"Just plays a human person"

What creative path did Yura Borisov go - the first Russian actor nominated for Oscar

The 32-year-old Yura Borisov was the first in the post-Soviet history by a Russian actor nominated for an Oscar, for a second-plan role in the film by Sean Baker Anora. The world media one after another they take him an interview, without leaving for a minute alone, the American audience discusses him on Twitter and makes memes with his participation.

Meanwhile, the creative path of Yura is quite complicated: he went through the stage of searching for himself, roles in dubious films, all -Russian success - to work in complex, deep copyright cinema with foreign directors. What helped Borisov achieve the nomination for Oscar - luck or hard work? Why did he star in ideologically controversial paintings? What is the phenomenon of universal love for Borisov and can he, remaining a Russian actor and living in Russia, have no boundaries in the profession? Novyevropa tells the creative path of the first actor nominated for Oscar.

“I want to create characters who could give people hope”: “Anora” and “Oscar”

On January 23, Yura Borisov, along with his wife Anna and two daughters, Martha and Akulina, appeared on the air of the Good Morning America show. The actor said that he learned the news about his nomination for Oscar in the car - at that moment he was with his family. Yura's wife began to scream with joy, so much so that he never heard the names of other nominees.

Borisov produced a splash in the English -language twitter: “The next villain Bond”, “Bald Yuen McGregor” - as he was not called and said that “we need a nomination for the best bald role from the bald actor.”

When at the beginning of 2023 the shooting of the Anory began in Brooklyn, Borisov came from Moscow with some kind of wary , because he never worked abroad. He has never been in the USA before.

“I did not know Sean as a man.” I did not know Mikey [Madison - an actress who played anoru, who was also awarded the Oscar nomination]. I did not know how the American process was different. But I quickly realized that he was exactly the same everywhere, ”the actor said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

According to the plot, the main character of the film Anor Mikheev works stripper in a fashionable strip club on Manhattan. She was born in a family of Russian-speaking emigrants and lives on Brighton Beach. At work, she meets Vanya, the dissolving son of the Russian oligarch-and after a joint trip to Las Vegas, they decide to make a marriage.

Borisov in “Anora” plays Igor - a guy with good eyes, who looks like a Russian bandit. In almost all scenes, he is more likely to observe: he speaks little, only by his facial expressions it is clear what he is experiencing. He, along with two other heroes of the film, was supposed to annul the marriage of Vanya and Anora.

- I want to create characters who are better than me. I want to create characters who could give humanity hope. And that's why, of course, I love Igor. He is like a lighthouse for me, ” said the actor.

It is Igor who turns out to be the only person capable of compassion:

- In the Anor, he plays a truly humanistic role. Borisov conquered everyone with his sincerity. In the last scene, where Anora wants to thank him (as he can) from despair and after this attempt begins to cry, Borisov holds her with his hand behind her back. We are shown a plan where only his hand is visible.

And with this hand he plays an incredible amount of deep compassion for her. It is brutal, but defenseless. It seems to be a gopnik, but not a gopnik. A small person who is at a rather low stage of the social staircase is morally much higher than all the insolent oligarchs with a sense of permissiveness.

He simply plays a human person, this is the phenomenon of universal love for him, ”the source of“ New-Europe ”believes in the film industry.

According to our interlocutor, Borisov never set himself the goal of building a career of the most recognizable, most expensive and highly paid blockbuster artist:

- The phenomenon of his popularity and hype is definitely connected with the fact that he is supposedly in every barrel of a plug and ubiquitous. He was never a man who seemed to be an acting god, and everyone else was aphid under his feet. There are a lot of ubiquitous, there are a lot of popular. Does this help them become a nominee for Oscar? Definitely not. This does not even help them receive significant roles, ”the source believes.

Sean Baker called Borisov "Russian Ryan Gosling." What helped Yura to get recognition abroad? Most likely, the internal moral guideline and creative freedom. At the beginning of the work on the “anora”, the director did not have a clear idea of ​​who Igor is, and Yura and the show created this character together . Borisov said that Baker was always ready for cooperation during the filming:

- He constantly asked me about my character, never saying: "You must do it or go the way." There was a lot of freedom, and we played this way with all the cast, ” said the actor.

