"Garmash is kind of a bad actor": People's Artist of Ukraine confessed why she publicly mocked Russians on set

Famous theater and film actress Olena Khokhlatkina admits that, like her other colleagues, she shared the same set with Russian actors before Russia invaded Ukraine. However, she never "singled them out as a special caste."

The actress admits that she could publicly ridicule some of the actors from the aggressor country on set and threaten to leave the set if she felt disrespected. The actress spoke about this in an interview with OBOZ.UA.

The actress says that she agreed to almost all movie offers in the past years, "I played almost everything because I was very interested in the process of the birth of cinema. I wanted to try everything. I also needed money, I'll be honest and admit it. I also worked with those Russian actors. I communicated with them as equals, and sometimes even mocked them. I could say out loud 'What is she playing? I don't know how to react.' Well, what can you do: I am like that. And now, remembering those moments, I'm not ashamed."

"And I respect myself a lot for never singling out Russian actors as a special caste," the actress continues, "and demanding on the set, sometimes even with revolutionary methods, the same treatment as they do. I could even say that I would leave the set if it was otherwise: there were such cases. For example, I arrived at the set in the morning, was greeted, and was given a chair near the makeup car, saying, 'Wait for your scene here.' To be fair, I had an episode, not a full-fledged role. I never make scandals, but I had to ask the producer to come to me to tell me that People's Artists of Ukraine will not sit on chairs in the open air, while some Vasya from Moscow will be relaxing in a separate trailer."

Actress Olena Khokhlatkina was born and raised in Kherson. She started her career in the Kherson Kulish Theater. When asked how she feels about the Russian actor Sergey Garmash, who was also born and raised in Kherson but supported Putin's aggression and even came to "restore" the Kherson theater, as propagandists wrote, she says, "I don't treat him in any way because he was kind of a bad artist for me even before the war. A friend of mine who lived in Kherson knew his parents and him well, so she can tell me more about him. I don't know what he was going to restore there, I have information that he was just bringing some humanitarian aid, and the propaganda media have already thought of everything else to raise the significance of the event."

People's Artist of Ukraine Olena Khokhlatkina was a leading actress at the Donetsk National Academic Music and Drama Theater. With the outbreak of hostilities in Donbas, she moved to Kyiv with her husband (the star of the TV series "Spiymaty Kaidasha" Viktor Zhdanov) and their son. Today Olena works at the Franko Theater in Kyiv.

Read the full interview with Olena Khokhlatkina on Monday, December 11.

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