All these people were embodied in his role by actor Alexei Makarov. The hero of him is an artist of the Bolshoi Theater (filmed at the Moscow Art Theater), who obviously plays Zilov in Vampilov’s Duck Hunt for a reason. The same Zilov who invited everyone to his own funeral (Makarov is revealingly wearing a wreath onstage). Vampilov himself, the boat with which he tragically capsized … I would like to ask how the author of the script and showrunner of “Actresses” Paulina Andreeva knows this? But come on, he knows. Even though he represents a completely different generation.
The tragedy of the acting profession is shown in the first episode of “It doesn’t hurt.” Spectators even rejoice at the recognition, try their friends. Cinematographers and theater people seem to look in the mirror, in fact, they all “starred” in this series. They wonder whose acting agent was discarded and whose was the young violinist, one-day lover of Gera Koldin, the hero of Alexei Makarov. Is the collective image of Svetlana Khodchenkova, the wife of Hera, an actress who left the temple of art for a real temple, is it factual or does it play a role?
In each series of “Actresses” at the end, a tragedy that turns into a farce, a new song, a new dance and – a falling curtain separating what is happening from the real world *.
The second series of “Actresses” – in its purest form – a farce and a black comedy. I play with death. How all these people with, to put it mildly, an unusual psyche prove a tragic situation for themselves and their profession. And suddenly it turns out that only two understood the collective character Hera Koldin: the violinist herself (Anastasia Krasovskaya) and the young actress, not an intriguer (yes, there are, they have not spoiled her yet) played by Polina Pushkaruk.
However, Polina is the name of another actress in the series, and it rhymes with Paulina (I wonder how much the writer-showrunner invested in the series based on her biography). Only the actress played by Svetlana Khodchenkova. Polina from her is played in such a way that she seems to live and, as it were, she plays. For her, the whole world is a theater. She manipulates those around her using her acting talent: she is an actress not only on stage and in movies, but also in life. Khodchenkova found some “unearthly” intonations, as if everything she said was true and at the same time a lie. She is not just acting (a very curious definition of acting is given in the series), but hypocrisy. And she remains herself only when she communicates with her father, in this role, Alexei Guskov.
An impressive and accurate find from the creators of the series is Lolita Milyavskaya. Of course, it was impossible not to invite a person from show business to the series about actresses. But in order to make her not an actress, but a “workhorse”, the mother of all actors and actresses, a theater director named Olga. A woman who is deeply unhappy in her personal life, she doesn’t know if her chosen one married her uses her or really loves her. But her children are actors and actresses, she knows their nature and race, teaches, protects, instructs … Looking at Lolita’s game, one cannot help but remember how another representative of show business, Kristina Orbakaite, plays dramatic roles. and comedians in movies. . Just another comedy came out with her participation, and you involuntarily think why she, like Lolita, is rarely invited to act.
But back to the series. “Actresses” are made “according to patterns” by Valery Todorovsky. He is the producer of this series, but not only. He too a spiritual father, if you will. In “Actresses” both “Thaw” and “Nadvoe” are reflected, and even in something “Garden Ring”, where Todorovsky is also a producer. What is the meaning of these “patterns”? In which the stories of the daily and spiritual formation of the heroes are told. All! Not just the main ones. And these stories begin with the third series, which will only appear in Kinopoisk and Wink online theaters. Before this, the audience only observed the environment in which these characters live. The 10-episode “Actresses” have three time periods, three acts, covering the period from the first half of the 2010s to the end of the decade. And the authors show all the stages of the “surfing” of the acting profession: here you are on the wave, but here you are already under it. We see the heroes in the era of their glory and infamy. In a state of powerless and strong creative zeal, when human relationships are nothing, they fall apart at the first call of the agent offering the role. The ambitious actress, who is ready to do anything for the role, right down to a fleeting glance and a smile on her face, is played by Elena Nikolaeva. Son, relationships, girlfriends – everything is “in the oven” of the profession. Mental states are needed only to fix them for roles. Determined hysterical, it is impossible to exist with the one who under the same roof. The actress is like gold: of a high “standard” (in the sense of acting tests in the first place), but completely unbearable in life. In the first few episodes, she’s on her way to popularity, ready to take everything and everyone by storm.
Another main character of the series is the naive and kind Oksana, played by Polina Pushkaruk, who knows how to love and cannot hide her feelings and emotions and her attitude to what is happening, falls in love with a colleague, an egoist and a sissy and confronts the soulless prose of life. Will she survive in a duel with everyday life and not with the best manifestations of the human quality of the people around her?
Some viewers were outraged after the series premiere: why is the series called “Actresses”? After all, it also has male actors. Sergei Gilev – is an actor of the first plan, who is about to become a “downed pilot.” Pavel Popov, in the role of Kolya “pleasant in all respects”, and others. The answer to this question is simple: male artists sometimes do not show their best qualities, they behave like women, they are also “actresses”, it’s just that female characters express the vicissitudes of the profession much more strongly.
… At the premiere, Paulina Andreeva told the audience that all the events of the series are already in the past. In which it was We, the audience, have not even finished watching the first season, but the soul is already asking for a continuation – how the fate of the heroes developed after February 24, 2022. While the viewer draws it only in imagination of the. But what kind of series can be filmed? Life has shown the strongest stories.
*At the Second Festival of Original Streaming Services +, where “Actresses” took two awards: Most Original Series and Most Directing, the project was a brilliant contender for the award in the “Original Music” nomination, but lost by decision. from the jury to another series “Volunteer Playlist”.
