We didn't have time to look at her enough. Natalya Gundareva. Actress. Chapter "Don't celebrate your anniversary!" - fragments of interviews from different years Natalya Gundareva last interview

People's Artist of Russia (1986)
Best actress according to polls by the magazine "Soviet Screen" (1977, 1981, 1984, 1990)
Winner of the Lenin Komsomol Prize (1978)
Laureate of the State Prize of the RSFSR named after the Vasilyev Brothers (1980, for participation in the film "Autumn Marathon")
Prize at the IX International Film Festival in Bulgaria (1981)
Prize of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia "Nika" (1990)
Prize "Diamond Crown" of the All-Russian festival "Constellation" (1990)
Prize at the Montreal International Film Festival for Best Actress (1990)
Golden Eagle Prize for Best Actress in the film Rostov-Papa (2002)
Awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree (1998)
Laureate of the USSR State Prize (1984, for theatrical work)
Winner of the Moscow Prize (1994, for participation in the play “Victim of the Century”)
Winner of the Crystal Turandot Award (1996)
Laureate of the Russian business circles award "Idol" (1999, for acting in the play "Elisir of Love")
Winner of the East-West International Film Festival in Baku for the best female image (2000)
Winner of the Stanislavsky Prize for his contribution to theatrical art (2001)
Presidential Award Winner Russian Federation in Literature and Art (2002)

Her father, Georgy Makarovich, worked as a farm laborer near Tula as a child, came to Moscow at the age of 14, and worked his way up from a worker to an engineer. Natalya Gundareva's mother, Elena Mikhailovna Gundareva, graduated from a construction institute and worked in a design bureau as a design engineer. In her free time from work, she played in the amateur theater of her research institute, and her love for the theater was passed on to her daughter. Natasha went to the literary circle at the House of Pioneers, and being a fairly large girl, she played age-appropriate roles in most performances. For example, in “Dingo the Wild Dog” she played the role of the main character’s mother.

IN early years Natasha was not at all ashamed of her plumpness, although because of this she looked older than her years. Broad-boned and tall, she dressed very modestly, despite her plumpness, attended basketball, ballroom dancing, skied and went without a hat in windy weather.

After graduating from school, Natalya Gundareva was going to follow in the footsteps of her mother - to become a design engineer. This decision was explained by poverty, and after the 10th grade Gundareva went to evening school (then the education was 11 years long), and got a job as a draftsman in a design bureau, since the construction institute where she was going to enter required work experience. After two years of work in the bureau, Natalya Gundareva became an assistant to the chief engineer of the project, and family council it was decided that Natasha would enter the Moscow Institute of Civil Engineering. In 1967, she began taking the entrance exams to MISS and successfully passed two rounds, but chance intervened in her fate. “I seriously decided to become a builder,” Gundareva later recalled, “I enjoyed the reconstruction of reinforced concrete ceramic plants. I passed two exams at the institute, when suddenly a friend ran in: “Natasha, is it true that you are applying to MISS?!” Lost her mind! Immediately bring the documents to us in Shchukinskoye!” For some reason I obeyed.”

Natalya’s mother went on vacation at that time, and Natalya Gundareva’s “friend” turned out to be Viktor Pavlov, who worked at the Ermolova Theater. It was he who persuaded Gundareva to throw her dreams of engineering and construction out of her head and become an actress.

At the Shchukin School, where Gundareva soon came to take exams, there was a competition of 247 people for a place, but Gundareva was not afraid of this. After listening to Gundareva, the examiners’ opinions were divided: some noted the student’s plumpness, others noted that she was quite flexible. Everything was decided by the voice of the chairman of the commission, who noted that, despite the shortcomings, the applicant Gundareva was a very charming girl, and Natalya was enrolled in a course with the wonderful actor and teacher Yuri Katin-Yartsev. Gundareva’s classmates were Yuri Bogatyrev, Konstantin Raikin and Natalya Varley. Having entered drama school, Gundareva was actively involved in stage movement and choreography, contrary to the opinion of teachers who said that being overweight would limit her acting capabilities.

