachers, looking at me, guessed in me the features of both parents. And when I read the monologue of a teenager from Dostoevsky, the teacher stopped me and said: "I take you," leaving me one of the five listened to. A little later, one director noticed: "Everyone starts from scratch, and you start from plus ten." I didn’t really understand what this means, but today, looking back, I begin to delve into the meaning of what he said.
But the most interesting thing is that I did not enter the Shchukin school. I went to study at GITIS, before that I had been to all the theater institutes in our capital. It was an incredibly interesting activity. Of the six institutes, they took me to four. True, oddly enough, Pyotr Fomenko didn’t take me to his “Workshop”, and they didn’t take me to the Shchepkinsky school, because they told me directly: “A young man with the same appearance as yours doesn’t have to be at the Shchepkinsky school learn. "
And what is wrong with your appearance?
That's right, she’s just Jewish. If you look at me not in the Emirates, where I am completely going for an Arab, but in Moscow, then my appearance is striking ...
Mikhail, where are you more comfortable - on the stage or on the set?
I have a very serious theater school. I was lucky, I got to good teachers. First of all, I am a theater actor. Cinema is a one-time art. The actor in it has five to six takes. And this is the maximum. Inside the movie, the actor exists once. Today we shoot this scene and that’s it, it’s impossible to replay, because tomorrow will be different. A scene can only be re-shot if the operator was drunk or there is a speck in his lens ...
This happens?
Everything happens with us. And the director is stoned on the set, and the actors after yesterday come such that they can’t answer your “hello”, not just clearly, but not at all. Do you think actors are not people? We are all people, with our vices and weaknesses. It’s just that, maybe, somewhere it’s not customary to talk about it, but I don’t see anything like this.
We have probably lost the habit of such manifestations, we live more calmly here in the Emirates, perhaps because the country is religious ...
It seems to me that everything depends on education, and not on the country or city. Of course, there are some laws that restrict people somewhat. But Russia is accustomed to live recklessly - pour and drink. ... Although I personally am a little afraid of the East, if you "look at the root." There is some kind of hidden aggression in the Eastern people, or something. Just as when you look at an Estonian, you get the impression that he is talking to you a little down, in such a condescending tone with a touch of superiority. This is at the level of your subconscious, they do not try to humiliate another person, no, it's just in the blood. A couple of times in Estonia I was a little “hung up” on how they talk to me ...
I was recently in Tallinn on a tour where we were brought from St. Petersburg. The three of us, together with Masha Aronova and Sergey Kayumovich Shakurov, are playing a new performance based on the works of A. Chekhov “The Bear and the Offer”. It is called Little Comedies. And here we come with this performance to Tallinn, and right to the performance at five in the evening, we are sitting in the Russian Officers House and a Russian waitress girl comes up to us. Not an Estonian, it shows that she has Russian parents, they just all live in Estonia. Each of us began to order drinks, Sergei Kayumovich asked for tea, Masha Aronova coffee, and I say: “I, please,“ Americano ”” and continue the conversation with colleagues. Suddenly this girl tells me such a phrase (she’s probably 16 or 17 years old, and she works part time) in Russian: "You know, people often come to us from Russia and ask" Amerikano "what it is in Russia?" . I tell her: “And what country do you have?”, She answers me: “We have Estonia.” I say: "I see, then why are you talking to me in Russian?" She answered me: "Because I am Russian." Then I say: "So you have in Russia too." It seems to me that among Russians such neglect happens from complete and uncontrolled gouging. It’s probably not scary to walk around Moscow now, I mean the center, but if you call in South Butovo in the evening, it will be ... to say the least, uncomfortable. But we somehow get used to it, and don’t notice much, but for foreigners this “insecurity” is sure to catch the eye.
Is this your first time in Dubai? How do you like it here? Like?
Yes, we came to Dubai for the first time, although Larisa and I travel a lot. We were in Egypt twice, and traveled a bit across Europe. In Egypt, we had seen enough of all, faced with the familiarity of the Egyptians, somewhere even rude. ... Here, of course, a more elite holiday, higher standard of living. I was very surprised that a huge number of immigrants from the former USSR live here. But for some reason it seems to me that people with a specific mentality work here. Moreover, I do not mean even the material side of the matter, but the moral and psychological. You have to want to come here. It's complicated. I can imagine that if I weren’t an artist, I would be engaged in cargo transportation. How to live here? It is psychologically. In principle, you can send films on disks, books from home, put on Russian television and watch the channel "Culture", but all this is not that .... Even immigrants from Kazakhstan and other southern countries can be understood, their standard of living there is not in capital cities, much lower, and the climate is hot, similar to the Arabian one. The rest is a mystery to me.
