Yulia Peresild: “I don’t know what rules to live by”

She looks more like an athlete than an actress: collected, energetic, in something dim, but obviously comfortable and not restricting her movements. And in conversation, he demonstrates an impressive range of interests – from quantum physics to the works of prominent Russian psychologists. At the same time, he raises two daughters and devotes a lot of time and effort to the Galchonok Charitable Foundation.

Рsychologies: 2016 was a bright year for you. You received the Golden Eagle for the film Battle for Sevastopol, played the main role in the Rabbit Hole at the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya and in the film Cold Tango by Pavel Chukhrai, who had not filmed for ten years.

Yuri Peresild: I also almost started acting in a New Year’s comedy.

Suddenly!

Yes, I surprised myself. I get a lot of scripts for all sorts of “modern comedies”, but I never agreed. And that’s where it all came together, I guess. And the script is a good movie, and my fortune. Because the “Battle for Sevastopol” was hard. And “Alien” Pavel Grigoryevich Chukhrai – too. The love story of a Lithuanian girl and a Jewish boy during the war. And the “Rabbit Hole” is a family that is trying to survive the death of a child. I needed something else, consider it psychotherapy. But, apparently, light material is not for me. It didn’t work out at the last moment.

The heavy performance of “Rabbit Hole” nevertheless became an event. Did you expect such a success?

To be honest, no. I read the play and thought: no one will watch it, such a “beznadega.ru”! And now I see that the viewer, although not happy to talk about sore topics, but there is a need. Maybe the fact is that everyone now lives in fear, and we need to somehow fight it. Not even fear, but a feeling … It is not clear what to expect. By what rules to live and whether they exist at all.

Do you feel the same way too?

Everyone has it. Many of my friends at some point went to Europe, to America. But I wouldn’t be able to. For example, I adore Germany, the German language, culture, theater – in my opinion, it is the best in Europe today. But living there…

Why Germany? German roots?

No, I have them Baltic. But what are the roots? I have Pskov roots. It’s terrible, but unfortunately we don’t have roots. Here are friends from Germany telling me that they run a porcelain factory. Which does not bring any profit, but they still support it, because it was founded by their great-great-great- and a few more times “great-” grandfather. And I’m so jealous that I’m not even sure if this envy is white. Because at this moment I think: I only know about my great-grandmother, and then there is not a single photograph of her … So, with all my love for Germany, I understand that I cannot live there.

What keeps you in Russia, not birch trees?

People. They are certainly different and certainly sometimes terrible. But where else, looking at night, will you visit without warning, and your friends will simply open the refrigerator and put everything they have on the table? And it can be poor people, it’s about relationships. I can’t live without it. And without such an attitude to work, when not because of money and not because of popularity, but because you cannot do otherwise. And most of these people are around me. Whether they exist elsewhere, I don’t know.

For example, we were on tour in New York. There is a rehearsal, the artists are working on stage. I don’t know how to explain it, but it means that we are all fully involved in this work, nothing else exists for us. And all of a sudden, at some point — poof! – the light is cut off. We are in a panic: what happened? And the Americans explain: yes, everything is fine, we just have lunch. What?! What lunch, what are you talking about?! We’re in rehearsal! Do not understand.

I said that we don’t have any rules and that’s why it’s scary. Yes, it’s good to have rules. But not when they are elevated to the absolute. It’s killing me, I’d go crazy with them, really.

This is about America, not about Germany …

Want about Germany – please! Premiere of Thomas Ostermeier’s “Miss Julie” at the Theater of Nations. Chulpan Khamatova, Zhenya Mironov, I… The tables are laid for this premiere, some gifts are given to us. Because this is a holiday, this is joy, these are many months of hard work. And the premiere in Berlin, at the Schaubühne Theatre. Three lonely taps with beer and crackers. We stood there near these cranes, stood and said: “Well, now let’s invite you to a restaurant in honor of the premiere in your theater.” Therefore, working there is a pleasure. But to live is not.

Why don’t you work there then?

Do you know the joke about the artist who is told before the New Year that Spielberg invites him to act, and he answers: “What Spielberg, I have Christmas trees”? This is absolutely about me. Here is the festival in Beijing, chairman of the jury Luc Besson. And I am awarded a prize for the main female role in the “Battle for Sevastopol”. And at this moment I have a performance in Moscow at the Theater of Nations. And they call me from the embassy, ​​from somewhere else: I have to be at the ceremony. But I have a show! And how can I let down Zhenya Mironov, a person who is dear and close to me? Of course, he will let me go, cancel this performance, come up with something else, he will do it all, I know. But this… is not good. And the value of being able to rely on you is incomparable with all the awards. You know, when the stage of the Theater of Nations opened, I did not leave its building for three years.