It was to this freedom that Borisov seems to have been going through his whole creative path.

"I did not want the theater to turn into a routine work": the beginning

Yura Borisov was born on December 8, 1992 in Reutov, Moscow Region. In high school, he was engaged in a school theater studio. Borisov’s parents were not connected with art: his mother is a realtor, his father first worked as a teacher of physical education and labor, and then an electrician and a locksmith. In the 1990s, they sold home plants in the Cherkizov market. In an interview with journalist Yuri Dudu, the actor admitted that he got the opportunity to develop “thanks to home flowers on Cherkiz” and the fact that his parents supported him in all aspirations.

- I am grateful to my parents that they did not even try to influence the definition of my life path. Mom and dad were afraid that I could become a drug addict, an alcoholic. It was only important for my parents that I got to the budget department and receive a higher education, ” said the actor.

The issue of choosing a profession occupied Borisov back in kindergarten: at first he wanted to become an astronaut, then an architect, and then a journalist.

- Finally, I realized that I just want to do nothing, live my life and travel a lot, -

He admitted.

And Yura chose an acting career - because, engaged in acting, he never felt that he was working . At 16, Borisov entered the theater school of Shchepkin, which he graduated in 2013. The actor made his debut on the big screen already in the first year of the institute-at the age of 18-in the drama Elena Andrei Zvyagintsev.

After studying at the school, Borisov played in the theater: in 2013, he became the laureate of the Golden List Award for the best male role in the play “Zoikina Apartment” directed by Yevgeny Dmitrieva. In the same year, the artistic director of Satyricon Konstantin Raikin invited Borisov to work for him in the theater. However, the actor left there a year later, because he wanted to play only in the performances that he likes himself:

- The repertoire theater is an attachment to one place, participation even in those performances that do not really like. He left because he did not want the theater to turn into routine work, ”Borisov said .

In the same years, the “serial” strip began in the life of the actor: he played the main roles in the series “Everyone has its own war” (2011), “At the Risk Zone” (2012), as well as the role of a soldier Paul in the Ukrainian mini-series “Motylka "(2013) - a dramatic story of love against the backdrop of a Chernobyl disaster. The scenes of this series were shot in the Kherson and Kyiv regions of Ukraine, as well as in Kyiv and Lviv, and the prime minister took place on the Ukrainian Inter.

“Then there was neither war nor its prospects”: a search for oneself

There are many paintings about the war in Borisov’s filmography, including “military-patriotic” and, right, propaganda. For these paintings, Borisov had to make excuses more than once. The actor himself said that the directors asserted him to such roles, most likely because of the suitable appearance for this. In 2015, Borisov played Sergei Tyulenin in the military-historical television series Leonid Geruskin “Young Guard”, and then the main role of Lieutenant Sergey Ogarkov in the military drama “Road to Berlin”.

Many memorize the actor’s role in the film “T-34” (2018) , where he played the tanker. As the film critic of Larisa Malyukova noted in Novaya Gazeta, the T-34 does not delve into the complex aspects of wartime, it reigns “romanticization of war and a feeling of lightness of victory”: “Instead of appeal to myth, the mythologization of history. Instead of an anti -war spirit - the motto “We can repeat!”, A call for a feat. Instead of a cruel smart enemy, there are solid idiots. ”

According to a source in the film industry, with whom the New Evropa spoke, now that three years have passed the full-scale war, it is quite difficult to understand that the past of any person should be considered in the context of the circumstances in which he was located. And Borisov’s filmography is no exception:

-The film "T-34" is released in 2018. Borisov at the time of filming was 24–26 years old, he is still a novice artist. Actors at the age of 24 do not quite understand what propaganda is, how it will respond later, what will happen in six years, whether we will be to blame for this. This context simply does not exist. Yura could get involved in ideologically controversial films because of his youth, the interestingness of the proposed roles and cast. But I'm sure: offer Borisov to act in the T-34 now, he would definitely not agree. But then there was neither war nor its prospect. Therefore, the optics was completely different, ”says our interlocutor.

