Translated material
"I am the type of the heroine that I want to be equal"
Actress Victoria Isakova - about the film “One Inhale”, working with Kirill Serebrennikov and her own appearance
The film “One Inhale” directed by Elena Khazanova with Victoria Isakova in the title role was released on Russian screens. The plot of the picture was based on facts from the biography of the 22-time world in Fridiving, the holder of 41 world records of Natalia Molchanova, who began her sports career at 40 years old. Susha Sulim Special Corps with Victoria Isakova about whether an acting game is possible under water, whether the actress feels like a star and why she doubts her attractiveness.
- The prototype of the main character of the film “One Inhale” - Natalia Molchanova - became the first woman in the world to hold her breath for nine minutes. How many minutes can you be under water?
“I can answer anything now - you don’t check it out.” (Laughs.) Everything is very relative: in the pool this is one, in the sea - completely different. There is a huge difference between when you manage to relax and practice well, and when you come a little nervous and excited - then it is impossible to do anything at all. But on average, I managed not to breathe for more than two minutes-if there was time to prepare for immersion, trained first on land, then in the water.
At the same time, you need to understand that everything changes dramatically as soon as you find yourself next to the camera, because the camera is an increase in the pulse, the release of adrenaline, excitement, so the body reacts to it. Immersion requires a decrease in the pulse, absolute relaxation and tranquility. So you are balancing between these two conditions.
-Do I understand correctly that we are not talking about any acting game under water?
- Before immersion, I dreamed that I would play under water, and in place I already thought only about how to fix it so so that I would not surfacing ahead of time. In Malta, we shot a scene in which my heroine sails past the underwater cemetery and looks at the signs. And this is a close -up, which excludes the shooting of an understudy. The depth was four or five meters. We thought for a long time how to do it technically, we thought that I would dive with scuba gear, clean the ruin for the duration of the filming, and after the double to insert it into my mouth again. But I had such a panic that I was not up to the ruin - before taking it, you should exhale all the air that you have inside, but I was so nervous that I did not succeed, and we abandoned the idea of scuba gear.
Probably, someone more prepared and experienced would do it easily-for example, [the actor who played in the rescuer’s film] Volodya Yaglych all this was much easier. But I was absolutely not ready for open water. And only after a month of filming in Malta felt more confident. By that time, I have already managed to bake all my nerves "This is impossible!" And "let me go."
Once upon a time, we shot the film “Piranha Hunt”, in which I played the girl of the main villain-the character of Zhenya Mironov. It was very funny, because in life a girl of the villain - that is, I - was an absolute coward and constantly repeated: “No, please, I will not jump from there, strengthen me with all possible protection” and so on. And the girl of the protagonist of Sveta Antonova, who was very feminine in the picture, was ready for anything. But on the screen I looked very bold, twisted with pistols. I am always careful, so the experience of underwater filming was not easy for me.
- I can assume that you had a preparatory period.
- Yes, and quite long, it was simply impossible to do this without preparation.
- As far as I know, in Russian cinema, money and time for preparation or rehearsal are not often allocated in Russian cinema. Moreover, when it comes to a film with a small budget, as in the case of “one breath”.
- The budget was really modest.
- Do you think the time and the forces that you spent on freediving classes, your investment in the project?
- Certainly.
- Why did you need to invest in it?
- It seems to me that this is obvious. We have a very small industry, the choice of roles, all the more good female, is negligible in it, and all of them are distributed between several actresses. Therefore, when you receive a script in which there is a topic, there is a hero, there is a story based on real events, this, of course, is very valuable.
And then endless compromises begin. Reading the script, you think whether it is worth agreeing with some of his problematic places in order to take place. Then you think about the budget-although, probably, the artists should not think about it, but we understand that if there is a budget, then both the artist and the director feel more freely: you do not need to think that you have only six hours and not a minute more for some difficult scene. It turns out that you are going to all these compromises in order to stretch out some topic on the screen.
Of course, you can wait for the ideal script, hope that it will be offered to you, and act in five years in a low -budget movie with a supervision. Many choose just such a way.
I can’t say that I somehow think over my path, I will never decide in advance in which film I will shoot-copyright or commercial-or which magazine I will give an interview. I do not have a verified strategy. But returning to the question of my investment, I will answer that I have chosen this role, because it has a topic that is important and interesting for me.
- What is this topic?
- The topic of the struggle with oneself, with your fears. I myself am a person who is filled with fears and who is fighting endlessly with them. So I am arranged. It was interesting for me to play the heroine who, with an example, proves that at any moment of life you can isolate some fear and cope with it. But if nothing is done, nothing will happen. It all depends on you.
