His charm overwhelms, his appearance is phenomenally flexible, he is a perfect fit for any role. A lover, a nerd, a maniac, a prince – there is no limit to what he can play. Including his latest role as the Artistic Director of Moscow's State Theater of Nations. I interviewed Yevgeny Mironov, a self-described "happy artist" who continues to test the limits of his acting and human potential.

Player-cum-administrator, director-cum-movie star – Mironov seems to enjoy playing on the incongruities of his present status. To arrive in a Mercedes limo with tinted windows – and come out in an old T-shirt with a metal chain around his neck. To put on the airs of a high-standing official – and throw his head back in a fit of boyish laughter. To chat with the President and an amateur actress with the same degree of disarming sincerity. To come into power while remaining a nationally adored actor… To change his circumstances but remain true to himself – this is the basic dilemma that he wakes up and goes to bed with nearly every night.

He comes to the session wearing sunglasses and appears tense. His furtive glance scans the surroundings, the faces, the poses, as if trying to feel out the mindset, to figure out an appropriate mode of behavior. Despite all his titles and awards, he seems defenseless and dangerously open to the world – a live wire. But our interview has no hidden agendas, and he relaxes, gradually getting excited to listen and to talk. Mironov's voice is mellow and spellbinding, his laughter is easy, and he ponders over every question as if re-examining his entire life. He won't stop apologizing for touching on "high-falutin'" subjects that might make our readers think "What a pretentious ass!" – like the fact that he’s reading Pushkin or his meetings with Solzhenitsyn… And when he gets on the topic of his new play, Shukshin's Stories, his face literally lights up: "Playing Shukshin is such a joy! It's like really good homemade bread which no one can afford to eat these days – everybody's on a diet. Our characters are simple, open people. The kind that take life to heart."

PSYCHOLOGIES: For a long time you'd been afraid to play the guy-next-door. And now Shukshin…

MIRONOV: That's over with. It's just that at one point it was important to me to extend my acting range. It's boring to play the same thing over and over... And Shukshin's world is something I know: I come from a small town myself – Tatischevo-5, near Saratov. I grew up around the same kind of simple, trusting folk who never closed their front doors. But I couldn't say that that's my only world: Prince Myshkin is my world, too!

PSYCHOLOGIES: Does your ability to metamorphosize help you in real life?

MIRONOV: Sometimes it's more important not to change. Like Nerzhin (Mironov's character in To Treasure Forever, based on Solzhenitsyn's novel The First Circle – A.A.), who had to make a superhuman effort to stay true to himself despite his circumstances. That was an amazing thing for me, playing that part and meeting Solzhenitsyn, who took himself seriously enough to be able to change the world. I was astonished by the man and incredibly proud to have met him. In his last months he was nearly incapacitated, but his face and his eyes remained fully alive – and happy to be alive. He was happy to his very last moment, because he knew how to value life and had a worthy answer to its questions. I think such happiness can only come from a deep inner wholeness and harmony. (Wryly.) I wish...

PSYCHOLOGIES: What do you think is standing in your way to harmony?

MIRONOV: My struggle with myself. Everyone has his cross to bear. Even talent is a cross: it gets taken away if you don't fulfill its obligations. You know, it's like a little hole that forms inside, a small crack through which your creative energy starts seeping out. You get corrupted by temptation, by giving in to it, your vision gets foggy and you start believing that the temptation is the important thing, the real thing... I'm scared of these changes, with this administrative direction that my life has taken. I'm afraid that with all the business to take care of, all this new information to process, I might miss what my heart is telling me.

PSYCHOLOGIES: Do you feel that you lack inner peace, the ability to contemplate?

MIRONOV: Maybe. Contemplation is something I'm definitely lacking at this point. I don't enjoy it unless I force myself. Like yesterday – you're going to laugh – I opened Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin". Made myself do it. I started reading, and time just stopped. All of a sudden I could see how the greatest Russian poet was unsure of himself: will my name live on after me? No, no, I won't think about it, let the critics worry about those things… Oh, but to have just one line in the history books, to have the future generations say – oh yeah, there was this guy named Pushkin... That discovery just floored me yesterday. Sure, I know I miss out on some things in life. But while I'm capable of working, I can't stop. Contentment is a scary thing to me. Dissatisfaction with myself and with things around me is my driving force: I want to do something, to change the way things are!

PSYCHOLOGIES: But do you have moments when you’re at peace with yourself?

MIRONOV: Still searching. I guess I haven't earned it yet. No.

PSYCHOLOGIES: Have you ever thought of talking to a psychologist?

MIRONOV: No. It's like finding the right priest, the right mediator between you and God. Incredibly difficult. Besides, my cure is the parts I play. They are my self-analysis and my cure.

PSYCHOLOGIES: About ten years ago you were asked "Who are you?", and your response was "I'm a happy artist." What about today?

MIRONOV: (Laughs.) Well, today I'm not just an artist, I have other goals too. Though there's really only one goal – to be human, as far as that's possible. For a long time I lived in an ivory tower, and then I realized that there were people around me – other actors, say – whose lives were awful. Do I have the right to be just a happy artist? No, I don't. Because I've made a name for myself and can now do something to help. Or, I don't like the commercialization of the Russian theater that's going on today. Do I have the ability to do something about it? Yes, I do. I'm not saying I'll succeed, but I've got to try!

PSYCHOLOGIES: Any luck?