For Borisov, as he said in an interview with Dudu, it is important to be multifaceted and not become a hostage of one role. In the drama "Khrustal" (2018) he is already playing DJ Alik - a hopeless drug addict with constantly dilated pupils and the main character of the main character. According to the plot, ambitious Velya from Minsk really wants to move to the American Chicago. By applying for a visa, she falsifies a certificate from the place of work, and then finds out that the phone indicated in the questionnaire can be checked. It turned out that the number belongs to the family from the village of Khrustalny, and Vellya goes there to wait for the treasured call from the embassy. And there the whole house is preparing for the wedding. The picture was the first Belarusian film in the whole story put forward to Oscar.

In order to join the role and understand how a person feels himself without interruptions sitting on severe drugs, Borisov himself decided to try prohibited substances:

- Naturally, I could not get the screw anywhere. I took out amphetamine. I really did not want to do this, but I went to the club, sniffed there amphetamine, I sausage and remembered all night there and how and what I feel. I do not want to play drug addicts anymore, to be honest, ”he said .

“I wanted to hold the line between the underground and the mainstream”: All -Russian recognition

Borisov received universal recognition after he played the main role in the film “Bull” (2019) , for which he was nominated for the Golden Eagle Award in the category “Best Male Role in the Cinema”. The action of criminal drama unfolds in the 1990s around the bandit Anton Bykov, who served and served a guy from a provincial city, who becomes the leader of the criminal group. According to film critic Anton Dolin, this film is “a monument of a romantic era, when the cops and bandits were no different from each other.” The film became the best according to Kinotavra in 2019. And for Borisov a new milestone in his career began:

-I worked, worked, worked, reached the foreseeable top, and the top was the “Kinotavr”, where we won with the “bull”. At this moment, I began an active acquaintance with a large number of people [from the industry]. I realized that many roads have opened for me at some time. The only question was where I will go further which of the roads I would choose. <...>

I would like to hold the line between the underground and the mainstream in order to be able to search. So that the producers make it possible to experiment where you want, ”the actor admitted .

Borisov wanted to repeat something that would be like cult films about the gangster 90s: “Brother”, “Brigade” and “Boomer”, in “Bull” he even tried to use the intonations of Danila Bagrov.

In the same year, the far from unambiguous film “The Union of Salvation” (2019) Andrei Kravchuk was released about the Decembrist uprising, in which Borisov also played in the secondary role of Anton Arbuzov. The film critic Anton Dolinspent parallels between the plot of the film and the repression of dissenters in modern Russia and stated that, in his opinion, the picture sounds as approval of the policy of state terror in relation to the disagreed.

- Her heroes are naive booze and neurotics, for the sake of a good purpose, ready to drown Russia in the blood. Fortunately, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich did not allow disgraces and suppressed the turmoil in the bud, ”wrote Dolin.

And this is despite the fact that the “Salvation Union” gathered all the best young actors in the late 2010s.

- The artists who played the main roles there personally told me that at the beginning of the filming the idea of ​​the film was completely different. They were simply deceived. It was the wildest setup. As a result, everything was repainted and made a propaganda abomination from this film and vulgarity about the fact that there was nothing to walk in the square, to rally, otherwise we will hang you - and we will be right. Because King Nicholas hung these, but he did not hang anyone else. And the king was well done. And the Decembrists simply furious from the fat, and they had no plan to reorganize Russia-they would just be affected, ”a source in the film industry says in a conversation with the“ New Evrope ”.

- From the point of view of art, this is pointless. As a political action is also some kind of strange statement, ”Borisov himself said in an interview with Dudu.

