Irina Rozanova: “I remember only good things”

There is something imperceptibly regal in her natural demeanor, slightly lazy movements, quiet, deep voice and commanding gaze. Significant. She would shine on the stage of the imperial theater, and not play the contemporaries, exhausted by life. What to do if there are no roles with a capital letter for Irina Rozanova today? However, she drives her black jeep quite regally. (“How does this car suit you!” I say, sitting down to get to the previously appointed meeting place. And I hear a laconic answer: “The car suits everyone.”) She is fantastically open and cordial in simple, friendly communication, but only not now, not at the time of the “official” interview. The recorder grows between us in the cafe like a barrier. An invisible taboo hangs over a beautifully served table: “Not a word about personal life!” Irina never talks publicly about her relationships with men. (“If I see fit, I’ll write a book about it myself.”) Even abstract questions about her feelings and experiences evoke a harsh reaction: “What are you asking about now? About personal life or creativity? I’ll answer about creativity … ” Rozanova does not hold firmness and perseverance. Didn’t she, as a five-year-old girl, independently come to the director of the Ryazan Drama Theater, where her mother worked, and asked for a role in a new play? This was the first (known history) act of will of the future actress.

The most important features

Can optimism be learned?

Need to. But I don’t think it’s possible.

What is the most important piece of advice you’ve been given in life?

I don’t like other people’s advice.

When and where are you happy?

In the family. And when I run away to nature. Only there I feel good and calm.

What is the main difference between a man and a woman?

We are strong men. According to their status, they are supposed to be strong, but nature genetically laid it down so that a woman is still stronger. And so it has always been.

What are you most afraid of?

I am afraid that someday I will wake up and there will be no Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum, and instead of them there will be museums of glamor, gloss and cellophane.

What do you like most about yourself?

Force.

Don’t like it?

Weakness.

What would you never want to change in your life?

Your gender.

Psychologies: How did your mother react to your desire to become an actress?

Irina Rozanova: Like any actress, she knows how unsweetened and heavy bread it is. She was probably worried, but it was pointless to dissuade me, and she understood that. If I really want something, I will do it anyway, I will achieve it. And I really wanted to be an actress.

Parents, whether we like it or not, continue themselves in us. After all, you once, like a mother, resolutely left a quiet life for the unknown – for a director who was believed. What else did you take from your parents?

И. R .: Mom and dad are my closest people. They had no time to educate me, because they worked a lot in the theater. My older brother and I were on our own. And at the age of 19 my independent life began in another city. But I know for sure that the attitude towards my family comes from my mother. She never told us what to do. It was just a big family. And she herself grew up in a family where she was the eldest among seven children. Her attitude towards her loved ones has always been very cordial. She is open and ready to help at the first call. It passed to me as well. Family is a very important part of me, we are all like branches of the same tree. I think that my mother’s disinterestedness is also in some sense in me: I don’t really worry about everyday things. It wasn’t like I couldn’t live without something.

You often left a well-established life, an arranged life and started everything from scratch – this was the case both in the personal sphere and in creativity. What did you leave?

И. R .: I will answer about creativity. When there is some kind of dead point in life, a pause that drags on, it must be cut off. It’s very simple. When I left the Mayakovsky Theater for the studio of the young director Sergei Zhenovach, everyone said: are you out of your mind – from an academic theater with traditions, history to some student, into complete obscurity? And I was interested! What the team created by Sergey was doing can hardly be called a theater – it was friendship, fantasy, madness, family. We had freedom of choice, and this is the most important thing. And for me the question did not arise: where is better? What will I lose there and what will I gain here? I went by feeling: to where it was good, where it was real. And when it all ended at the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya, we were already leaving, just to get out of that dead loop that had formed.

Aren’t you afraid to go nowhere?

