Stanislav Boklan about patience, wife’s criticism and “Anticipation”

Stanislav, you once said that being an actor is fate: if it is your destiny, you will be involved into it anyway. What made you enter the Kyiv Theatre University along for the ride with you friend?

I don’t know. In fact, fate hinted me (when I failed to enter the university) that I should have changed my path: turn back and never come there again. But you see, I liked the world and people I met there so much that I couldn’t give it up. Then I got disappointed and upset that I didn’t have a talent. I felt the desire to come back.

So you didn’t give up a spontaneous idea and decided to try again?

Yes! Firstly, I entered preliminary courses where I met a great teacher Tsiianovskyi, later, he migrated to Israel, he was old then. Now he is gone. Rest in Peace. Many teachers are gone now. My generation is next…

So, we had a group, which was preparing for entry exams, however, studying there didn’t guarantee that you would be accepted: we just studied, had some rehearsals, learnt something new. Then, as others, I had an exam and managed to become a student.

Many of my groupmates didn’t enter in 1979. Curiously, that those who didn’t enter are well-known today, and those who did are not.

Oleksii Harbunov, the People’s Artist of Ukraine, Yurii Hrebelnyk, the People’s Artist of Ukraine, Tolik Zinovenko – a great actor – they all failed the exams in 1979 and became students in 1980.

When you were Viacheslav instead of Stanislav (parents called him Viacheslav, but his birth certificate said his name was Stanislav. Only at the university, people started to call him so), what were you dreaming about?

I wasn’t dreaming about anything. I was studying at the school № 40, most of the time I was spending in the courtyard, we were playing cards, drinking wine and hugging girls – we weren’t dreaming about anything. We didn’t have any reason, so it could become an action. Well, I entered the Theatre University along for the ride.

It means it is really your fate. As for hugging girls. One famous director said that “Everything which starts on set, ends in a dressing room”. Tell us please, did you meet your wife [Natalia Klenina, an actress of the Kyiv Young Theatre – ED.] on stage?

Yes, we met each other in theatre. I met my first wife in the university. And the second – on stage of a professional theatre. I haven’t wanted to meet anybody already for many years.

I don’t know and have never known, why women like me. I’ve never realized this mechanism. Well, I am a very complicated person. They have such fate – to live with me. Actually, it is very hard to live with a person who appreciates his or her work most of all.

What is the hardest in an actor’s life?

For me – not to let down anybody. I mean, when a person invites me to work or gives me a role at theatre, she or her counts on me.

Actually, theatre is a cruel system. You serve there. They say, “Do it this way,” and you do. If they say not to do, you don’t do. As for a film, you can refuse if you don’t like a screenplay, but here, it is a real torture for me. I don’t think about whether people will like me. I worry not to let anybody down. I don’t want a director to regret that he or she has invited me for a role.

Where do you feel more freely, where is there more of creative space: at theatre or in cinema?

Let’s make it clear, these are two completely different jobs: theatre is a place where you can look for something; cinema is a place where you have to work, play, because there is not much time for rehearsals. It is a treadmill, which constantly works. Imagine: I have to play 15-18 scenes in 12 hours. And when should I talk with a director? When a camera is being put to another place? That’s why when we come to cinema industry, we understand that when you are said to play it, you’ll play it. Later, you can say whether you like it or not.

As for theatre, you have time for rehearsals and searching there. That’s why I like theatre. That’s why I’ve never thought of leaving it.  That’s why I can search something I haven’t tried in cinema to play it there later. You create a certain searching workshop, laboratory. Cinema is just a hard, complicated and not always amusing job.

Do you want sometimes to add your own vision to a role while you are already on stage?

No, I don’t. Because, actually, when rehearsals and searching are appropriate, there is always a cooperation. You have different visions of a scene with a director. A director can agree or not with you, sometimes even quite straightly-out. Because it is a director who makes a play. You see, I’ve always been saying to my students, “We are performers of someone else’s will”.

Is it hard for you, for a full person, the People’s Artist, to fall into line with another person?

Well, we are not stupid speechless performers! I am a professional, in the first place, and I understand what a director wants. I have a possibility to exist with him within this searching. Of course, it is great when a director agrees to that and opens all doors in your soul. You offer, and he will finally choose one or another variant, but you will be an active participant of the process. You don’t do only what you are said to do. That’s why it is interesting for me. Cinema is just another job. It is interesting in its own way. I like that I can play it, do it in a certain way.

In “The Age of Yakov” and in “The Guide” films you played old men. Before that, you usually played juvenile leads. Was it easy for you to change your line of roles? Sometimes it happens definitively.

I seem to have understood something. We should clearly realize when we live and what jobs we are offered. You see, when Russian TV industry was working here, they offered films about policemen. You realize that it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not, you should remain a professional and play corrupt prosecutors, bad or good policemen, because you don’t have other job offers. Or you can play a rich man who likes a young girl. But then, other topics became popular. It was interesting for me to try. But you see, I was invited to “The Guide” accidently: one actor, let’s not call him by his name, refused when the film was already in the production, then they decided to call Boklan.