Natalya’s mother was extremely upset by her daughter’s strange decision, believing that she would certainly beg in the theater. For comparison, at the design bureau Natalya was paid 120 rubles a month, while the scholarship at the theater school was only 38 rubles. The young student had to work part-time. “In general, I started earning money with my labor early,” Natalya Georgievna later said. “We didn’t live poorly, but modestly, and when mom and dad separated, life became even more difficult. I lifted up the loops on stockings (they were expensive at that time) for my mother’s friends. I was paid 50 kopecks or even a ruble for this. I sewed my own skirts and dresses.”

As a sophomore, Gundareva played the age-appropriate role of Domna Platonovna in Leskov’s “Warrior” so vividly during her mastery exam that the then rector Boris Zakhava, who played the role of Kutuzov in the epic film “War and Peace” directed by Sergei Bondarchuk, admiringly said: “Gundareva has nothing left to do.” study - it's time to go on stage. I’m ready to give her a diploma now!”

“It was a lyceum. A free spirit in the good sense of the word,” the actress later recalled. Observation, tenacious visual memory and purposeful fantasy from the first student tests became an important professional quality of Gundareva. And another quality of hers appeared at the same time - a sober, critical attitude towards herself and the desire to overcome her own weaknesses and shortcomings.

After graduating from college in 1971, several Moscow theaters applied for Natalya Gundareva, and Gundareva chose the Mayakovsky Theater. For the first three years, she played introductions to plays of the current repertoire, and the actress’s first significant work in the theater was the role of Lipochka in the play “Bankrupt” based on Ostrovsky’s play in 1974. Then, in the play “Running,” Gundareva played the “camping wife of General Charnota” Lyuska, finding new colors for her heroine, which made Lyuska one of the main characters of the play. The role of Katerina Izmailova, played by Gundareva in the play “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” staged in 1979, also remains in the memory of the audience.

Natalya Gundareva's first husband was Leonid Kheifetz. Their marriage lasted six years, in addition, Kheifetz directed Natalya in the television film “Precipice,” which brought her first fame. In 1973, Natalya Gundareva was offered to play in the film “Autumn,” but she was three months pregnant. In order not to give up the main role, Gundareva had an abortion and could no longer have children.

The play “Profitable Place” turned out to be the last collaboration between Natalya Gundareva and Leonid Kheifetz. Over the course of six years, their life together changed dramatically. Before his marriage, Leonid Efimovich lived in the Soviet Army Theater right behind the scenes, but when he began to develop a serious relationship with Gundareva, he began to bother about normal housing. When a house was built on Tverskaya Street specifically for actors, the couple received an apartment in it. This was especially convenient for Heifetz - he was then mainly involved in staging plays at the Maly Theater, and it was convenient for him to get to his place of work on foot. But, on the other hand, due to the fact that the theater was located not far from the director’s house, he often brought the entire troupe to his home after the performance. The actors liked this behavior, but for the director’s wife these frequent gatherings were a burden. Initially, Gundareva greeted guests with joy, but later hospitality began to be difficult for her. After the film “Sweet Woman,” she was bombarded with offers to play new roles, and she was very tired, filming 5-6 films at the same time. Therefore, when she heard the sound of the door being unlocked and Heifetz’s voice from the threshold: “Natasha, set the table!” - she had to sacrifice her rare time of rest for the sake of the guests. Gundareva said to one of her friends: “And here I am standing in the kitchen and peeling potatoes. I'm so tired of my boss's worries. I can't do it anymore! That’s it, my love is over!”

Gundareva had practically no one to even consult with or transfer the circle of household concerns to someone. Natasha’s mother could not help her daughter, since she herself got married for the second time. And Gundareva had to choose - either work or family. Work won, and Gundareva decided to divorce. “With children, I probably pay for success,” said Gundareva. - I always had a job. And she was constantly ahead of the next need to have a child. I thought I would finish this work, and then... I would pay with loneliness in old age. Am I scared? So life is generally scary. In addition, there is a quiet hope that God will not abandon his mercy and all this will happen overnight. And you will not hang as a burden on those who remain next to you. And you will leave by pushing off with one foot from the ground.”