Yes, it’s always amazed me that our girls marry foreigners, especially from Arab countries. After all, their husbands profess not only other life values, but their religious beliefs are completely different. In my opinion, living with a foreigner is like working as a scout all your life, and at the same time, not exploring anything.
Even while in the Emirates, I am not afraid to say that I am a Jew. But my parents baptized me in childhood. I was born in Russia and have been living in it all my life; I can’t imagine another country. We now have a little daughter, Emilia, who we also christened for the Annunciation. I was always excited and concerned about the relationships between different cultures, and it seems to me that it is very difficult at the household level to get along with people from a completely different environment, even if it's love.
Michael, let's go back to the theater and cinema. Tell me, is it difficult to be a comedian?
You know, this is a given. In my case, thanks to my parents, I did nothing for this. They gave me a certain appearance and abilities that directors see and use.
Not everyone is so lucky. For example, the actors involved in the play "Boeing Boeing" had to give all the best to make everyone laugh ...
Larisa and I fortunately happened to be in the same hotel as the guys who arrived in Dubai with the performance of the Boeing Boeing. In my opinion, they played this comedy just great, although they arrived in the Emirates the day before the performance. I think that after any performance, the actors have a feeling of fatigue, especially in the heat here. By the way, I really liked the theater in Dubai. Wonderful, in my opinion, the hall, unexpectedly beautiful. It seemed to me that the artists of Boeing Boeing were also worried how everything would go, because not the theatrical audience gathered here for the performance.
Why not theatrical?
Well, here people walk during the performance, read, talk on cell phones, watch how they took pictures in the lobby .... That is, viewers do not particularly follow the plot. They watch the piece in pieces. These are not the theater-goers who peer and listen to every nuance: "Yeah, here it is!” Here is completely different. And so the guys who played in the Boeing needed to overcome the excitement and “light up” the hall. Moreover, this was the first such large-scale performance in Dubai. But there is a huge plus - you can accustom the local audience to a good theater. And not just to the theater, with all due respect to the existing enterprises in our country, but to the good.
I believe that the cooperation of the organizing company of the Emirate tour with Elshan Mammadov and his company "Independent Theater Project" is very successful. And it’s not at all because I work with this company from time to time, but because it puts on very high-quality performances that look not like a reprise, but practically like a repertoire theater. In the Independent Theater Project, I work in a play called Ladies Night. True, we are unlikely to be able to show in the Emirates, although this production is a frequent guest in many large Russian cities. Just there, at the end of the play, there is a twenty-minute male strip show. The play tells about how six steelworkers were fired from work, and they are sitting in a tavern. No money, unemployment. And they catch the eye of the announcement that there is a set in male striptease. And all these healthy fat men, under forty, begin to rehearse. In general, this is a very funny comedy.
Larisa (I address the question to Mikhail’s wife), is it always fun to live next to a comedian?
Larisa: There is no fun (laughs). Yes, in different ways. Both funny and sad. Sometimes Mikhail just goes into himself, thinks about creativity. His father, Semen Lvovich Farada, is also not a very funny person in life. There is sadness in his eyes, because he always wanted to play serious roles, but he was not allowed to. Michael, in my opinion, is also a sad clown.
Michael: It's hard to make laugh all the time. My father once in the 60s had a wonderful argument with Mark Rozovsky on a box of cognac. The argument was as follows: Dad would read “Poems about a Soviet Passport” from the stage with a completely serious face, and no one would laugh in the audience. He went out, began to read, and the audience simply groaned with laughter. Here's a feature of my father.
Larisa: Semyon Lvovich, by the way, is always shy when people laugh at his speeches. According to him, he is lost in such situations. It seems that he has not said anything yet, but everyone is already ridiculous.
Michael, how does your father feel today?
Dad has been sick for nine years after he suffered a stroke in 2000. He is mainly helped by friends - businessmen, bankers, just as it happened with Alexander Abdulov, Oleg Yankovsky, now with Nikolai Karachentsov. Our state, sad as it may be, is eliminating itself from such concerns.
But after all, Semyon Farada - People's Artist of Russia ?!
You too long, apparently, live away from our reality. In fact, Russia is now not up to its national artists. Do you know what pension my father has? Five thousand rubles, and this is at Moscow prices, which are practically comparable to the local prices. Of course, we carried out both treatment and constant annual rehabilitation, allowing us to maintain his condition. Thank God that dad talks, loves his grandchildren, my wife Lara, mom. We all live together. And we help each other. Our trip here is a little respite. A year and a half ago, our daughter Emilia was born, and Lara had no time to rest. The whole house and the baby are on it. In the summer, we’ll probably go somewhere to the Crimea.
Why not abroad?