MIRONOV: Well, I've learned to swallow my pride: it used to be hard for me to ask the bureaucrats for money. They come to receptions and they're all over me, kissing me and telling me, "You're my idol!", and as soon as I come to their office they forget all about it. At eighteen, when I left my family and moved to Moscow, I had to really change my expectations of people. And I never thought I'd be changing them again at this late date. You can't imagine the amount of negativity dished out at me and the work I've been doing for the past eighteen months! Betrayals, lack of professionalism – which, to me, is worse, because betrayal is sometimes just weakness but there's no cure for unprofessionalism. I had to search inside myself for qualities that would allow me to be a leader. To learn to make tough decisions. And the most important thing – to reconsider my social circle. Before this, I only knew people in the arts. They're beautiful children compared to the monsters called bureaucrats. With few exceptions, these people lie, they don't keep their word. And I can't get used to it, I've always trusted people. I had a real tough time until I told myself: "You're not doing this for yourself." But even in that bureaucratic world I've found some sympathizers.

PSYCHOLOGIES: And you never ask yourself, "What the hell am I doing here?"

MIRONOV: (Laughs.) Every day! I don't want to be an administrator. Organizing theatrical projects, building the new theater – that's the stuff I'm interested in. To step aside from acting, but not too far aside. To jump off the departing ship at the last moment and stay on the acting island. Because essentially this is what I am – a happy artist.

PSYCHOLOGIES: Your mom wanted to be an actress, and she used to tell you as a kid, "I didn’t make it, you make it for me." You've realized her dream. What do you feel?

MIRONOV: I don't feel like I've made it. Acting is a neverending road. And I don't even know if my mom is happy I've realized her dream. She's proud of me, but she's upset with me too. She never gets to see me, the lifestyle is crazy. And it's always me who sets the pace: I harness the horses and race off, and my whole bandwagon follows. Back in Saratov's Dramatic Theater, where I was doing my graduate project, a classmate of mine peeked out through the curtain and said to me, "Your whole bandwagon's here." That meant my mom, dad, sister, aunt, cousins. They came to see every play I was in. So I keep racing through life and they keep following, and I realize what a discomfort it is for them...

PSYCHOLOGIES: Isn't such familial devotion a burden on you? As a teenager, did you ever feel like rebelling, going off in your own direction?

MIRONOV: It happened naturally when I went to study in Moscow. Parting was terrible, we were all in tears. My folks were flying home, I was hanging on the airport fence, and on the plane Mom was crying so hard that all the flight attendants were running circles around her, and Dad was holding a fan in front of her so she wouldn't faint. But an hour later, when I got on the train and lit a cigarette – and I'd never smoked before – I looked at the ordinary faces around me, and my tears just dried up. Suddenly I felt the air of freedom: I could do what I wanted and nobody could stop me! And then four years later, when I started working in the theater, we were all reunited here in Moscow. Home and theater, to me, are inseparable. Maybe it's because my sister Oksana is a ballet dancer and we're brewing in the same pot... And my mom comes to every opening night. My family knows what I'm doing every day, I discuss all my problems with them.

PSYCHOLOGIES: Still, does such extreme caretaking seem to you like an appropriate way to raise kids?

MIRONOV: Yes and no. I'm looking at my sister, she's got two kids now. And she's acting exactly like Mom did: freedom is not an option, it's not even a concept. But I'm infinitely grateful to my parents for the fact that family is sacred to me: we're one, our life is one. I feel that being separate is a hard thing, a bad thing. But at the same time you've got to realize that once your child is born, he no longer belongs to you. Maybe I feel that way because I don't yet have kids of my own? I think that a parent's role is to lead, to show, to help. But your child is not your property. The price of a mother's selfishness is an infantile child.

PSYCHOLOGIES: Do you feel infantile?

MIRONOV: Not anymore, I'm a seasoned wolf now, but when I first came to Moscow – absolutely. Total ignorance of life and human nature! But you know, that may be what enabled me to play Prince Myshkin: I dug up that infantilism from inside myself. Because you can't play it, it's in your eyes. But a person like that is not equipped for survival.

PSYCHOLOGIES: How do you see yourself in twenty years?

MIRONOV: I don't know how to do that, look ahead. (Mispronounces a Russian word), as my Aunt Valya used to call it. I can only imagine what I'll look like, cause I got my looks from my dad. He was wiry, skinny and energetic, and I see myself the same way. But as far as everything else...

PSYCHOLOGIES: You mean you don't care?

MIRONOV: Everything I do amounts to caring about myself, one way or another. If I played private parties for money or did a soap opera, I'd be harming myself, because easy money is addictive. The choices I make is my caring about myself. What else is there to do? Of course, I'm not insane like the tabloids make me out to be: I get my eight hours of sleep, sometimes I take vacations, I enjoy skiing, I work out twice a week. But I don't want to become a slave to my appearance – that's another addiction. Besides, when I stand before a mirror pumping iron, I feel like a total idiot! (Bursts out laughing.)

PSYCHOLOGIES: Is being happy in your future plans?

MIRONOV: Hard to say. An artist can be happy, but does that make for a happy man? I doubt it. The profession demands too many wounds – personal ones. Acting happiness comes at a price. But I'd like to also succeed in another capacity, as the builder of a new kind of theater. And if I don't, I hope to admit it to myself. Or find people that would honestly tell me so. What I wish is that God grants me the ability to know the truth about myself. Otherwise I might cause harm to myself and others, and I'd hate to see that happen.


[Translated by Vlada Chernomordik for the Yevgeny Mironov Official Website]