We learned from the “queen of musicals” what it is like to sing all year round, seven days a week, and why it is so important to have a man of the creative profession nearby.
In the new Theater of the Musical, you have the main role in the production of "You Can't Choose Times", at the Operetta Theater you sing in the musicals "Monte Cristo" and "Caesar and Cleopatra", and now two new projects are starting there - "Fan-Fan Tulip" and "Count Orlov". Lera, you are the most demanded actress in theatrical musicals. Are you on stage almost every day?
I have been in this genre since I was 5, I started at the Children's Musical Theater of a young actor. I can't live without a stage. I have to work out each performance 7-8 times a month. Plus an entreprise, plus filming, plus repertoire performances at the "Theater of the Moon".
It turns out that work is the main pleasure in your life?
This is my life. When I suddenly have free days, I still can't just lie there and do nothing.
Do you have days off?
Yesterday was the only day off in a month and a half. I went out of town just to sleep off. My legs are buzzing, my voice is tired. We need to recover.
When you once starred in the TV series "Princess of the Circus", which brought you fame, I know you slept for 4 and 2 hours
Yes, from night shift to day shift, from day to night shift, and also performances. In parallel, other projects appeared, which it was foolish to refuse. But still, I try to distribute my strength, since childhood I have learned to cope with fatigue, I was engaged in figure skating, and rhythmic gymnastics, and ballroom dancing.
Did you want to be famous?
Fame has never been an end in itself, absolutely never. "Star" is a stupid word. Artists of the older generation don't love him for nothing. And I agree with them. It seems to me that it is more important to be a good artist, and not a famous thing and a star. Yes, popularity increases after television or film distribution. After all, there are much more people who watch TV or movies than those who go to theaters. Here is a vicious circle, unfortunately, without television and film popularity, the audience will not want to see you on stage.
Do you still remember the time when you carried your photographs to the film studios in your first year?
It was 10 years ago. It seems that in another life, a very long time ago.
I heard that at the age of 15 you already studied at the institute
Yes, I entered at the age of 15, and from the first year we knocked on all the "doors" - both to the actor's base, and just walked around the pavilions, around the production building, leaving our photos to casting directors or director's assistants. But even without this, there were enough problems. Once I was almost expelled from the institute, there was a period when I did not succeed. Then everything worked out.
How did you end up at the institute at such an early age?
I went to school at the age of 6, then I jumped through the 4th grade, there is such a program.
Isn't your childhood too difficult?
No, I had everything: both the holidays, and at the dacha I climbed with the boys in the neighboring gardens. The rest, however, was mainly in the summer. And throughout the year - a tough schedule: gymnastics, "musical", figure skating, musical theater of a young actor.
You were mostly friends with boys. Why? You are such a girl-girl
I've always been a kid. And in schools, and I changed seven of them, my friends were only boys. With the guys, everything is always clear, there are no second and third plans, implications, envy. Everything is clear, everything is clear. Let's go play - let's go, let me write it off - on! And with girls everything is more complicated.
You talked so easily with the boys, but now you are 25, and you had only a few novels …
It's just that I'm not the kind of person who lives by the principle: let's try with this, let's try with that. I do not like one-time options. If I'm trying to build a relationship, then I get involved in this story seriously, with full dedication. But if for some time something does not add up, then alas!
Are you a free girl now?
Yes.
Open to communication?
On the contrary, I closed myself, I'm afraid to let someone in again. Because it hurts, hard, offensive. Immediately throw yourself into the pool with your head so that they spit in your soul again? What for? I became more careful. I'm still scared. Now, it seems to me, I will try to get to know the person better before I open up to him.
Is loneliness not a burden?
I am surrounded by people all the time, I play love on stage, I feel the love of the audience. And that's enough for me. Although warmth, comfort and understanding are not enough.
Do you often pay attention to positive men?