- You are one of the leading artists of Russian cinema, can you afford to give up roles?
- No. And this is also my choice: I choose to work, not wait. Someone will condemn me for this. Someone will say: “You have no right to waste yourself to work that you are not sure” or “Everything comes to her, and she still turns her nose!” But I’m not a nickle, so that everyone likes it so that everyone likes my decisions. Not to work is, by the way, one of my fears. Therefore, I often compromise to do something. In the future, it will become clear whether I am right or not, and now I am doing what is comfortable for me in this situation and in this period of my life.
- You said that today women's roles in Russian cinema are distributed between several actresses. This is especially felt when it comes to heroines who are about 40 - Anna Mikhalkova most often plays them. But you are unlikely to claim the same projects with her?
- Anya is a brilliant actress and, as practice shows, can do very different things: play in the “ordinary woman” and in the series “Storm”. But no one canceled the acting role, one way or another you are clamped in it: either you are a hero, or you are a characteristic character. Probably there are no artists who can play anything.
Perhaps this is the need of time - almost everyone can associate themselves with the heroines played by Anya.
- And how do you determine your role?
-I think I am the type of the heroine that you want to equal-not with whom you associate yourself, but which you put in some separate place.
- As the heroine of the Golden Age of Hollywood?
- I would like to be in the golden age of Hollywood. (Laughs.) The role in which I felt very well, in which I bathed, this is the role of Marlene Dietrich in the series "Vertinsky" Duni Smirnova. I did not understand the Dunin’s choice for this role, was naughty, afraid, but as a result, from the first shooting day, I realized what a huge gift the director made me. It was an absolute removal from myself, and it is most interesting for me to play when I try on some kind of mask, a different character, I am moving away from myself as much as possible. And so we crawled out in a conversation that we determine not what my role I have, but what I am more interested in. In general, I am wildly interested in acutely characteristic roles, some kind of acute existence, a situation in which I myself do not recognize myself.
In the theater, you can constantly get away from you, while the movie most often uses you as you are. When I have at least the slightest opportunity to escape from myself, I grab onto these roles.
- Has it happened that you were offered to play an ugly woman?
- To answer this question, you need to decide that in our understanding beauty. My representation may vary with your or ideas about the beauty of other people.
- I mean heroines in which there is no femininity and all attractiveness.
- There was one, but as a result it turned out to be the most beautiful and beloved by me. Director Natasha Merkulova removed a short film called “sisters”-about two sisters, one of which is an alcoholic with all the ensuing, and the second has everything in her life, and she tries to help somehow somehow. Vika Tolstoganova played a good sister, and I am an alcoholic sister. According to the script, this is a terrible woman with disgusting manifestations. I read the script and thought: “God, how vile it is, but what is freedom, what a fire.” In the frame, she is both terrible and beautiful. We starred without makeup, with a natural light and did not think at all how the heroines look, just lived this very strong story. Now it can be seen in cinemas, in the Almanac "Very Women's Stories."
- It is important for you how you look on the screen? Before the interview, you said that you do not like to watch your films at the moment when they go out and prefer to watch them after a few years and that during such views you often note that you looked better than you then seemed to you.
- It is important for me that I am ready for a specific work. I am not the person who is constantly engaged in himself: before, it was customary to think that a good actress should not be too well -groomed, that all this glamor is nonsense. But now everything is somehow different.
- When you look at other Russian actresses on Instagram, does the opposite sensation take shape?
- Perhaps the last few years. Before that, it was like this: "Decorate me less, I want to be more modest." I have for sure. It is now that I straightened my wings a little, I jump into the outgoing train.
I can’t make myself go to the cosmetologist systematically. This is also a job, but I am lazy to do it.
-Why still take care of yourself-a bad tone? Is this some kind of pretense of modesty?
- No, this is not modesty - this is the desire of the actress to show that there is something more than all these visual effects, what is inside, more expensive than what is outside. At the Theater Institute, they say to you: “Do not study yourself. No matter how you look. You are beautiful? Forget about it. The main thing is the content. The main thing is the meaning. " And this is true, the main thing is the meaning, and the viewer will already say: “God, how beautiful it is. There is no gram of cosmetics on it, but what is the inner light. ”
-This is something almost religious ...
- Of course, this is a sect, and we are sectarians.
- Have you allowed - before you played in the series "Thaw" - that you can’t change the status of a famous actress for the title of popular and folk loved one? Or are you still subconsciously waiting for the role that will truly glorify you?
