Sudaruska weekly, vol. 10 (749), 2006

Geography of her life

- Anna, if you ever write a book about yourself, what would be the title of the chapter about the present period of your life?

- "Coming Back", this is what immediately appears in my mind. It always happens in your life that you go back to your roots, to the place you have come from, to the dreams you had when you were a child, i. e. to your essence. And I dreamed to be an actress. But it happened so that my life periodically took me away from it - I entered the Foreign Languages Institute, then I was a model… Yet, meandering, this road still took me to the point of departure. And it does not refer only to my profession, even to... faith. My faith was very strong in my childhood, but later it went away: it was transitional age at first, then the life of a student, different crowds, all the fuss… And today my heart experiences the return to faith.

- Does your previous role of a model interfere with your desire to play serious parts?

- You know, at first I really thought that people perceive me as a certain type. Even a year ago I had a feeling that it will be the same, that I am not moving anywhere, I will always be offered the parts of pretty girls, a bit bitchy, a bit clever, who hunt their own lines, but don't change, don't evolve on principle. I would have been disappointed if it had gone that way. But now a pleasant tendency appeared: I am getting parts where the soul, the heart, the life of a person is shown, and I am very glad about it. Recently I have recorded the sound of my part in one small-budget art house project, for instance - I like things like that, if there is a good story in them, and in this project the story is wonderful. The movie is titled "The Man of no Return", it's producers are Katya Grokhovskaya and Pyotr Stepin, and Galina Loginova, Milla Jovovich's mother, had played one character in it, by the way. The story of this movie could happen five, ten years ago, or today, it is a story of a family break-up, a sad, truthful, tragic story…

- You studied at the Foreign Language Institute of Nizhnii Novgorod, is it your home town?

- No, I was born in the town of Lesnoy, Sverdlovsk Oblast. And Nizhnii Novgorod, Moscow, Paris, Milan, London and so on formed the geography of my life, there were many places where I studied and lived.

- Did you come to Moscow to take part in the Elite Model Look competition?

- No, I came here to see my friend, to walk around the capital of Russia, and the participation in the competition was quite a spontaneous decision. I found myself in the semi-finals as a result, and, since my portfolio went to the Viva Agency, soon I was offered a model job in France.

- Was it interesting to be a model?

- I was curious, I wanted to know what it looked like. The life of models is shrouded in myths - we, young girls, thought that it was a life of gods! It was quite a prose in reality: I mainly raced from one casting test to another in Paris, London, Milan, and it wasn't really fascinating. I ran into a lot of different situations, including unpleasant ones. In Paris, for instance, I was… attacked. A waiter saved me, he ran out, with his long apron on, hearing my shrieking and drove the offender away. It was a troubled district. Generally speaking, the life of a model was not that not all honey, yes, it was interesting, and sometimes funny, but I soon realized that it wasn't mine, it wasn't something to last for a long time. I've never regarded myself as a model, even when I filled the forms I always said that I was an actress. And I never took my model campaign seriously. Yet, there is one clearly positive thing in this profession: you travel a lot, and it means an ever changing kaleidoscope of persons and events. So I am not sorry that I had this experience.

- What will be your advice to the girls who dream to make a career as models?

- Always be yourself! Just as the famous song goes, "It isn't worth to give in to the changing world…" And one more thing. Don't believe all those stories that you can easily go abroad and earn dozens thousands or millions dollars. If you calculate the fees and expenses of an average model, you'll see that it is more profitable to stay in office without wasting your nerve, time and money in the search for a job. When I found a sort of a base in the model business and I was invited to work abroad, I spent nearly a year traveling and began to feel like I was a snail, for I did not have home, and I kept carrying all my goods and chattels in a suitcase… Easy money of model business is a myth, nothing else! As a matter of fact, it is a hard spadework, and nobody is going to pay a pension for it in the old age.

Charmingly ugly!

- How did your find yourself in the movie business?

- I worked in Italy then, and our agency had an acting department. I came there and said, 'I want to be an actress!' I have studied acting in Paris for six months before that. Of course, I did not believe myself to be a professional in it then, and I don't take myself for a professional now… I was invited to pass the casting for an Italian series as a result, and I passed it and was given a part of a foreigner chased by mafia. Races, blood splatters everywhere, my skin is in bruises and cuts, I'm wearing torn clothes, always running away from somebody - truly Italian passions were boiling at the film set! I was wild with excitement from the process. But I didn't see my debut. This project was for television, it wasn't sold on cassettes…

- What was the last drop that made you take the decision to leave model business?

- There was no last drop at all. Just on my next return to Russia I was shot in three projects successively: in "Oligarch", "Turetsky's March" and "Dreaming is Harmless". And then there were Sergey Solovyov's casting tests, and he invited me to join his course after them. There was no dramatic departure from model business, because I went abroad for a month or two after that. When the studies at the Cinematography Institute started, I had no time for model jobs: we were at the institute from early morning till late at night.

- Since you had some experience, you might have been more assured of yourself on camera than any other debutant, were you? Besides that, after endless photo sessions you knew pretty well your best shooting angles…

This experience helped me not feel shy on camera. As for my shooting angles… Well, you know, I never think if I am beautiful or not in some scene. I will be happy if I am ugly on screen, but my image is true to life. Now I have participated in the filling of "The Signs of Love" movie by Vladimir Mirzoyev where Maksim Sukhanov, Aleksey Makarov, Natalia Shvets played other parts - it is a wonderful company, just think with the director! And when I saw one important scene of that film recently, I was really excited to look that terrible in it! But the scene was honest, true to life. I understand Sophia Loran who, being an exquisite beauty, tried to play the parts of ordinary women, farmers' wives, and was clearly pleased to play age parts. I absolutely share with her this merciless attitude to your appearance!