Now it is hard to imagine another actor playing Ivan Kocherga, a kobza player.

That’s why you know this, if it were another actor, it would be another film.

You know, I had played in “The Match” film before that. It is the film about the Kyiv football team “Dinamo”. I played a specific character. I don’t know why some people called me a corrupt actor after that. They wrote that I agreed to defame Ukraine. I just played a person who was confused about his political beliefs, who loved a woman, but she didn’t love him. And it hurt him. It seemed to me I played a very deep person. But people called me and said that I defamed my honor and dignity…

However, the same people called me after “The Guide” and said that I revealed a new page of Ukrainian soul.

But I just played a normal person, an invalid, with his own fate. He understood that he should rescue the boy, otherwise he would be ruined… He had to rescue him even at the expense of his life, because he had no sense to live.

You once said that popularity isn’t valuable for you. You appreciate what professionals say about your work. Whose opinion is important for you today, and who can criticize or advise you something?

I won’t tell you any names because those whom I won’t mention can get offended. Thanks God, some producers have created a good, decent product lately.

What about professional film critics?

You know, these people are often the only ones who consider themselves critics.

Well, they may exist, but I haven’t met them. All those people who write articles today, criticize not constructive and not as specialists. They write from the point of view whether they liked a film or not, from the audience’s point of view.

I call such critics “If I played, If I could”. How can a person who can only write, tell an actor how he should play? How can such a person help me?

I once read a phrase which helps me to live, “If you can advise, you should be able to f*** off”. You know, I don’t ask them. Then why they try to give me a piece of advice.

However, it would be interesting for me to have an argument and gain my point and explain my vision of a role. If a person says about me anything on TV or in a cafe, but doesn’t enter into a dialogue, I don’t care. If we met and had a talk, I could learn about his claims. Then it would be normal and fair. But when a person writes something somewhere… Then I say that the train moves on and those run and bark.

Can your colleagues advise or criticize you? Whose opinion is important for you?

Of course, there are colleagues… However, I care about my wife’s opinion the most. She is a professional. Sometimes you want to hear the truth. However, people rarely dare to tell you this truth. Some people are afraid to offend you, some put questions in the way that you can’t hear the truth, because what is the use of it.

That’s why the only person who tells me the truth is my wife. She won’t be searching for expressions, she will tell me how it really is. If I deserve it, I can hear, “You are playing crap”. That’s all. She won’t pretend if it is a bad thing. She’ll say, “It is OK. Not embarrassing”. And we’ll move on, because it is work. We have taken away any expressions of admiration from our family. It is our work. It is difficult, it always takes us apart.

You are demanded actor today. But it wasn’t always like this. You have had great roles at theatre for many years but you have become popular and recognizable only last 7-8 years.

Professional actors understand that if you want to earn well, you have to be always on the top. Then you play really interesting roles, and this interesting work will feed you as well.

There are only few happy people in our profession, only about 1%. My path is so long that one my classmate, who isn’t an actor, said, “I wouldn’t like to be achieving it for so long, like Boklan. To work so hard and so much, be patient and unknown, but all this time moving on to get the result only when I am old.”

But once I read “Martin Iden” by Jack London and realized that if I knocked, the doors would open. Due to many people, I, who is a Kyivan, left Kyiv for Mariupol to work there in the Donetsk Region Russian Theatre, to work exactly at theatre, to have roles, to have repertoire, to stage Vampilov, Rozov, Doctoevsky, Gorki, Gogol, because nobody played that In Kyiv then. I didn’t want to stand with halberd or wear Ukrainian Cossack costume on stage. I left everything and went away. I spent 10 years with beautiful people, I was working as a professional with great actors. I didn’t care about popularity. I was occupied with my, excuse me my pathos, creative development. I was trying to realize what I was doing.

You don’t know me when I was young, indeed! I’ll show you some photos. I was said that it would be difficult for me with such a face, it doesn’t resemble a Ukrainian.

I was attending castings, they were looking at me but didn’t take me…

You have recently tried yourself as a comedian actor and taken part in a comedian TV show “League of Laugh”. Why do you do it?

The “League of Laugh” show is also a part of my crazy life where I let myself be a complete idiot. They call me there a “Funny Pensioner”. I like the atmosphere, well, I am many years old, but I don’t feel old there at all. I am there as others. We are young, we constantly make up something. I have a great team “Zhytomir 30+”. I have chosen them because they are my townsmen.

We have the festival in August again. I will work with another team there.

As for my popularity, I don’ think that “The guide” or “Servant of the People” or “The Match” brought me real popularity.

“The Age of Yakov”?

No. “When we are home” TV show! My character has played an incredible joke on me: he turned me into a domestically popular person. I can’t pass by shops, markets, blocks of flats, schools, supermarkets. I always have to wear a hat or glasses when I am in metro. Everybody is interested…

Do you like this character? It looks like you enjoy when you play him.