Natalya Gundareva remarried the Mayakovsky Theater actor Viktor Koreshkov, and Natalya Gundareva’s third husband was actor Mikhail Filippov.

The actress said about Filippov: “Misha came to the theater and became friends with my former classmate at the theater school. Thus, we ended up in the same company. They made friends, played pranks, jokes. By the way, my husband is a man of amazing humor. He knows a lot about a good joke. God didn’t give me such wit, and I was basically just a performer. But I liked being part of it all. Then in the theater we worked so well together that we realized: we need to live together. The only reason why we have misunderstandings is the dissimilarity of the rhythms of life. True, now I have become calmer. Previously, I used to hurry: “Well, come on, hurry up...” In response I hear: “Natasha, we still have 15 whole minutes.” All. The incident is over. My husband has a son from his first marriage, we have no children together. When the husband is an artist, this removes many problems. There is no need to explain why you are nervous before the premiere or rehearse until late. My husband is not a critic, but a friend... He knows that if something is wrong, I will torment myself. He doesn't interfere in my affairs, and I don't interfere in his. Yes, I understand that no one knows him the way I know Misha. It can be a shame that the directors with whom he worked could not always see, feel and realize his capabilities. Well, we can only hope that this will happen another time. I married him not because he’s talented, but because it’s him.”

In 1972, Natalya Gundareva played main role in Vitaly Melnikov’s melodrama “Hello and Farewell!” The actress portrayed her character so truthfully that Lenfilm received a letter saying that the management of the film studio was doing the right thing by involving not only actors in the filming, but also people from the people, including the village girl Natasha Gundareva.

When we decided to meet Gundareva,” scriptwriter Viktor Merezhko later recalled, “she amazed us. She didn’t have at all what we are used to in our beginning performers. Neither immaturity, nor deliberate fatigue, nor any general certainty - for some reason it is believed that there is a mystery and perspective in this. Gundareva attracted people with her cheerful optimism, well-defined and very perky femininity, and the undisguised pressure of fresh, unspent creative forces. She somehow immediately discouraged you with her naturalness, unadornedness and “no make-up”, which was also not very common in a young actress. It’s now (by the way, maybe after Gundareva?) that there has been a fashion for external artlessness and natural beauty. And in the early 70s, as we remember, “painted” divas in trousers walked along the streets and the screen, and among them Gundareva, with her freckles and not at all a “diet” figure, seemed like a miracle. And we told her: “Hello!”

The actress herself, speaking about the role of the barmaid Nadenka, was categorical: “When I looked at myself in this role, I was horrified: a screen like this had not yet been invented to accommodate my back.” Later, Gundareva played the role of Dusya in Andrei Smirnov’s melodrama “Autumn”, Tasi in Nikolai Gubenko’s drama “Wounded Man” and Anya Dobrokhotova in Vladimir Fetin’s melodrama “Sweet Woman”. The last role required considerable experience from the actress - Gundareva played three different women, three different destinies through which her heroine comes to herself. The film caused a wide resonance in society and a stream of responses, in which the role of the actress, who created such a life-like and controversial image, was highly appreciated. It is no coincidence that in 1977, in a poll by the magazine “Soviet Screen”, Natalya Gundareva was recognized for the first time as the best actress of the year.

In the late 1970s, Natalya Gundareva played several more notable roles. In the melodrama by Valentin Maryagin “Citizen Nikanorova is Waiting for You,” Gundareva appeared before the audience in the image of a violent, addicted, but at the same time kind and sensitive Katya Nikanorova. In 1979, Gundareva played Nina in Georgy Danelia’s tragicomedy “Autumn Marathon,” and for her performance of this role the actress was awarded the Vasilyev Brothers Prize.

In 1980, eight films featuring Gundareva were released on USSR screens. One of the films called “White Snow of Russia” told about the brilliant chess player, world champion Alexander Alekhine. Alexander Mikhailov starred in the main role in this film, and Natalya Gundareva played Alekhine’s wife, Nadezhda, who was having a hard time with separation from her homeland in emigration.