И. R .: We were leaving for freedom. I did not know what would happen next, but I understood that it was better than sitting in one place and cursing my life. I do not like to walk in formation – this is not mine. The general collection of cones in the pioneer camp always led me to despair. I grew up freely: my parents did not throw me up with relatives, but all the time – from the age of three – they took me on tour in different cities. And thanks to them for this: I have a million childhood impressions of those trips. I still love the road, I do not get tired during the longest journeys. The car is my home, where I feel very comfortable and protected.

It seems that you easily part with the past …

И. R .: Breaking up isn’t easy at all. This is always a painful moment. But I believe that this should be done on time so as not to bring the situation to the point where a sharp rejection of what is happening overshadows everything. I had quite dramatic moments in my life, but my memory keeps only good ones. I do not know why.

Maybe it’s a self-preservation reaction? Or does a sad experience go into the unconscious, and then splash out in your roles?

И. R .: Probably so. Work is my love, life, joys and tears … But I think that I have not yet fully expressed myself as an actress. I dream of a moment when all the fuss will go away and you will be able to freely tell your life without playing anything. So Rostislav Plyatt and Faina Ranevskaya existed in the play “Further – Silence”. This is how Yevgeny Leonov existed in the Memorial Prayer, when everything worked – his experience, pain, his whole life – and there was a feeling that he himself was not putting any effort into it. This is mysticism! I would really like to play something about my age to tell what I have lived and already know.

How do you feel about your age?

И. R .: I feel good. I like him. Less fuss, stupidity, although this is also sometimes necessary … I do not yet have the tragic feeling of impending old age.

What serves as a support for you in difficult times?

И. R .: There are always parents and friends around. And then … You know, there is such a strange disease – phobophobia, the fear of being afraid of something. It seems to me that there is no need to be afraid of change, because not all changes are sad. Worse when nothing happens.

Have you been interested in psychotherapy?

И. R .: Who knows me better than myself? I remember that I quit smoking and gained a lot of weight – I replaced the cigarette with cakes, sweet bars … And I ate three pieces at once, two – after ten minutes, and two more stretched for a day. It was crazy. And I went to be encoded from the sweet. The doctor spoke to me for a long time, and then spread his hands: it is difficult, he says, with you. Difficult. Because I knew everything he told me. And she eventually solved the problem herself. After all, we perfectly understand everything about ourselves, we just sometimes try to run away from something, not to finish something for ourselves … But this is also life! If you tell yourself everything, it will be quite boring. And I’m very interested in myself. It’s good when there are different things – both in work and in life.

Your profession just allows you to live different lives …

И. R .: I live my life, and the life of my hero – I invent, play. A good artist is necessarily a good psychologist. We analyze all the time: what is the reason, and could it be otherwise? This world of fantasy and writing breaks away from reality, in which prices are rising, and I am not a rentier at all … Right now, many people invent a virtual life for themselves in computers. Our profession is the same virtual life in which you can do something real, interesting.

Are you not afraid to forget yourself, get lost in these imaginary worlds?

И. R .: Never. I try to live unimaginatively. Truth. And it is always more interesting for me in life and on stage that which is not invented. I see real relationships very well. Here in ballet, for example: a prima is dancing, and behind her is a corps de ballet. Everyone should pull their legs evenly, and one pulls higher, shows off, the other lower, lazy. And what is happening there is more interesting to me than the dance of the prima. I don’t know how to make friends for a certain benefit. I have close friends to whom I am as open as they are to me. And for a long time I have not allowed people to come to me who could betray me.

Do you care how others perceive you?

И. R .: The bad opinion of those who know me well can make me sad, because I trust these people. And the opinion of others is often too superficial: it is connected either with my heroines – good or bad, or with publications that distort the truth, but not with me personally. Now all books on psychology say one thing: learn to understand yourself. Then everything else will be treated calmer, easier.

What is important to you about yourself?