Perhaps this is still an exaggeration?

Literally didn’t come out. I lived there. It ended up that dad gave me a cot for my birthday so that I would no longer suffer and sleep normally. And on the set, on the set, I can live the same way. The main thing here is the feeling that you are needed, that they are counting on you. I am often invited and told: “You will be the decoration of our project.” And that’s when I start to shake. What kind of decoration am I? I do not want! But when I feel necessary, seriously involved – then I can spend the night in the theater or on the site, then everything works out.

Do you have enough time and energy for children with such involvement in work?

I don’t really like talking about my children in interviews. I find that their appearance – in an interview or in public – attracts some kind of energy. And how they will affect, we do not know. And my children do not deserve to have this energy poured out on them. They are still small.

Mystic?

The quantum physics. Observation of matter introduces changes in this matter. But in general, if we talk about children, I was lucky with them. Maybe if they didn’t demand anything, they would miss me. But in this sense, they just squeeze me out. And when I come home, nannies, toys – none of this. The main toy is me. And playing hide-and-seek or horses at seven in the morning, or waking up at two in the morning to talk … Of course, it’s difficult: to get up at seven in the morning after a hard performance the day before and gallop around the house like a horse. But I am grateful to them for that.

The conversation is short: “So, I’m with you on the set tomorrow.” I begin to persuade that tomorrow will be a difficult day … “No, I’m already ready” – that’s all. Okay, I think I’ll get up early in the morning and quietly leave. Morning, I get up. “Mom, are you ready?” I even sometimes think that if I sat at home with them, both I and they would appreciate this happiness less. And when you have four hours a day, you put everything into them. When I’m with them, I don’t just turn off my phone – I forget it exists.

Were you a good girl as a child? Or fight and climb trees?

Fought. I’ve been friends with boys all my life. And I had – I didn’t, I have! – the only friend I never called that, I call her a friend. She is in Pskov. This is a person with whom we understand each other at a distance. When I feel bad, she feels it and it is at these moments that she calls. And I don’t have to talk to her about little things. I really appreciate this connection between people. And I believe in it much more than in all these “hello, how are you, what are you, well, tell me.” These conversations about nothing for three hours are too much luxury for me.

I was friends with boys. And, speaking today, they, of course, were complete gopniks. And I studied for fours and fives. But after school we sat together in the school yard. They smoked, sometimes even drank, and always cursed. And I, in general, along with them, too. And I am grateful to my parents for the fact that they were not horrified by this. I do not know why. They trusted me a lot. No one forbade me or frightened me with anything. And maybe that’s why I myself figured out that there are things more serious and more interesting.

Do you have your own pedagogical principles today?

Yes, I do not know any principles, really. I love to read Julia Gippenreiter, I love it very much. But sometimes I come into conflict with myself, because I’m not sure that everything she writes about always works. No offense to Yulia Borisovna, of course. And this does not mean that all this does not need to be studied, it is not necessary to write and read about it. It is necessary, of course! But the interest and complexity of raising children and all of psychology, it seems to me, is that there are no ready-made answers. You have to find them in yourself.

But do you have any thoughts about the future of your children?

There is. I really want them to grow up as people. To be kind, to know how to love, to understand people, including special people who are not like them. Therefore, the only public events to which I drag them are the events of the Galchonok Charitable Foundation. Our foundation deals with children with organic lesions of the central nervous system. And the biggest horror of the mothers of these children is playgrounds. They go to psychologists, they take all kinds of courses, and then they come to the playground and hell breaks loose. Because the parents of other, ordinary children grab them and drag them out of there, saying: “Let’s go, let’s go, you don’t need it.” I have seen this many times. This is how we make our children morally crippled!

You are seriously involved in charity work. How did it all start?

With the light hand of Chulpan Khamatova. I sometimes went to her in the Gift of Life foundation. And at some point she said: “You know, Yul, one fund is looking for a person. And I can’t not tell you about it, because I was asked. But I warn you: think. Maybe you don’t need to.”

Why not? Too hard?

It’s hard if you’re serious about it. Although … It is both immensely painful and immensely joyful. For example, we came up with and made a performance based on the poems of children’s poets. I don’t want to call this performance charity. When they say “charity performance”, it immediately sounds like we are standing with an outstretched hand: well, give us at least some. Yes, we put on a good performance! He was in Sovremennik, Chulpan Khamatova played, Alisa Grebenshchikova, Mitya Khrustalev, I …

I want there to be more joy in the very concept of charity, more light.