At the beginning of 2020, another controversial picture was released in the Russian rental-the biographical film “Kalashnikov” with Yura in the title role. This project about the fate of the designer of small arms brought the actor the Golden Eagle in the category "Best Male Role in the Cinema." Many called Kalashnikov only a primitive narrative about the "impeccable citizen" and "legendary Soviet weapons." Borisov himself explained what he initially saw in the idea of ​​the Sakharovsky Project:

- For me, it is not a selection criterion when choosing a material whether it will be propaganda or not propaganda. For me, the selection criterion was at least then whether it would be interesting for me to do this with these people or not.

Kalashnikova was interested in doing, because I wanted to make a character who creates a weapon. Well, the Sakharov theme - when he creates weapons and understands that he created weapons. I also wanted to think that he is leading a person who takes and creates a weapon - for good, not for the good.

Explore his complexes that make him do it. Maybe unconsciously, maybe somehow. But as a result, it turned out that I was too difficult to think about this cinema - more complicated than it was necessary specifically for this movie, so it did not work out what I wanted. This is a lesson for me that you need to carefully choose directors, films, material and your gaze, ”he said in an interview with Dudya.

“There must be at least some sense in something”: Roles in a complex author's movie

Over time, it is noticeable how Borisov more carefully chooses the projects with which to work, and more and more gravitates to the author's cinema. Perhaps one of Borisov’s most powerful works is the main role in the film by the directors of Natalia Merkulova and Alexei Chupov “Captain Volkonovov fled” (2021) . Place and time of action - Leningrad, 1938. According to the plot, the captain of the NKVD Fedor Volkonov specializes in the torture of prisoners and knocks them out recognitions in anti -state activities. He perfectly understands that these people are killed for anything, and therefore is not at all surprised when his department was sent in full force. But he managed to run.

One day, he is the ghost of a dead comrade-glassist, who says that all his colleagues were in hell. But Volkogonov wants to avoid eternal torment in the afterlife. To do this, he needs to repent and achieve forgiveness at least one injured person.

- Borisov in “Captain Volkonov” struck everyone with his outstanding acting. We believe him every second. Borisov plays a negative character there, and to such an extent that he himself cannot forgive this.

He prays for forgiveness and understands that he does not deserve this forgiveness. This is an incredibly powerful, albeit rather frontal statement.

But in our realities this is very good: it is understandable, it is intelligible, ”a source in the film industry tells the New-Europe.

Many called the Captain Volkogonov a very bold and brave statement about repressions that are relevant today.

— Опасное, не опасное. Жизнь короткая, и если ничего не говорить и не делать, то всё это превращается в какую-то каку. Должен же быть хоть какой-то смысл в чем-то вообще.

Я очень много сделал бессмысленного в своей жизни, в том числе в кино. Я бы не хотел продолжать, —

говорил Борисов у Дудя.

Собеседник «Новой-Европа» в киноиндустрии отметил, что Борисов принадлежит к уникальному типу артиста, из которого одинаково может получиться и положительный, и отрицательный персонаж: герой войны, предатель родины, любовник, маньяк, убийца.

— Это совершенно разные герои, он никогда не бывает одинаковым. Борисов бездонный: у него очень много актерских масок. Также у него есть редкое внутреннее качество: он излучает опасность, даже когда улыбается, несмотря на то, что в жизни он чрезвычайно милый, — подчеркивает он.

В 2021 году Борисов сыграл одну из главных ролей в фильме «Купе номер шесть» Юхо Куосманена — это стало первой работой актера с иностранным режиссером. Несмотря на то, что фильм финский, снят он на русском языке и повествует о путешествии в российском поезде из Москвы в Мурманск.

— Юра мне говорил, что ему было бы интересно поработать с этим финским режиссером, что ему предстоит два месяца прожить в купе поезда. Так себе условия. Борисов сыграл там загадочную русскую душу, в которую очаровывается даже финская лесбиянка, — рассказывает источник «Новой-Европа» в киноиндустрии.

