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What role does music play in your life?
I would probably say that music is one of the most expressive art forms for me. Of course, I don’t perform professionally, though it does play a huge role: it helps me think differently and want to go on living.
Will the Cleopatra that you are presenting at the Mariinsky Theatre be different from your performance of Serebrennikov’s Cleopatra? Meaning, of course, not the form, but the essence.
Yes, for sure. That production was about the problems of East and West. Or even, to be more precise, about Russia and Chechnya. At the time it was a hot topic. The theme, of course, remains a current one today...
What criteria guide you when you accept or turn down a role?
I try to take roles that make me a better person and help me understand things. I try to play characters that are really not like me at all.
What roles have helped you understand yourself better?
Almost all of them. Each role, in one way or another, helps you understand yourself and, to an extent, change your view of the world. But probably I’d have to say one of these was the title role in The Diary of Anne Frank, to an incredible degree, really.
Does your skill at reinventing yourself and seeing yourself become another person help you in real-life relationships? Do you see yourself as a psychologist and expert on human souls?
No, I can’t do that. But when I speak to people it is I that is speaking to them, not someone else. Becoming someone else in real life is of no interest to me at all.
What are the qualities that a brilliant stage director should have?
He should be intelligent, talented, he must have an understanding of the theme and the characters he is staging a production about. With people like that it’s easy.
Would you describe yourself as a jovial person?
I try to be a jovial person but, unfortunately, to a great extent that depends on willpower.
Because of your work in the public eye?
Working in the public eye doesn’t suppress me. It is the reactions of people around me to it that suppress me.
Could any one actor today be so deserving of the authority required to create some change in the world around him or her?
No, they couldn’t (lengthy silence). I believe you can make people think, you can force a specific person in the audience to change who has found some parallel with his own life. An actor can, somehow, a specific member of the audience for his entire life. But he can’t change the situation of the world.
Speaking with Svetlana Nikitina
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