To say that I liked working with her,” Alexander Mikhailov recalled about filming with Natalya Gundareva, “is to say nothing. She is a very interesting and talented person.

The film “White Snow of Russia” was the “starting” film in the collaboration of Gundareva and Mikhailov. Then they played together in the film “Lonely are provided with a hostel” and in one of the episodes of the series “The Investigation is Conducted by Experts.” Popular rumor immediately “married” Gundareva and Mikhailov. And no one paid attention to the fact that in the same “Olympic” year, a film adaptation of Moliere’s “The Imaginary Invalid” was released, where Gundareva starred with her real then-husband. True, she had the main female role, and he had an episodic role.

Then Natalya Gundareva starred in the film “Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later” directed by Yuri Egorov, which told the story of the fate of a woman raising ten children. The birth rate was falling in the country, and the appearance of this picture was caused by government orders. Egorov decided to visit real large families and looked at how they really live. After watching the film, the director was shocked by what he saw: in most families, parents were alcoholics, and their children crawled on the floor and played with bottles. Despite the realities seen, a beautiful film fairy tale was released, the success of which was largely dictated by the choice of performers: Natalya Gundareva, who absolutely harmoniously played the mother of many children, and Viktor Proskurin in the role of the father of the family.

In the mid-1980s, Natalya Gundareva was in a car accident and could not play for three months. At this time, an invitation from the Odessa Film Studio for a role in the film “The Feat of Odessa”. Natalya Gundareva recalled: “I tell them: “How am I going to play?” - and they answered me: “We are in wartime, we don’t care what’s on your face, which gave me hope.”

Having recovered from her injury, Gundareva got behind the wheel again. Director Andrei Goncharov, having learned that she was again driving a car on her own, asked: “Natasha, are you again proving that you can do anything?” The actress herself compared her life to the Olympics, when each participant strives to follow her law: “Faster! Higher! Stronger!"

The actress again delighted her fans with new works. In the tragicomedy “Aelita, don’t pester men,” she played a simple-minded woman, ready to directly say even to the famous film actor Belmondo: “I like you!” This was followed by roles in the detective story “Two Arrows,” the comedy “Crazy,” and the tragicomedy “Promised Heaven.” And in the television film “Vivat, midshipmen!” she played Empress Elizabeth.

When she went on stage to receive the Idol Award in 1999, she said: “The longer you live, the more people there are for whom you have something to thank” - and, at the same time, thanked her “enemies who forced her to be better.” Being a maximalist, Natalya Gundareva strictly assessed both herself and others. They said about Gundareva that she could reprimand her partner twice, and on the third time she would demand to remove him from the role. The director of the film “Aelita, don’t pester men,” Georgy Natanson recalled: “Natasha was very free in her judgments, she was not afraid of anyone. It turned out to be more difficult to work with her than with Doronina. But she is talented and natural, like a cat.”

During her last theater season, Natalya Gundareva worked at her usual intense rhythm. She thought that the stress to which she regularly subjected her health had already become the norm, but in such a state, as a rule, it is difficult to stop and take a breath. In the 2000/2001 season, Natalya Gundareva played roles in three performances - Glafira Firsovna in “Victim of the Century”, Ogneva in “Theatrical Romance” and Lettice Duffe from “Elisir of Love”. She was faithful to her director and the theater, comparing her attitude towards the theater with her attitude towards family and marriage: “Once and for a lifetime.” Natalya Georgievna even usually spent holidays at the theater. And in one interview, when asked by a journalist about how she starts her day, Gundareva answered ironically: “A hand reaches to my head and pulls me out of bed by my hair.”

In recent years, Natalya Gundareva has often starred in television series, embodying on the screen the image of a middle-aged businesswoman. Slender, beautiful, fit, she moved away from the role of a rude simpleton. Similar projects include one of her last roles - psychologist Marina in the TV series “Lyubov.ru”. Director Vladimir Vladimirovich Basov said: “She was, of course, the highest professional and had incredible endurance. Judge for yourself, out of 48 shooting days - July - August - she was busy for 40. Her work went on every day, and then we were filming almost 18 hours a day. We filmed the series using a progressive method - in huge chunks. Natasha had long scenes when she had to say a lot of text at once. Three cameras were installed, and she worked on each of them. It was difficult, even errors in the text were fraught with large reshoots. But this is what Gundareva’s high responsibility means! There was never a time when she spoke her text with errors or even stumbled. Well done! We then filmed all the scenes with her simply from the first take. The most talented actress!”

