actors-from-russia

"As you can see I can't do anything about it I really like seeing myself on screen."

"Kazakhs, what kind of ingratitude do you call this? Look carefully at what is happening in Ukraine… If you think that you can get away with trying to be so cunning, and imagine that nothing will happen to you, you are mistaken. The world has changed, everything has changed."

"Belarus has become so pitiful that it sent toilet paper to Ukraine. I am not kidding. Humanitarian aid included toilet paper. First, fellow citizens, let's congratulate Belarus, the country has finally found someone poorer than itself. As the saying goes, what you’re rich in, so you use for wiping up. 8 thousand rolls! Even Belarus realized that Ukraine was an asshole!"

"{{Translated quote"

"It's a pity we didn't annex you [France] in 1814. Paris would have been ours. We would have held a polite referendum..."

"His death hurt us deep inside. I had known him for more than thirty years. We were friends. And yet, I am not sure we showed him enough recognition or gratitude. Did we tell him how unique he was? Did we thank him enough for the emotion he gave us? Did we prove our admiration and love as we should have? I don’t know. What I do know now is that we are alone, that the irreparable has happened and that a brilliant dancer has gone forever."

"Musicals gave the U.S. an ethnic culture that undoubtedly influenced ballet."

"Rudolf is there in my mind. I can still hear his voice, his wheeze, every time I correct a dancer. Just as he, when he corrected us, could probably hear the words of his own teacher in his head."

"It is always thought that he gave more than what he received, but to give something, you must have something inside."

"Everyone would like to be the greatest, but God cannot bestow that honor on everyone."

"Rudolf was an unusual man of all respects, instictive, intelligent, constant curiosity, extraordinary discipline, that was his goal in life and of course love of performing. He loved strong women, loyal men and he loved his life. I learned a lot from him although we are very different performers. I will miss him for the rest of my life. That's for sure."

"I think dancers are paid not for what they do, but for the fear they feel. What you do is probably not that difficult: you just get on stage. It is, however, fear that gives you the push."

"You live because you dance, you dance as long as you live."

"I would be ready to take over tomorrow. But first of all, all fat and lazy members of the troupe would have to be thrown out."

"For me, purity of movement wasn't enough. I needed expression, more intensity, more mind."

"Technique is what you fall back on when you run out of inspiration."

"Nureyev had an iron will and was totally dedicated to his art. He became the highest paid ballet dancer in the world, he made ballet popular, he became the rock-star of ballet, he changed male dancing in the classics making the part of the male dancer the equal of the ballerina; he created a new approach to ballet erasing the differences between classical ballet and modern dancing."

"The main thing is dancing, and before it withers away from my body, I will keep dancing till the last moment, the last drop."

"Almost everyone can forgive us for honesty: and, say, not enough professional game, and even not enough professional verses. There are many examples of this. But when honesty disappears, they forgive nothing."

"There is not any kind of meaning in the lyrics, in fact it was an attempt at completely deconstructing reality."

"I feel that now I can’t always reach an understanding with someone, especially with people of an older generation. I find it difficult in this situation, because they think differently. Naturally, people cannot think alike, but they must understand each other. That's why they are people."

"I want to be myself everywhere - both on the movie screen and at a concert, do you understand? The most important thing for me is to maintain the self-esteem and freedom that I have now. But it is very difficult to save. You have to fight all the time. And if the question becomes that I will have to play music that I don’t want to play, but that people will like, it would be dishonest to play it, right?"

"Russia is a popular theme in France right now, in terms of Soviet memorabilia and stuff like that. But there isn't really a serious approach to Russia, we’re like matryoshka dolls to them: 'Hey, look, Russians can play guitars almost like we do'. A lot of bands have taken the opportunity to tour abroad, consciously accepting the fact that they will be touring on bad terms in terms of both pay and concerts. I didn't want to be a matryoshka doll. The problem isn't so much the money, it's the prestige of the country. If you want to go abroad, it's best to go as a tourist."

"It is more important for me to preserve some self-respect and some inner freedom, which I now have, but it is very difficult to preserve it, I have to fight all the time with all sorts of temptations. And I fight with them ... If the question is put in such a way that I will have to play music that I do not want to play, but which people like, then it would be unfair to play it, for me it would be a temptation."

"And I don't think that parents can teach anything at all. A child is a person with his own destiny, and it seems to me that we attach too much importance, so to speak, to the formation of personality by the parents. Parents can educate there, whatever they want, and the personality is formed by itself, under the influence the environment... But one and the same environment affects some in this way, others in a different way ..."

"The most interesting thing for us is the work of independent record companies. Most often, music "for sale", music for dancing comes to us. The ears get used to the standards. And independent companies have a small circulation of records of groups that are not guided by standards. It's closer to us."