И. R .: (Long pause.) I have a heavy character. (Laughs) It’s a joke! No, it probably seems difficult to someone … (Again a long reflection.) I’m telling you, it’s hard to do an interview with me. I won’t tell you anything new anyway. (She falls silent again.) Yes, I am different. And impressions from a person are sometimes random, dictated by our complexes. I remember that right after the institute I went to audition for a well-known theater and was very afraid. Out of fear and pressure, I came there in a state of crazy attack, pressure. It was a defense bordering on aggression. And this happens very often. Therefore, it is not necessary to take everything that we see from the side at face value – we have a huge number of complexes.

You have repeatedly said that an act forms character. In my opinion, you are just a man of action, strong and decisive …

И. R .: On the contrary, I’m a coward! Unwillingness to come to terms with the situation – it is also from fear, from fear of wasting time and energy, which are not endless! I’m more afraid to be in a foreign space than to go nowhere and wait for the space – mine – to find me.

Is home your space?

И. R .: Mine, but I won’t talk about it anyway. Everyone needs shelter, a loved one, a shoulder to lean on – these are things that cannot be encroached upon. And let it be.

Are your parents supportive now?

И. R .: Now they are like children to me… In the summer, my brother and I were doing repairs in my parents’ house in Ryazan. It was a real revolution. You know how old people treat their things, but we bought almost everything new, only left some rare items. The World Cup was on, and when I brought a large plasma TV into the house, my dad sat down in front of it and almost shed a tear: “I almost feel like I’m at the stadium.” It was very pleasant for me. It’s great when you can do something for your parents. By the way, dad has been retired for 19 years, during this time he wrote four books of memoirs and never regretted his life, did not bite himself from the inside – because he was left unsaid, misunderstood, unrealized. He moved on and came up with new goals for himself. Here is an act! Because the profession of an actor is a very depraved one. Very! And not physiologically, but mentally, spiritually. It corrupts minds and souls.

With what?

И. R .: A very vain profession. It is easy to believe that you are the only one, the best, and live with it.

How do you protect yourself from vanity?

И. R .: The experience of early youth was good for me. When I was awarded the Crystal Crown for my role in Valery Todorovsky’s film Hearse at the Golden Duke festival, I just flew and seemed to myself a celestial being. And at the next festival they didn’t give me anything. And that was a huge disappointment. But I made certain conclusions, and everything that came later – awards, titles – I accepted with joy, but without fuss. I hope this will always be the case.

Private bussiness

• 1961 July 22 was born in Ryazan, in the family of theater artists Zoya Belova and Yuri Rozanov.
• 1980 Entered the directing department of GITIS (course of Oscar Remez).
• 1984 She made her debut on the stage of the Theater. Vl. Mayakovsky in the play “Blonde” by Kama Ginkas.
• 1988 The role of Pannochka in the play of the same name by Sergei Zhenovach (Theatre-Studio “Man”).
• 1991 Special jury prize at the international festival in Geneva for his role in the film “Cloud Paradise” by Nikolai Dostal.
• 1992 “Golden Aries” for his role in the film “Anchor, more anchor!” by Pyotr Todorovsky.
• 1995 The Seagull Award for the role of Nastasya Filippovna in Sergei Zhenovach’s play The Idiot (Theater on Malaya Bronnaya).
• 1996 Received the title of Honored Artist of Russia.
• 1998 Prize for Best Actress (in Alla Surikova’s film “Children of Monday”) at the festival “Vivat Cinema of Russia!”.
• 2005 Nika Award for Best Supporting Actor in Nikolay Dostal’s Kolya the Tumbleweed. The role of Arkadina in the play “The Seagull” by Andrei Konchalovsky (Mossovet Theatre).
• 2006 Roles in the films “Communication” by Avdotya Smirnova, “Infidelity” by Yevgeny Zvezdakov, “Tango Tanker” by Bakhtiyor Khudoynazarov, in the television series “9 Months” by Rezo Gigineishvili, “The Enchanted Plot” by Alexander Baranov and “Cain’s Seal” by Boris Gorlov, “Detective Putilin” “Sergey Gazarov,” Katerina “Evgeny Semenov. She starred in the film “Gloss” by Andrei Konchalovsky (premier in the spring of 2007).