There were legends about Gundareva’s responsibility during her work. Because of this, as many partners stated, it was easy to communicate with her. Natalya Georgievna always came to the theater an hour and a half before the start of the performance, prepared very seriously for it, went down to the stage before the other actors and, standing backstage, listened to the noise of the audience, trying to guess its current mood. But one day, the most absurd incident happened to her, so obligatory and fanatical in her work: she... forgot to show up for her own performance. On this day, she accompanied her friends abroad and simply took a break from the constant rhythm. The next day, the director of the theater called her, and the unsuspecting Gundareva, thinking that they wanted to congratulate her on being awarded the title of “People’s” artist, came to him in a good mood. When Gundareva sat down in front of her superiors, crossing her legs, and prepared to listen to what they would tell her, the following dialogue took place: “Well, Natasha, what are we going to do?” - “Well, I don’t know, we’ll probably be scared to walk.” - “Natasha, do you understand what happened?” - “What happened?” - “Natashenka, you didn’t show up to the performance yesterday, you know?” When the meaning of the conversation reached Gundareva, she felt bad and lost consciousness. And all this despite the fact that on a serious occasion Gundareva could express herself quite forcefully and did not suffer from excessive sentimentality.

The actress had her first stroke at her dacha on July 19, 2001. She was cutting vegetables for dinner and, as she later recalled, her vision suddenly grew dark, as if she had fallen somewhere. Lying on the floor, she was discovered by her husband Mikhail Filippov, who immediately called “ Ambulance" The actress lay in a coma for ten days - a critical period, usually people do not fully recover after this, but the doctors did everything possible, and Natalya Gundareva began to recover. Soon she began asking doctors when she would be allowed to return to her favorite theater, and her colleagues were looking forward to Gundareva’s recovery. The management of the Mayakovsky Theater started talking about making a play with her voice-over, and the artistic director of the theater Artsibashev offered Gundareva the position of his assistant.

On August 28, 2002, a year after the stroke, doctors allowed Gundareva to celebrate her birthday. They were always very cautious in their forecasts, but Gundareva gradually regained her speech, went to the gym every day, began to walk a little, and even planned to write a book of memoirs. Fearing to worry Natalya Georgievna, information about the death of Elena Mikhailovna’s mother, who died a few weeks after her daughter’s hospitalization, was hidden from her for a year.

“For all four years, Natasha was looked after by nurse Ira, who became a member of the family. She became attached to Natasha and was always ready to please her with at least something, Gundareva’s friends said. - Natasha loved to talk to her, affectionately calling her Bun. They made fun of each other and laughed. And it seemed that for a while the bad things were forgotten... Due to illness, Natalya Georgievna’s character deteriorated a little. Sometimes she was offended by the nurse if she left her alone in the room for five minutes, or by her husband, who was leaving for filming but calling his beloved wife on his mobile every hour. He refused many roles to be with his wife. Sometimes Natasha could be capricious because of her illness. Suddenly she wants someone to urgently bring her her best expensive fur coat and take her out for a walk in it. What can you do - she's a woman! They brought a fur coat and tried to anticipate any desires, worrying about their loved one.”

The actress lacked communication. All her life she had been accustomed to being the center of attention, and suddenly she found herself cut off from the world. She did not like to stay at home for a long time and insisted on being taken to the hospital. As she herself said, to her “party”, in which she made friends with doctors and nurses. “Natalya Gundareva always remembered that she was a woman, she loved to flirt, and personal doctor Timur Mansurovich paid her compliments and called her his favorite patient. She felt comfortable here,” the nurses said. - Sometimes Natalya Georgievna seemed to lose clarity of mind, she forgot where she was, asked strange questions, she imagined something... But when consciousness returned, she read a lot (she was especially interested in the Bible, which became her reference book), she was cheerful , solved crossword puzzles with ease.”