I like all my characters. It is part of my life.

This show has good screenwriters. We shoot this season in Ukrainian. It is not easy for some actors as they don’t know Ukrainian language at all, but they try to speak. So, this character has made me. Because people recall him, in the first place, and only then they say “oh, you played the Prime Minister as well”. I am very grateful to people who risk working with me with material I haven’t played before. For example, I’ve never played any character similar to a Prime Minister.

You have made him too nice.

No! He is a proper douchebag, but he is charming, very intelligent and he always assesses the situation properly.

Once we wanted to drink coffee with my colleague, and barista said to me, “I know you. I hate you. You are the Prime Minister, right? It was such a pleasure for me to realize that all politicians are the same, they play with us, they are very cynic.”

He is the kind of a politician who knows this mechanism very well. Life for him is just a fun, because he knows that he will never disappear or sink, won’t disappear in this political swamp, will survive. We were talking much with the director, Kiriushchenko and Zelenskyi. About the characters, about what we were playing. I hope we will shoot the third season this year.

You have had projects with overseas companies. Does work on set differ in approaches?

I would say that cinema world is very alike. A director wants creativity, a producer wants everything to be fast. A director wants something sophisticated, a producer wants to reduce expenses. It is all the same everywhere.

The only thing is, probably, that they have longer process of preparation and more money for a project. I’ve had two projects nominated for Oscar. And I said that I don’t want the third to be sent with me.

These were our “The Guide” and a Slovakian film “The Line”. Many people have written that I performed decently. I played a murderer there, but they say I performed decently.

You have recently taken part in the video to support Oleh Sentsov.

Well, it was my honor to take this offer. I couldn’t stay aside of this story. People asked me if I could take part, I said “with a great pleasure”.

We all worry about the fact that one person, I mean Vladimir Putin, can hold the whole world like this: he just doesn’t give a damn about anybody.

I am sorry for this young man, we all feel that it is a huge injustice. Some people experience real tortures and we can’t do anything about this. However, although serious people try to protect Oleh Sentsov, it doesn’t change anything. We don’t know much, even that, what is happening to him now. I think they make him eat while there is a lot of fuss around the football now.

However, we must react somehow, even if we can’t take a stick and beat those who are guilty, then we must talk about it at least. Word power helps us.

Sentsov made it all up to release all the political prisoners. If it were only about him, who knows, maybe they had released him already. Sometimes I catch myself on the feeling of desperation. I think many people, the whole world, feel the same. Even when very serious and powerful people support him. The whole world has already stood with those posters trying to make themselves heard. I know one thing: if it is necessary, I would stay hundred of times in front of camera and say that this person must be released as well as other political prisoners.

You know, once I read in a poem that “even when we are fatally wounded we are making plans for future”. So, I think it must end positively, I believe everything must end positively. And we will have our own cinema.

Do you believe or know that a quality cinema will revive in Ukraine?

We have background and legacy. Your phone doesn’t have so much memory if I start to name talented people with whom I have been already working. Do you know, how young people are talented? They already breathe down neck, but they do it cheerfully, not tiredly. I am very happy about that. They are already different. They are open-minded, they don’t have any borders. You see, they already speak English and don’t feel like savages when they are abroad. They can communicate. These new people exist already. I was hoping that after “The Guide”, “A green Kerchief”, “The Brothers”, our cinema would revive… But everything stopped… I want it to be the last stop before dash. I want all this to happen while I am still alive. So I could look and say, “God, I have lived until times I have been dreaming about all my life.” Well, if not on set, just to see it, at least.

What will boost this final dash?

I think, it will be people who care for our country, I want to believe they will appear. And they will realize that cinema is a powerful mechanism for patriotism and bringing up new generations, and other important things.

Tell us please about the project you are working on now.

I am working with talented people: with a legendary director Viacheslav Kryshtofovich, with a great cameraman Valerii Myhailovich. With a producer Valerii Yermak, we have already worked three times: “The Rules of Fight”, Ukrainian-Slovakian “The Line” and now “Anticipation”. I agreed to play at once. Anatolli Krym wrote an unusual as for today screenplay. It is psychological, interesting, engaging. But of course, I won’t reveal you the plot.

Tell us please about you character.

I play an ordinary person, a former captain of bulk-carriers. The man has lost his wife, she died. Not to spoil the relationship with his daughter, he hasn’t got married anymore: he loves his daughter more than anything. They have some misunderstanding. He is just a normal person, who helps, supports somebody…

It is called “Anticipation”. He anticipates something special…

What do you anticipate today?

Some changes. My heart is anticipating some changes. Will they be for better? I do hope. I want my grandchildren Dmytr and Arina to live in a beautiful country and never think about leaving it.

Interview by Svitlana Bondar

Photo by Maryna Bandeliuk