Oh, before I was always attracted to womanizers and such "seasoned" handsome men. And now I realized that it would be better to have a calm, quietly loving person who can come up, take the hand - that's all. And nothing else is needed. This is better than insane passion, mind-blowing, when you throw yourself into it, it carries you, and then - come what may. Let me do better without crazy passions and emotions, but I will be confident in a person. I need a creative man next to me who will understand me. So that there are no reproaches that they can call me in the middle of the night and say: "Come to the rehearsal." It seems to me that a person sitting in an office will not be able to understand my soul, love of freedom and creative impulses.
But I heard that you are very domestic: you don't go to clubs, from work - go straight home
I love my family very much, and it is important for me to devote every free minute to the house. But you can't let a man sit on your neck. It happens that you play two performances a day, and still strength and desire remain, and sometimes you sing one song at a concert and come home dead. I don’t know what it’s connected with. Fatigue is probably accumulating. And the audience is different, sometimes they give you energy, sometimes they suck you out. You cannot explain this to anyone, only a person who himself goes through such a thing can understand. A man who is next to you should understand, if you say: I'm tired, I'm sorry, I can't, it means I'm really tired and I can't. Why am I going to lie?
Where do you meet?
I'm not looking. It will come by itself.
When you have a difficult period in your life, how do you act?
I can't sit still. Recently I had a period without cinema - a year and a half. I was very worried. Twitched, did not understand what was wrong. True, my mother told me, don't worry, you start filming - you will immediately calm down. And now everything is fine. But even when there was a lull in the cinema, I wrote the staging myself, found money, a director, and now I am starting a theatrical performance. We must always go forward, seek, try.
Your concern is understandable. The cinema brings the artist the main money, and I heard that you yourself have already almost built a country house?
Yes, but this is some kind of endless investment of effort and money. I understood that a lot of money would be needed, but this is just an endless story. You build for a long time, you want to do everything with high quality. So I delve into everything in full: pipes, sewerage, plumbing, ceilings. For two years now, in our free time, my mother and I have been traveling to the construction markets, choosing materials. Hope to move into the house soon. Everyone has been living in this village for a long time, my only plot was empty. Ira Slutskaya - across the house from me, filmmakers.
And now you are still living with your mother. Wasn't it difficult to return to childhood again?
I was not independent for so long, it was very pleasant for me to return to my parents' house.
Are you mom's daughter?
You could say that. Although I have been earning my own living since I was 13, my mother and I are fine. Despite the fact that we live in the same apartment, we both have so much work that we do not see each other every day. Mom is a famous figure skating coach. Works in the "Ice Age", a very long time, even before I appeared there. We have a female collective at home - me, my mother and my sister.
You're always worried before the premiere. How did you cope with the recent loud start of the musical "You Can't Choose Times"?
Every premiere is stressful for me. I started to shake a week before the performance, and on the day of the premiere it was just a nightmare! When the music, the overture started, I felt a stupor, it seemed to me that I had never been on stage in my life, although all my life there. After all, there is always a risk: whether the public likes it or not, the ligaments will close - they will not close. When you sing every day, your voice gets tired and does not always behave the way you want.
What did you have to learn while working on this production?
I've never sung jazz before, but I've always dreamed about it. The works that everyone knows are both pleasant and difficult to sing. After all, both Fitzgerald and Sinatra performed them. In general, the era of the 30s is one of my favorites for me. The performance has magnificent costumes. My heroine is very interesting, she is not just lyrical, she is characteristic. Here you can play both eccentricity and openness. She's very bright.
You give your best on stage. How do you deal with emotional fatigue?
When I am very tired I can be irritable. Sometimes I blur out something, then I think: why did I say this? I beg your pardon. And for health and harmony I take a contrast shower. I don't eat after six. Although after the performance I really want to come home and eat something tasty. But if I do it, I'll swell. I weighed 11 kg more at the institute. The master shouted at me: you have a heroine's face, and your butt is characteristic, I wonder what will you play?
Do you consider your life to be happy?
When I start crying to my mother that I’m tired, tomorrow there’s a rehearsal again, a morning performance, I don’t want to, she says: "Lera, imagine how many girls - hundreds, thousands, dream of being in your place." So I have no right to complain about fate!
Olga Borovik spoke