In the fall of 2004, Natalya Georgievna suddenly became worse. And shortly before her death, Gundareva went to a Tibetan monk, from whom she asked for spiritual help.

I hate myself in the “whatever” state. I prefer the torment of hell. I'm used to them. This is how my life has developed, and it cannot be changed,” the actress admitted.

Over the past few months, the actress’s illness has proceeded without complications. Doctors were concerned about heart arrhythmia - a consequence of a sedentary life on medications. Gundareva was sometimes harsh and irritable. “But a week ago, Natasha suddenly affectionately hugged nurse Ira and said a lot of kind words, confessed her love, and thanked her for her patience. “Ira was moved to tears,” said a friend of the actress. “And Natalya Georgievna suddenly warmly asked her husband for forgiveness that because of her illness he had suffered so much, as if... she had a presentiment of trouble.”

On May 7th, Natasha’s relatives took her to the dacha for the holidays. This was usually done when she felt well. And the doctors allowed the patient to change her environment for a few days. Then Gundareva returned to the hospital again. She told the nurses that she dreamed that she was flying in her sleep. “What happened suddenly hit us, no one expected anything bad! The day before, Natasha’s husband visited her, they spent time together, then said goodbye, everything was fine! - recalled a friend of Natasha’s nanny. - I know, Natasha said that she was afraid to die at home: they say, I will feel bad, and you will not be able to provide help at the right time. She endured so much pain and was afraid. I was afraid to die in agony.”

Death occurred suddenly: according to some sources, a blood clot that blocked the pulmonary artery broke loose, according to others, the cause of death was another stroke.

Natalya Gundareva died on May 15, 2005. When she was buried, the funeral service at the Mayakovsky Theater had to be extended by an hour and a half. Thousands of people lined up along Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street all the way to the Manezh certainly wanted to say goodbye to their beloved actress. According to the ancient acting tradition in last way she was greeted with applause.

Natalia Gundareva was buried at the Troekurovskoye cemetery in Moscow.

About Natalya Gundareva was filmed documentary"Our Natasha." In it, Sergei Shakurov, Emmanuel Vitorgan, Leonid Kheifets, Alexander Mikhailov, Karen Shakhnazarov, Victor Merezhko and Tatyana Dogileva spoke about Natalya Gundareva

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The text was prepared by Andrey Goncharov.

INTERVIEW WITH NATALIA GUNDAREVA

How do you, such a pleasant woman in all respects, make ill-wishers?

I think this is because I reserve the right to tell the truth. I either don’t say anything at all, but if they ask me, I don’t think it’s possible to be disingenuous in any way. Well, who likes the truth... There is such a wonderful joke about this, when one actor asks another: “You know, I only trust you, so tell me, how did I play the premiere?” - “Should I tell you honestly?” - “Honestly, because only you will tell me the truth!” - “Honestly, it sucks...” - “No, I’m serious...” Maybe I’ll seem very arrogant, but no talented people, which would not have ill-wishers.

- How do you react to them?

I believe that I have one way of dealing with all the negativity around me - this is to do my job well. I don't know any other way to take revenge. If I manage to play a role decently, I consider that this is my revenge. I won’t pour salt under the threshold.

- Feelings of envy are not inherent to you at all?

It is present, but it is different. For example, I see a woman who is well, stylishly dressed, with gorgeous hair. Then I see her a second time and understand that this is her way of existence. This is how she is. Or I watch some actress in a role and suffer: why not this role for me, how I would like to play it... Why do I think so? Because she plays well too. Maybe if I had just read this role, I wouldn’t have seen it. And I saw it because she played wonderfully. And then I feel sad, envious that I don’t have such a role or one similar to it.

- What role do you dream about?

