Bogdan Stupka

Early years

Bohdan Stupka was born in the village of Kulikove, Lviv region, Ukraine. As a boy Bohdan saw blood, killed, hanged. And after the war he wandered around with friends who dismantled mines and grenades, and knew how hands were torn off.

Bogdan Stupka's father sang in the chorus at the opera house, his mother's older brother was a soloist, aunt - the main concertmaster. Bogdan from the age of seven years old was spinning backstage, saw and heard all the outstanding singers, Kozlovsky and Lemeshev stroked the boy on the head.

Stupka himself had no hearing, however, when he served in the army, in the orchestra of the headquarters of the Prykarpattya Military District, knocked on the drum, well, and then in the ensemble "pensions and drinking" engaged in compere.

Creativity

In the theater Bogdan Stupka came, perhaps because of fear of real, cruel life: he knew death from childhood. Theater depicts life, that is, there are not really killed, die, and so on. It's all played there, life is played. Theater is an extension of life, you rise a little above reality, but only in an artistic form. Theater is not an escape from life, no, just a man found another form of it: life is life, theater is theater.

Bogdan Stupka graduated from the studio at the theater. M. Zankovetska and the Department of Theater Studies at the Kiev Theater Institute named after I.K. Karpenko-Karpenko-Karogo.

For many years Bogdan Stupka has been the artistic director of the Ukrainian National Academic Drama Theater named after Ivan Franko. But the character of the director can show only on stage, through the role, through art, otherwise he can't do it yet. And Stupka himself does not stage plays, he invites directors. And plays not so much, although he, as an artist, immediately every director offers: "There is a role for you." But, for example, in "Natalka Poltavka" one artist played so that Bogdan Stupka even said to him: "I can not do that, play you." You can't get to this performance in Kiev.

Bogdan Stupka's son Ostap is an artist in his father's theater. And everyone says that he is a good actor. He once told Bogdan Silvestrovich jokingly: "Dad, change your last name, isn't it too much - two Stupka in one theater!". Ostap plays with his father in the play "Tevye Tevel". Interestingly, when Grigory Gorin came to Stupka's dressing room after the performance, his jaw dropped: "You are a Jew on stage, but it turns out that you are not. How do you know everything about this people?" "Who wants to know, knows," smiled the artist.

A great artist always plays for people, not for himself. "I count on the public, because for yourself, you can sit in the toilet - and play yourself as much as you want," - says the actor.

Works in the movie

The very first, and really stellar in the movie, was the work of Bogdan Stupka in the famous film by Yuri Ilyenko "White Bird with a black mark".

The movie describes the liberation of the Romanian part of Ukraine in 1939 by the Red Army. Stupka played a Bender, one of the brothers Zvonarey that came from Bukovina, and, as it turned out, so attractive that everyone seemed to go crazy. Orest Zvonar went during the war in the detachment of Ukrainian nationalists, taking with him and the daughter of the priest Dana, desired for all three brothers. And as a result of all the vicissitudes committed suicide.

The actor in general more often than usual assigned negative roles in the movie. Especially impressive turned out to be not unknown Timothy Lysenko in the multi-part TV movie "Nikolai Vavilov" (1990). In the political tape Igor Gostev "Gray Wolves" (1993), he was none other than Semichastny, and in the drama Régis Varnier "East - West" (1999) Colonel of the agencies, obstructing the "returnees", naively believed his homeland.

And yet, to much regret, the multifaceted talent of the actor for a long time was not in due demand. Most of the pictures in which Bogdan Stupka starred in the thirty-year period (70-ies, 80-ies, 90-ies), did not become notable works on the screen. Many of them, as they are called, and do not remember, even after reading the title and recognizing the name of the hero played. And if you remember any dashing "western in the Soviet way" such as "Forget the word "death" (1979), it is still difficult to imagine what kind of character Ostrovoy, who portrayed in this movie with chases and gunfights outwardly textured Ukrainian actor. The real success to Bogdan Stupka came only in the new century ...

In the new century

21 century for the actor began with work in the historical drama of Ukrainian director Mykola Zasev "Black Rada", which tells about the struggle for hetman power in Ukraine in the XVII century. True, this movie remained unnoticed by the general audience.