"The main thing is to remain yourself, and this is impossible for a professional actor. Although it is difficult to think ahead. It seems to me that cinema and music, complementing each other, can coexist in my life."

"The most important thing is that we would like people to reach some kind of mutual understanding, so that these huge mixed nationalities, religions, social order, finally understand each other, if possible ... And then everything would fall into place, and there are no more desires would not be."

"Almost everything can be forgiven to those who are honest. Say, for example, if we [Kino] play our music in an unprofessional manner, or sing our songs in an unprofessional way – and we have made countless mistakes of this kind – our fans will overlook this, but, if we do not try our best to be honest our fans will never forgive us."

"I need your help. The abstruse nature of the subject requires not only concentrated reading, not alone clear understanding, but co-operation with the author. For that which could easily be made comprehensible by personal contact and demonstration, must of necessity depend on mere words and intellectual concepts. Many of the questions that may arise in your mind during or after reading of each chapter can best be answered through the practical application of the exercises prescribed herein. Unfortunately, there is no other way to co-operate: the technique of acting can never be properly understood without practicing it."

"Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn't explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside. Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure..."

"I love and admire the filmmaker Tarkovsky and believe him to be one of the greatest of all time. My admiration for Fellini is limitless. But I also feel that Tarkovsky began to make Tarkovsky films and that Fellini began to make Fellini films."

"Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? Perhaps our capacity to create is evidence that we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God?"

""Man is born unto the trouble as the sparks fly upwards." In other words suffering is germane to our existence; indeed, how without it, should we be able to "fly upwards"."

"The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts"

"I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman."

"Freedom is inseparable from conscience. And even if it is true that all the ideas developed by the social conciousness are the product of evolution, conscience at least has nothing to do with the historic process. Conscience, both as a sense and as a concept, is a priori immanent in man, and shakes the very foundations of the society that has emerged from our ill-conceived civilisation."

"My function is to make whoever sees my films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and aware the beauty is summoning him."

"What nobody seems to understand is that love can only be one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not love. If it involves less than total giving, it is not love. It is impotent; for the moment it is nothing."

"Art must must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition — otherwise life becomes impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence."

"It is perfectly possible to be a professional director or a professional writer and not to be an artist: merely a sort of executor of other people's ideas."

"It seems to me that the individual today stands at a crossroads, faced with the choice of whether to pursue the existence of blind consumer, subject to the implacable march of new technology and the endless multiplication of material goods, or to seek out a new way that will lead to spiritual responsibility, a way that ultimately might mean not only his personal salvation but also the saving of society at large; in other words, to turn to God."

"One can only be staggered by the hubris of modern artists if we compare them, say, to the humble builders of Chartres Cathedral whose names are not even known. The artist ought to be distinguished by selfless devotion to duty; but we forgot about that a long time ago."

"We know perfectly well that neither love nor peace of mind can be bought with any currency."

"The Stalker seems to be weak, but essentially it is he who is invincible because of his faith and his will to serve others."

"An artist needs knowledge and the power of observation only so that he can tell from what he is abstaining, and to be sure that his abstention will not appear artificial or false."

"We are talking here about the future: about the lives of people in the world without wars, without social oppression, without national inequality, without suppression of human’s abilities. In other word, it is about the future that we all call Communism. We strive to imagine (and show to the viewer) the reality of the 21st century — the life of future humans developing, solving their difficulties and problems but being already on the new levels of cognition and morality. But the foundation of that future is being laid now. We strive to represent the future people as vivid and free, in the unity of their joys and cares, poetry and prose of their life. We are in no way satisfied with the primitive and unconvincing image of "people of the future", which can be observed in some works of literature and cinema. At the same time, we consider our work to be polemical with the many books and movies produced by the bourgeois world, which tend to see the future in an apocalyptic or technocratic way, affirming a sort of disbelief in the strength and capabilities of a human being."

"If there are some who talk the same language as myself, then why should I neglect their interests for the sake of some other group of people who are alien and remote? They have their own 'gods and idols' and we have nothing in common. ... If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money."

"[About Mirror] I had the greatest difficulty in explaining to people that there is no hidden, coded meaning in the film, nothing beyond the desire to tell the truth. Often my assurances provoked incredulity and even disappointment. Some people evidently wanted more: they needed arcane symbols, secret meanings. They were not accustomed to the poetics of the cinema image. And I was disappointed in my turn. Such was the reaction of the opposition party in the audience; as for my own colleagues, they launched a bitter attack on me, accusing me of immodesty, of wanting to make a film about myself."

"A literary work can only be received through symbols, through concepts — for that is what words are; but cinema, like music, allows for utterly direct, emotional, sensuous perception of the work."