- When I read the script “Thaw”, I madly wanted to play this role - it seemed to me that this whole story was about me. And I understood that the audience could not like this. And, of course, it became a jump for me, including internal ones.
- How did this leap affect your life?
- Globally, she has not changed in any way. To get a good role, I still pass samples. Or I ask about the samples myself. But the distance to the roles, of course, was reduced.
-Probably, now you are often offered to become the face of some brand ...
- Yes.
-Or visit some social event?
-They invite so many, because all the events need to be filled out by someone, and most often they invite me for this reason, and not because I am so beautiful.
- And, for example, you have become more difficult for you to nourish in the cinema, knowing that, most likely, the tabloids will devote more than one material?
“I constantly think about it: what can you afford and how it will respond to you later.” But by and large, I don’t care what they will think about me and say. The feelings that I will experience myself are important to me.
I used to think: “They will show me now, I can’t change it in any way and I will think about what I starred with such an imperfect figure.” Now, if I see that my exposure in the frame is justified for the role or for the plot, I am going to this. In general, I somehow reconciled with myself and began to treat this easier.
-Is this reconciliation with yourself, accepting oneself, happened after someone's positive assessment or some special role?
-No, no role, no assessment-I think that I just went some kind of way, matured and began to live more consciously.
A little higher, I said that I did not care what they would think of me. But this, of course, is not quite true. The feeling that a huge number of people loves you - just so, globally, for nothing - of course, gives you strength and self -confidence.
-In this, in your opinion, if you put it pathetic, the highest meaning of the artist's work?
- Pavel Semenovich Lungin once told me: “All artists are wounded people and go to this profession, because they passionately want love, they are bombing everything to get this love, and you are the same.” Well, yes, probably my need for love is more than those who have not gone into this profession.
“Do you feel like a star?”
-I constantly feel differently, but I manage to grab love in any case. (Laughs.)
-Are you planning new performances in the Gogol Center?
- Unfortunately, nothing is being prepared now.
- Do you miss new work with Kirill Serebrennikov?
-Of course, despite the fact that I play in the Gogol Center five performances a month, I miss and constantly ask Cyril's question: “What is happening? Where are my roles? " - I constantly swear.
But I am sure that I am in his heart - just like him in mine, in my creative heart and in human. I don’t know whether this heart is one or two different, I still can’t understand. But I am sure that I settled tightly there, I have a residence permit in my heart, so he will be ashamed of not to occupy me for a long time. (Laughs.)
- What personally shocked you in the case of the Seventh Studio?
- When all this happened, a huge number of people said: “That's right, so he needs! He stole, and even if he did not steal - he stole him, he must be punished. "
He always delighted everyone, and he was hated for it: for the fact that he was special and so talented, and so unlike anyone, and for the fact that he does not let “strangers” to himself. He fantastically knows how to gather people around him, knows how to isolate, grab new faces that no one knew before, you completely do not understand how he could have occurred to his mind to take off this person or use him in the play. But you understand that this is the perfect choice. So the people who wrote these nasty things would never have been close to Cyril, he would never let them in to himself.
I then read Facebook’s tape and thought: “He has this person and he and my friends - and he writes that.” Then for the first time in my life I began to block people.
- Is it so envy played in people?
- What is it - to envy a person who is sitting under house arrest? How is it possible? But, it seems, they even envied this - that it was he there, and not they, that his story is going on now, but in their life there will never be such a story. And after all, everyone understood that he was there not because he took something, but for some other reasons.
- You and many people from your environment then stopped communicating?
- In general, my circle is quite small. I think this is a 30 man, maybe less, never counted on her fingers. With everyone else, I always kept a distance. But in this situation, you certainly begin to divide others into your and strangers.
- The case against Kirill Serebrennikov made you more active in the civilian plan?
-What happened to Kirill Semenovich forced me to somehow manifest.
- Sometimes, as in the case of Ivan Golunov, this alone is already enough - especially when many people appear ...
- Yes, but in the case of Cyril Semenovich this was not: everyone was afraid to go out and say. Rather, someone was afraid, but someone consciously did not.
Cyril created an amazing troupe, the best theater, going into which you want to stay there forever. But great talent and great art cannot be unambiguous. Someone will say: “I hate it. This is vile. " And someone: "This is a real art." Like any big artist, he causes at the same time enormous love and wild hatred.
-After all this, you learned something new about the country in which you live?
- Probably not. Nothing new.
- That is, about the move, it did not force you to think?
- No. “I won’t leave here, because I'm here in my place.” The replica of my heroine from the play “(M) Student” can sound like a slogan.
Sasha Sulim