Because in the summer at all the resorts popular among Russians it is very hot. I remember very well how I was first taken as "baggage" on the tour of the Taganka Theater in Jerusalem. I was 13 years old then, and I decided to follow the path that Jesus took to Calvary. It was June, the heat was unbearable, and then I did not drink, did not smoke, went in for sports, was young and full of energy. I completely went this way, and then just fell and lay for two days in a hotel room. Moreover, I walked lightly, and Jesus, completely beaten, carried a cross on which he was later crucified. None of ordinary people can stand this. But, this is me by the way. And yet since then I have not even considered hot countries for summer holidays ...
What are you working on now?
At the beginning of June I will have the premiere of the play "Dad" in the Independent Theater Project of Elshan Mammadov. This is a French play by the playwright Didier Dacca, who recently died, but his daughter talks to Elshan and is very worried about the premiere. This play is for two, we play it with Zhenya Tsyganov, an artist of the Peter Fomenko Workshop Theater. Zhenya is a very good and famous artist who has played in such films as Peter FM, Space as a Premonition and others. In April, we restored the play "The Woman Above Us" based on the play by Alexey Slopovsky in the production company Oasis.And at the end of summer shooting is planned. Although there is a slight crisis in the cinema, it’s as if something is starting to improve.
Series, in my opinion, do not stop shooting ...
I try not to act in complete disgrace. Of course, this is a very delicate moment, and when I understand what needs to be earned, I agree to the shootings, but if you get involved in the story, you feel uneasy. For example, I’m watching a series on RTR-Planeta on vacation, and I have a state of mild panic. It’s good that in Moscow I don’t watch them. Therefore, I want to act in high-quality films.
Are there any directors you really would like to star in?
There are, of course, but they are not really given the opportunity to work. Each normal director has his own real ambitions, which few people go to. I can say that I work with the theater and film director Alexei Kiryushchenko. I feel comfortable with him. With Mitya Shamirov, with whom we are now rehearsing "Dad," is also good. There are many more interesting directors, but they are all in some kind of “driven” state. And much of what the so-called "media" directors do is plunges me into a panic. One can argue about many directorial works. Pavel Lungin, for example, is an ambiguous director, but he is very good, high-quality. But if you look at what is happening today in our cinemas and has huge box office ... I do not know. Pictures such as "The Best Movie" are an example of people simply doing their own thing. This is different. It’s like if you never drove a plane, but you suddenly wanted to, and you sit at the helm with a full cabin of people, children, and they tell you to fly. It’s also hard for me to imagine that these people make movies. They have nothing to do with him. In order to become an artist, in addition to four years of working hard from nine in the morning until twelve at night, I continue to study daily at rehearsals and performances, that is, I constantly hone my skills. When a person comes from KVN, for example, where he became successful, this does not mean that he is a professional in cinema. This is incomprehensible to me, and it is still not clear why 90% of the audience takes these pictures with a bang.
Western directors, too, often shoot "black" comedies ...
It is impossible to compare foreign films, which are still shot by professional directors, with ours. It’s the same as comparing Lada and BMW tuning. Because, for example, Roma Kachanov, who shot the film "Down House", for all its oddities, does not cease to be a professional person who graduated from college. The genre of “stand-up comedy”, which is used by former KVN-schiki, and a dramatic film, even a comedy, are completely different things. If you look at the filming of Mr. Bean’s show, you can see that professional directors are working with him. And in order to carry jokes that are “below the belt” into the cinema, there must be a taste for this. In Tarantino, for example, it is made very "tasty." Or here I was in a movie called "Hello, we are your roof." There, the director worked on all the controversial issues, of which there were many.
So what is missing in our modern cinema?
I would put it that way. In the West, Americans, for example, have a fanatical attitude towards professionals. They all have pros, they don’t have a single random person. And if suddenly this appears, it is immediately removed. I never worked in America, but I had experience with the English BBC, which shot scenes from the novel War and Peace. I played with them Pierre Bezukhov. The filming period took four days, and I was amazed at how they work. It was evident that they did not know very well what Russian culture was. But in order to shoot, they really read all four volumes of War and Peace. And this is comfortable to work with. Even the purity people leave behind on the set speaks volumes. Western studios have amazing films, there are quite average films, but their films will never be shot by KVN-schiki (I don’t want to offend anyone). They simply will not be given. If someone from KVN-schiki suits them according to their type and is invited to shoot, then people will work with him, who, first of all, will send him to express acting courses. In a word, I am for professionalism in all professions, and even more so where a person is required to give full energy. We must work the way actors of the old school were able to do it. We still have a lot to learn from them.
Thanks for the conversation, Michael. We are waiting for you on tour with your performances in the UAE.