Weep that much…

- Do you mean that you would agree to make yourself unrecognizable if your part requires it, as Nicole Kidman did it in the "Hours" movie where the spectators saw her with an awful false nose?

- Such experiments are quite controversial in general, especially if the actress is famous and everybody knows what she looks like in reality. There are character parts, and there are women characters. Some people brilliantly perform in both, and the most audacious experiments are a success. I have not played character parts yet, and it would be interesting to try it. But this road is dangerous enough, you can get lost in a game with a costume, a false nose, a wig or a hump… I would rather try such experiments in the theatre at first before carrying them out to the filming set. An actor cannot get away from his or her self, the transformation cannot always be cardinal. And when you perform as an old woman, this old woman is you.

- Why do you think the profession of an actress is so popular and still remains the greatest dream for many people?

- Obviously, there is some magic in the cinema. I often noticed that, when some film is shot, people, who happened to pass by hurrying upon their business, slow down or stop under a spell exclaiming in childish excitement, "Oh, a movie!" Yet, from my point of view, the technical side of shooting is such a dreary process! It's all right if a fine dramatic scene is shot, some close-up… But if you keep shooting for a long time something like a human hand, or how his or her foot steps on the pavement from some car, or the general view "of ants' life", how you are going through a crowd of people… Well, you have to do the same thing a hundred times. Recently I went to Georgia, this shooting was a Russia-Georgia project titled "The Last Quest", director Archil Melikishvili, and I wept for… 25 takes on the run. As a result, I went so deep into my character's state that couldn't stop afterwards. I went to the hotel after it and looked into the ceiling for three hours, and couldn't come to myself!

- Is there a part you have been dreaming to play for a long time?

- It is Lady Anna from Richard III, I played it at the institute. And something from Russian classics, Chekhov's Nina Zarechnaya and Nastasya Filippovna from Dostoyevsky's "Idiot", of course.

- I think you have tried it with Bortko when he was going to shoot his "Idiot", didn't you?

- I went to Bortko's casting tests and stared at him with such voluble eyes, as if saying, "Choose me, I love this part so much, I want to play it so much!" I was trembling all over, my voice was breaking… If I were a director, I would have doubted the candidate's adequacy. Today I wouldn't have made such a mistake and would have done everything differently.

- You must have been told many times that you look like Nastassja Kinski. What do you think of such a comparison?

- People keep comparing me to her. Nastassja Kinski is a very good actress. But I am just myself. As for what I think about it… When some actress is compared to Marlene Dietrich or Marilyn Monroe, it is a compliment. They were amazing women, sexual, magnetic! There's nothing bad in comparisons of that sort, I believe. But I don't like comparisons!

There are some worthy men in this world

- Anna, and what are your two sisters doing, have they found their venue in life already?

- Alyona, the middle sister, is going to graduate from the Economy Department of the All-Russia State Institute of Cinematography, she is going to be a producer. By the way, she is an executive producer of "The Shift" project where I have a part, getting priceless experience. I keep saying, "Alyona, you can tackle any project after that." And Dasha, my junior sister, is at school yet, she wants to go into public relations. Alyona and I will take her in our company, and our trio will work together. (laughs)

- Churiny sisters trio, what a promising brand name! Do you resemble your sisters, I wonder?

- No, we are different, all of us.

- Have your parents moved to Moscow with you?

- No, they still stay in the Urals, and it is a real celebration when they come to visit us.

- What is your marital status?

- Officially I am not married… But I feel myself like a married woman.

- To be honest, I was afraid to meet a lonely feminist. I think you agree that there are a lot of them among self-sufficient young women who know how to make money and who are aware of popularity costs …

- There is only one thing I can tell you about it: fortunately, there are some worthy men in this world.

- What value you would ascribe to such notions as the career of an actress and childbirth?

- I believe that there can be no speculations about the choice if God gives you a child! It means that somebody else will perform the part you could have played, and that is all. Evidently, it was not your part.

- You haven't become a western girl who rationally plans her life for ten years to come despite the fact that you worked abroad. Is that also a myth, are western girls different?

- No, it is not a myth, especially where the American girls are concerned. I have friends in the USA, and they reason like this: "Children? What children?! We are making a career till we are thirty-five!" They have clear well-structured plans. Yet, I always ask a loaded question, "And if you are pregnant still?" their answers differ. I believe that women are more cynical there, and they suffer from it themselves. I think they should make conclusions from what they see in the life of stars like Jennifer Aniston, for instance.

- Have you ever thought why some dreams come true, and others do not?

- Sometimes, when you long for something too awfully, almost to convulsions, it usually doesn't happen. Yet, it may happen later, when you relax a bit. So, don't hang on your dream too much, have some patience and simultaneously don't stay idle. And sometimes, when you achieve the coveted goal, you don't know what to do next. I felt like that when I entered the Foreign Languages Institute, I did not understand how I was to live when I had achieved what I dreamed of. So what? I have been looking for a new goal for all my first year at the institute. A person should have many desires so that one dream replaced another, and a goal was always seen ahead. It is very stimulating and helps to stay afloat.