Stupka continued the historical theme in a rather controversial movie by Yuri Ilyenko "Prayer for Hetman Mazepa". Like the picture of 30 years ago, the new film Ilyenko is also quite politicized. When people talk about it, they usually recall Pushkin's "Poltava", where Mazepa is a traitor. But in Ryleyev's poem "Voynarovsky", which almost no one has read, Mazepa is a positive character, a fighter against the tsarist autocracy. And in the movie Mazepa is an educated, interesting man, leading at that difficult time a subtle political game between Russia, Sweden and Poland.....

Double success

The real success to the actor came in 2004. At that time Bogdan Stupka starred in two movies simultaneously and spent three months traveling between Sevastopol and Pskov: a week there, three days here, then, on the contrary, three days there, a week here. It's like two souls, and both hurt. To choose which of them is closer, for the actor was difficult. But, of course, no one expected such a double success - it happens very rarely.

No doubt the actor did not doubt the directors - he saw the previous films of Pavel Chukhrai and Dmitry Meskhiev and that is why he agreed to work with them, nor in the operators Klebanova and Machilsky, well, and in the wonderful artists too, partners were Khabensky and Petrenko. These movies were "Their Own" by Dmitry Meskhiev and "Driver for Vera" by Pavel Chukhrai. They were simply obsessed, prepared for each scene, all thought out, rehearsed several times, if something did not work, started again. Of course, for the former artist Stupka it was not new, but he did not expect from young actors such seriousness and such a desire to help the partner.

"Own."

In the movie "Their own" Bogdan Stupka amazingly played an elderly, but strong and strong-willed man who suffered from the Soviet power during the period of kukulachivaniya. He would be forever embittered, taking revenge on envious fellow villagers and ungrateful motherland for years of deprivation in the camps. However, having volunteered to become a village headman in the service of the Germans, he began to worry about how to survive himself, his family and other inhabitants of the village in the Pskov region, simply to wait out the hard times, wisely and even cunningly bearing the inevitable evil - uninvited invaders, as before, carrying a heavy burden in the era of forced collectivization.

Strangers will come and go - but our own will remain forever. We have to live with them and do good to the best of our ability - not only in material, but also in spiritual terms. For morally and humanly fair is everything that is for the benefit or in favor of life. Let a child be born to a young woman dear to your heart, whom you yourself can no longer make happy, and let a native son have mercy with his maiden for a few days - maybe she will bear it too, as they say in the village.... It is important that life continues despite everything and in spite of everything. Even if for the sake of it you have to kill a German henchman - the police officer and his drunken company, saving your son and, most importantly, your two daughters, arrested as hostages.

The screen, of course, gives the performer a great opportunity to express carefully restrained emotions in close-up, when we seem to see the man from the inside. However, Bogdan Stupka would not be the bearer of a rich theatrical tradition, if at the same time could not with the help of external drawing to reproduce a noticeable change in the character, henceforth ready to go to the end.

"Driver for Vera"

The situation in "A Driver for Vera", the story of the love of a general's daughter for her driver and the KGB's dislike for the general on the eve of the collapse of the "Khrushchev era", is no less complicated and complex. A high-ranking military commander must, by all means, preserve his honor in professional terms: the KGB officials want to make him a "scapegoat" in the political game at the top against the backdrop of a maturing conspiracy against the annoying General Secretary. And in private life: the daughter-chromomonozhka, raised without a mother, got pregnant unknown from whom.

Bogdan Stupka prefers to reveal in the general from "Driver for Vera" first of all human drama. Framed by his colleagues and got into a silly situation because of his daughter, he still strives to remain a worthy comrade-companion and ready to forgive the father. And also by a certain flair to catch a kindred spirit in the driver-sergeant, who, though fallen to various temptations and sins, but at the very last moment will act as the only his own, exceptionally loyal man.

Cinematographers, more often judging everything superficially, still managed to notice a significant figure, a large personality, human wealth and inexhaustibility of nature in the solid age of Bogdan Stupka, by the way, the artist managed to be and in real life a big boss - Minister of Culture of Ukraine. Heroes of the actor from the "Own" and "Driver for Vera" are completely unexplained. These are people with an inexplicable folk character, root in its essence, firmly connected not only with the land, but in general with the air of the place where they live. In a word - ours!