I never dreamed of roles. Of course, I choose when they offer me 10 scripts. But the director sees me in this role and not in any other. And here, no matter how much I wanted to play Juliet, he sees me as a Nurse, and I have nowhere to go. You see, I always tried not to make guesses, tried not to dream. I thought that the coming day would bring me something, that God would not leave me, the viewer would not forget me, and somehow my crooked path would still lead me onto a bright path.

Is the acting world aggressive?

No matter how much you try to show everyone what a self-sufficient person you are, in demand, if you sit at home or do some trivial things, if you run around some small things, parties, these dens...

- What do you call nativity scenes?

I call this kind of pastime a nativity scene. Empty, it brings nothing to either the soul or the mind. And the body simply physically wears out. It seems to me that such a crazy false active existence harms actors. This is a flickering, meaningless, useless to anyone, giving nothing to anyone, bringing nothing to anyone... When people forget about their profession, this is where, in my opinion, the most tragic moments of an actor’s existence begin.

- Do you like to philosophize?

I have lived my life and I reserve the right to think. I have a time when I walk from my house on Tverskaya to the theater. I walk 35 minutes to the theater. This is what I call “my time”. At this time I answer my questions. I ask myself questions of different kinds. Who will be the president? How prices will increase. About working on the role. I try to answer all these questions for myself. When I answer them, then, in principle, meeting with a journalist is no longer difficult. It’s as if I’ve already thought about everything. This is not philosophy. With the power of thought, I force myself, when there are so many dens around, not to go there, not to waste myself. I'm kind of saving myself for something. Maybe I will remain an unfilled vessel - well, that means that’s my fate. But I still strive for a full life. I understand that the time of my life is running out. Well, it’s like I’ve lived more than half my life. And I don’t want to do it like this, off the shoulder: ah, now I’m going to all the trouble - here they invite me to this bar, here are gifts, here they will give me a fountain pen, here they will give me chewing gum... Well, I can’t afford it. Because I love myself very much, and I love myself so directly, from morning to night. And because of this, I don’t allow myself so much!

- Are you inventing your own world?

I don't confuse life with theater. Life is one thing, and I believe that life is beautiful because it is life. And the theater is beautiful because it is a theater. It seems to me that it is a great misfortune for some actors when they confuse these two concepts. They can’t play anything on stage anymore, but in life you just can’t get enough of them. But you get tired of these very quickly.

- Don't you like merry people?

Time has scattered people so much, rocked them so much... Everyone is like fragile little boats on these waves of the sea of ​​life... So I turn on some program and watch. And now everyone is joking, joking, everything is sad, but everyone is joking. Is it all so funny to you? When a person goes on stage and starts telling jokes - a professional pop performer! Yes, he is a joker, but not to the same extent as to tell jokes about the back seat. Well, we probably need to prepare some kind of program. People laugh, but how can I tell you... I believe that during life we ​​rise, our task is to rise, not to fall. Otherwise, why go somewhere? I don’t understand this: why is there such a wild stupidity of people sitting in front of the TV? We used to listen to what emphasis the announcer would put, and we learned from them. Well then, let’s all say: “doors”, “linol”, let’s burn Dahl’s dictionary on Red Square, come on!

-Can you lie?

No, it’s difficult to lie; your eyes start to wander. 28 years in the theater, it would seem, like an artist, but as soon as I lie, I feel the pupil trembling and the eyes shift. Well, of course, I won’t tell a cancer patient that he is hopeless, and if a friend of mine comes after a sleepless night and says: oh, I look so bad today - and she needs to perform... I say: what are you talking about, it’s normal, I even I was surprised, you said you didn’t sleep until three, but you look very decent! But I understand that she needs support now... But in general, I can’t lie.

- Well, you didn’t lie when you were a child?

Mom caught it once. I went on what was called an extended day. On Saturday we were taken to the cinema, and at home they gave me 50 kopecks. I collected them, went to GUM and ate ice cream, with a mound, very tasty. And one day my mother caught me doing this. We got off the bus together, although I, in theory, was supposed to ride on the other side. "Where have you been?" Unfortunately for me, my mother was also at this film, which it seemed like I was at. There was such a scandal at home! Until I screamed like crazy. (She never hit me, she hit me on the butt with her palm once - I cried for three hours - it was such an insult and humiliation of my human dignity! It was scary, I didn’t want to live.) And then I screamed: what, I can’t even eat ice cream ?! My pain spoke to me. (Laughs.)