«Купе номер шесть» — классический роуд-муви: он (Борисов) — шахтер Лёха, ни слова не знающий на иностранном языке, она (Сейди Хаарла) — интеллектуалка и археолог по имени Лаура родом из Финляндии, состоящая в отношениях с профессоркой Ириной, любимицей всего факультета. У Лауры есть мечта: увидеть петроглифы в Мурманске — наскальные изображения, которым несколько тысяч лет. Так получилось, что Ирина неожиданно не может поехать с возлюбленной, и та отправляется в незнакомый холодный город на русском севере одна. Ее попутчиком оказался работяга Лёха — в первой же сцене он уже напился, а затем начал задавать непристойные вопросы. Но так получилось, что таких, казалось бы, разных людей связывает как минимум одно: они оба чувствуют себя чужими и отвергнутыми и оба помогают друг другу справиться с этими переживания, вспоминая, что такое нормальные человеческие отношения. В конце фильма они уже, кажется, немного счастливее и чуть другие, чем в начале.

— Чем круче кино с точки зрения искусства, тем меньше там платят, потому что люди туда и так пойдут за идею, потому что она очень крутая и имеет смысл. И я всё время ищу такие проекты и на них соглашаюсь, — говорил Борисов у Дудя.

«Купе номер шесть» получил Гран-при Каннского кинофестиваля и был выдвинут Финляндией на «Оскар». Как известно, режиссер Шон Бейкер, который позже снимет «Анору», заметил Борисова именно благодаря этой картине.

«Актеры — по большому счету неорганизованные дураки»

Говорить с актером о политике — «это абсурд», говорил Борисов:

— Обсуждать политику с актерами бессмысленно. У меня постоянно меняется настроение, и на меня совершенно нельзя положиться в чем-то. Как можно положиться на человека, который сам нестабилен в каких-то политических взглядах? <…> Я увлекаюсь — часто не тем, часто эмоционально, не думая, что это очевидно неправильно, — сказал он у Дудя.

Несмотря на это, нельзя сказать, что у Борисова нет политической позиции. Так, в 2019-м он снимался в ролике в поддержку узников «Московского дела», в котором зачитывал слова Егора Жукова, — потому что считал, что «так быть не должно»:

— Я считаю, что нельзя закрывать людей, которые вышли на улицу, чтобы что-то сказать. Они имеют на это право, — говорил он.

В первый день полномасштабной войны Борисов подписал антивоенное письмо. В начале 2025-го, однако, он стал предметом критики со стороны украинцев и сочувствующих им: «Анору» и его номинацию некоторые считают еще одним примером культурной российской пропаганды (даже несмотря на то, что фильм никакого финансового отношения к России не имеет), а самого Юру называют сторонником Путина. В России же его критикуют как раз за то, что он не поддерживает войну.

Да, Борисов за три года открыто не обозначил свою позицию по поводу войны в Украине: какими-то постами в соцсетях, выступлениями или эмиграцией из России. Но, кажется, ни у кого нет сомнения, на какой он стороне в этом конфликте.

«Я бы просто хотел не иметь границ в работе»

— У меня нет цели двинуться и остаться там [на Западе]. Я бы просто хотел не иметь границ в работе: мочь работать и там, и там, чтобы количество предложений не ограничивалось только нашей страной. Но я абсолютно понимаю, что я никогда не смогу стать наравне с какими-то международными актерами, потому что я русский. <…> То есть я смогу играть только русских, — говорил Борисов в интервью Дудю.

Сейчас Юра раздает интервью многим мировым СМИ, и все умиляются его ломаному английскому. Но о планах остаться за рубежом он не объявлял — напротив, он всегда говорил, что не хочет уезжать из России, и анонсы его новых российских ролей не исчезают с лент новостных агентств. Но получится ли стереть границы, будучи в России, сегодня — после трех лет полномасштабной войны в Украине и изоляции?

— Юра Борисов никуда не уезжал. И вот какой результат мы видим. Значит, стереть границы возможно. Талант Борисова смог пробить высоченные бетонные стены, которые возникли после известных событий, — подытожил источник «Новой-Европа» в киноиндустрии.