"Hare over the abyss"

As Stupka himself jokes, for three decades of his career, he outplayed all the kings, leaders and generals: Richard III and King Lear, a general in "Driver for Faith", Hetman Mazepa in "Prayer for Hetman Mazepa", at Sergei Bondarchuk in "Red Bells" - Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky, and, of course, Brezhnev in "Hare over the Abyss".

Leonid Brezhnev is a special case. He was on everyone's radar - either a bogeyman or a laughingstock. How many anecdotes are there! Tigran Keosayan, the director of the picture, explained to the actor that the movie - a free fantasy and he will not have to copy his hero. So all the good that is in this picture - from the director, who did everything together with the actor and according to the laws of theater art. Look for the good in the bad and the bad in the good, and a living person will come out. Especially when it comes to fiction.

In the end, it turned out to be a joke. But... a joke with a certain amount of sadness. And Brezhnev in the movie is not a caricature at all, he is just like us, he also has his own dream, his own love. He loves the Queen of England (her role is played by Elena Safonova) and dreams about her. No one forbids you to dream, right? And why not? He was a prominent man! Yes, and the head of one sixth of the globe, one of the two or three most powerful people on the planet! The Queen of England would have had her eye on him. Handsome, tall, statuesque.

"Taras Bulba."

In recent years, Bogdan Stupka often began to play in TV series. "As long as they invite, it is necessary to shoot - believes the actor - I refuse, only if the movie is not at all any role, internal conflict. But I try to do it as little as possible, because tomorrow will not invite: or say "primelkala, bored", or just forget. I have to remind them of myself. In "Killing Force", for example, I shoot in South Africa.

In 2007, director Vladimir Bortko began shooting a new series on Gogol's "Taras Bulba", where Stupka plays, of course, Taras.

"Will this series come to the court now? After all, the relationship between the peoples - Russians, Ukrainians, Poles - confused finally, - argues movie star, - All will depend on what emphasis will make the director. Maybe even more confused, although worse, in my opinion, just can not be! It's time to move back.

Gogol had two versions of "Taras Bulba". And in the first version - we recently published it - it has a completely different ending. Taras is not burned there, and there is no theme of antagonistic confrontation between peoples. Which version Bortko will choose, I don't know. But no matter how it is, my Taras will go against the usual representations and portraits that artists - Repin - painted. In Gogol's Taras Bulba is not just a Cossack. He's a colonel! His children study in a bursa. And in those times the Kiev bursa, for example, was almost on the same level with academies. And to send your son there, you had to have money".

"Two in one"

In Kira Muratova's movie "Two in One" Bogdan Stupka got a very unexpected role. There he played a "sex gangster". In his youth, the hero of the actor was a menace to women, but grew old, lost all his girlfriends. In order not to celebrate the New Year alone, he forces his daughter to find him a woman, whom he accidentally saw from the window. And, in the end, falls in love with her.

Love, especially at an advanced age, is what: a gift, a punishment? - Punishment. It doesn't depend on age. Love is only a few minutes of happiness, if it is mutual, and constant suffering. Jealousy, thoughts about where she is, who she is with, what she is doing now.... It is not such a great joy! Then why do we look for her all our lives, dream about her?

Personal life

"I am a heavy man - by character. But my wife says: "Yes, it's hard to live with you. But as soon as I watch a play where you go on stage, I fall in love again and forgive everything!" That's the power of art! Others change women like gloves, but I clung to one and lived. Her wisdom allowed us to live so long, together for over forty years. And I consider myself lucky! There is no feeling that I have already seen everything and know everything, I am very curious, everything is interesting. Especially now, when I have to travel around the world a lot. Here and there, from one shooting to another, from the movie to the stage, from the stage to the movie," - dreamily says the great actor.

"I rejoice in the sunshine, rain, yes, yes.... But life? Life, it's moving toward the sunset.... Not interesting. What kind of joy is it to approach death and go to another world?! Everything succeeded: birth, childhood, youth, maturity, but old age failed. Diseases, wrinkles appear, strength is no longer the same. What joy? I used to jump off the couch, now I can barely get up," smiles Bogdan Stupka sadly.