“There is no threat in our profession”

Interview with Konstantin Khabensky on the eve of the premiere of the film "Collector" about a skilled collector of large debts

With Konstantin Khabensky, the winner of the Kinotavr prize for the best male role, about the closeness of the professions of a collector and an actor, about his fund.

Arthur is the maestro of unseemly collection business, a polite beater and collector of money borrowed. Extremely sensitive to the nuances of the psychology of the "client". His telephone conversations are fights without rules, from which he always comes out victorious. Or almost always. He is the hand of justice, or rather, an ear with a telephone headset. A virtuoso manipulator punishes or pardons in an office under the roof of a Moscow skyscraper, orchestrating the fates of strangers about whom he knows everything: unpaid loans, family secrets, skeletons in closets. The puppeteer plays with his victims, pulls them by invisible threads of fear, weaves intrigues, calling for retribution, does not shy away from blackmail, gropes for weaknesses. In his mobile networks, the voices of debtors beat.

The micro-budget is good for the film. Minimalism has been transformed into an artistic solution (Kinotavr prize for cameraman Denis Firstov). One actor - almost in the same scenery on the "Seventh Heaven". The sound track is a musical-noise orchestra with soloists-interlocutors, victims of the collector-inquisitor. Throughout the action, we balance between hostility and sympathy for this hero locked in his business.

- Of course, the role in a monofilm is a challenge. What hooked, maybe frightened?

You partly answered your own question. Of course, this is a challenge to yourself from the point of view of the profession. This work differs even from theatrical solo performances. When there is no dialogue with the viewer, the breath of the auditorium. This is a completely different job, the existence of almost airless space. Because the sound is pure... And even if something funny happens, no one will react - laugh, so as not to spoil the sound on the set. Therefore, yes, this is a test of yourself, your professional capabilities.

- So you were only interested in the profession? Not an acute topic, not a surprise of character?

- Of course, also the quality, the content of the script. But after all, the conversation is primarily about a person, and not about the profession of a collector. In any profession, we could find a similar situation. When friends and comrades gradually leave him. And he finds the strength to reconsider what is happening to him, to overestimate the people who are nearby. And most of all, forgive them.

- I watched your meeting with students at the St. Petersburg Educational Theater on Mokhovaya. There you told how you select the key to the role, starting with thoughts about how to fill the character. What did you "fill" your Arthur with? And did you yourself have a similar “X-hour”, when you had to reconsider the course of life, see with new eyes the people who are nearby?

- Of course, there was an "X hour", there were thoughts and doubts - how and with what to fill the role. It cannot be otherwise, this is not for our company, I mean colleagues and friends with whom we work. I thought about “how”, “why” and “do you have the right to do this”.

Forgiving is the hardest thing. Especially in such a controversial story that you touch in the film. But does forgiveness reformat you?

Forgiving means moving on. To curse, to hate is the way back.

“Reality itself catches up with the film at the forefront of the problem. There are political parties that are building their election campaign on the cry to ban collectors, and not on real help to people.

The shooting was a year ago. And what you are talking about should be discussed with the producers who release and distribute our film. They are on the cutting edge. It was "lucky" for them - in quotation marks or whatever. During this time, I had other jobs. I didn't sit and wait for The Collector to come out. Of course, it's nice that this film attracted such attention. It would seem that a purely festival work. And now it really is growing into something more, socially significant.

- And Zhirinovsky's television campaign speeches can be considered commercials for the film's advertising campaign. You are often asked why your collector seems like a positive character and causes sympathy. They don't want to accept that a person has to be complicated. As for the profession, it is new only in the name. During the preparation of the role, did you think about the predecessors of the Collector - the man-promissory note Gobsek, Pushkin's Solomon, the usurer Gogol?

- On the contrary, if I were offered to play some historical or literary character related to a similar topic, I would probably think about modern ways of repaying a debt. In this situation, everything is on the surface. The story of my hero is close not so much to a pawnbroker, but to the acting profession, to directing, to creativity. Another thing is that there is no threat in our profession. Let's say we played a bad performance, shot a film unsuccessfully, no one died from this. If, on the contrary, something turned out well, talentedly, then, on the contrary, we helped someone. Here is the opposite story. Talent, fantasy, ingenuity, the ability to improvise, and everything that is given from above, is used in a certain direction and, frankly, does not benefit the “objects” they are aimed at.

- Your collector, in fact, is your colleague. A virtuoso of voice manipulation.

But he doesn't change his voice. More like angles. Finds people's pain points more accurately than a doctor. He is very honest about his work. Therefore, he knows thoroughly everything about the people with whom he communicates. Unlike, for example, your fellow journalist, who is lazy and often comes without understanding with whom and why he is talking. I'm not screaming about how bad it is. I just feel sorry for my time, I have to talk to people who are too lazy to read material that has already been published ... I myself was in the shoes of a journalist, so I know what I'm talking about. It all has to do with our film. Arthur has a rich imagination, but he did a good job on the "role", knows all the ins and outs of large debtors, character traits, biographies. He communicates with them as with close people.

- Speaking of the "Collector", they recall references, such as "Lock" by Knight, "Buried Alive" by Cortez. I thought that your Collector is “buried alive”, at least in the moral aspect. The shooter is the target. The profession turns the hunter into a victim. What is your profession for you? How connected is she to the outside world?

“Profession for me is a profession. The place where I come with pleasure, whether it's a theater, a film set. Where am I going. Another thing is how it works. And everything that happens in our reality goes through the profession. Here I am no exception. There are, of course, actors who know how to separate the world of fantasy and the real world, for others this interpenetration is important. The question is too broad for me. Sometimes the profession helps in some circumstances. But apparently, I do not own it enough to defend myself or use it in the outside world.

- It seems that you are increasingly attracted to "monologues" in a wide variety of forms and types. “Double bass” at the Moscow Art Theater, literally before the “Collector”, the film “Prokofiev: On the Road”, based on the composer’s diaries, was released, with the orchestra “Moscow Soloists” you play “The Little Prince”. What is the reason for this interest?

- These works were made at different times, I in no way associate this with the desire to be left alone on stage or in front of the camera. And then, today there are plenty of actors working in a mono format at the theatrical, cinematographic, and philharmonic venues.

— Your charitable foundation helping children with brain diseases has existed for more than eight years. His targeted rehabilitation programs are highly respected. Your well-known colleagues also give time and energy to charity. But perhaps the state system should be reformatted so that people in power - officials, deputies - get involved in the real work of helping sick children and the elderly, clinics and hospices?

- I will answer you very simply. Both my foundation and Chulpan Khamatova's foundation have very good professional teams that generate various ideas. We are the guarantors of trust in the fund, whose activities must be clear and transparent. The professionals working in the fund come up with and develop a program of action, including the mechanisms of relations with banks, with other structures, with the administrative body. That's why everything works. Maybe not as fast and cool as we all would like. But then again, if we jumped onto these rails so quickly, then a distortion, an inflection, as it happens with us, is also possible. Everything should develop smoothly. The main thing is not to give up, mind your own business. I repeat, and this is important, I am only a person who guarantees that our fund is honest, clean, and works in the direction that we indicated. And the work is going on.