PRICE FOR "LEVIATHAN"
Samara minister of culture verifies income of actor playing role of bishop
by Svetlana Khokhriakova
Moskovskii Komsomolets, 19 January 2015
The passions surrounding Andrei Zviagintsev's film "Leviathan" continue to simmer. A group of writers, clergy, leaders of art, and deputies wrote an open letter to the Samara provincial Ministry of Culture with a demand not to pay the salary and not to allocate money for staging to the chief director of the Samara Drama theatre, Valery Grishko, who plays the role of a bishop in Andrei Zviagintsev's film "Leviathan."
Viacheslav Gvozdkov, the general director of the Samara theatre, back on Thursday of last week felt something was wrong when he received an inquiry from the Ministry of Culture about Valery Grishko's annual salary. And that is what happened.
We telephoned the theatre and spoke with Valery Grishko, a student of Georgy Tovstonogov, a one-time director of the Komissarzhev Leningrad Theatre, and now the chief director of the Samara Drama Theatre.
--(V.G.) At first there was a libelous message of Mr. Sivirkin (deputy of the Samara duma—MK) in which he reached direct insults against me. Any sharply social film, especially in today's tense atmosphere, causes a sharp reaction. But I will not forgive insults against me. When they tell me that I do not love my motherland, then they insult not only me, but also my parents. My father went to the front at 18 years of age and returned wounded. He brought me into the world and he died at 46 in my arms with shrapnel in his back. I am already older than my father by 20 years. My mother was deported to Germany, where she worked during the whole war. I will probably take it to court because my father, up there in heaven, will not forgive if I do not do this.
Before New Year's, I was in Donetsk and Luhansk, where we presented Russian films. I presented "White Tiger," in which I played Marshal Zhukov. I myself was born in Yasinovata, near Donetsk. We traveled there on our own money, and we brought a whole truckload of humanitarian aid that we bought with our own money. Nobody can accuse me of appropriating something and of taking what is somebody else's.
--(S. Kh.) What kind of inquiry came from the Ministry of Culture about the size of your salary?
--Sivirkin's letter said that this artist on the budget dares to act in a film insulting our motherland. He called me trash and probably would have covered me with obscenity if it were not forbidden. The theatre is preparing an accounting of what salary I receive, how many plays I stage, and how much they bring in. The personal insult hurt me and the stupidity of people who rush to criticize everything. It reminds me of the incidents with "Doctor Zhivago," "GULAG Archipelago," and Vladimir Voinovich. I receive a decent salary, but not from the budget; a budgetary salary is a pittance; it is from the theatre's income. You cannot live on a budgetary salary. And the fact that the theatre is working at full capacity, I as the director have a hand in that.
--How did Andrei Zviagintsev recruit you for the role?
--Our first meeting took place on Skype. Then I was called for an audition. That was on 12 April. I was then filming Yury Kara's "General Designer," where I played Sergei Korolev. At the audition with Zviagintsev I read the final monologue and it made an impression on him, as Andrei Zviagintsev later told me. They confirmed me for the role.
--What has so aroused people? The fact itself of participating in the film or specifically the role that you play?
--I think it is the role, because they accuse me of smearing Orthodoxy and discrediting the clergy and the Russian Orthodox Church. (tr. by PDS, posted 20 January 2015)
Russian original posted on Portal-credo.ru, 20 January 2015
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