- Were you spoiled as a child?

They never made fun of me, they never called me Natasha. Natasha - that's all.

- After whom were you named Natasha?

I left the maternity hospital with this name. Like any newborn, I had this huge head. But they say that I still had a mouth more head, and I yelled accordingly. And when they rolled in the stroller with the children for feeding, my mother said that the nanny in the maternity hospital simply threw me at her with the words: take your Natasha! When my mother left the maternity hospital with me, I was already responding to this name, and my father said: well, let him be Natasha.

- Why do you look so good?

And I have nothing left to do.

- You are in great shape, have you managed to lose weight?

And I eat myself, from morning to night, so I’ve lost weight.

- But seriously - diet?

Well, I made some efforts, but not cruel ones. I didn’t take pills, I think it’s harmful (the so-called Thai pills were in fashion then. - E.N.). And so I “died” on something. I lost weight for a long time - more than a year.

- You don’t eat buns, do you have any sweets?

Well, I really love puff pastries with cherries. When one of your friends comes, they say: how come, you seem to be losing weight? What about buns? I answer: stupid, what is not clear is my vitamin: B1, B2...

- How do others react to your updated appearance?

Ill-wishers' jaws drop when they see me. And my friends are very happy.

- Do you travel and relax a lot?

Well, my husband and I are going somewhere, but I can’t say that I’m a traveler. I once sailed on a ship. I thought I would go crazy in this closed space, where the same people were. I'm a very sociable person, but I need a place where I can be alone. In general, I believe that whoever God wants to curse, he rewards with loneliness. But I love privacy, I need places where I can retire.

-Have you ever thought about leaving the theater?

There was a conflict when we were rehearsing the play “Running”. I played Lyuska. The runs had already begun, but Andrei Aleksandrovich Goncharov made very few comments to me. And now there is such a decisive run-through, a dress rehearsal, and after that he suddenly tells me - he makes comments to everyone, comments, and then he says to me: I have nothing to say to you at all, you rehearsed monstrously today, you have some kind of home direction. I say: what home directing... while I’m in this church, I pray to this God. He doesn't listen - we are in two voices. He suddenly began to say: don’t scare me, that you will leave me (this is after the words “while I’m in this church”). And he started yelling at me, and I got up and left. I went to change my clothes, came home and thought: I’ll leave the theater if he talks to me like that... Well, how can it be - for 20 days of the run-through he didn’t make a single comment (I would have reconsidered), and suddenly at the dress rehearsal I’m doing everything wrong? ! There are failures, but not to the same extent. I thought, thought: no, I decided, I’ll still find the strength in myself and tomorrow I’ll come to the rehearsal, and if he says one word to me, I’ll turn around, leave and write a statement. I came, got dressed, we all went on stage. He came up and said: now let’s start with the scenes, there, “Lyuska - the sixth dream,” he looks at me and says: rehearse, please. And he didn't tell me anything else. We didn’t apologize, we didn’t suck up, he just said: rehearse, and I started rehearsing... And so I never had to leave. Because I am, after all, a service person - I am dispassionate, I am patriotic, I love my Motherland, I love my theater. Well, indeed, Goncharov managed to create an amazing aura in the theater. When Goncharov was in the theater, I actually felt good.

- Does life force you to do something? Are you forced to somehow hold yourself, show yourself, control yourself?

Yes, sure. You see, getting to the top is easier than coming down from it. But staying there is even more difficult. Because, in principle, if you want to go down, you can move out from there at the fifth point. The hardest thing in life is to hold on.

- What would you like to wish for yourself and the audience?

Every morning when I get up, I wish myself one thing - to survive. Because we are born into this world, and God gives us every opportunity, and until we are pulled away from the outside, we retain this God’s breath. I would like every person to keep this within themselves. I would like to wish you patience and love. I would like to thank the audience, because I understand that as long as there is at least one person who sits in the auditorium and watches what I do, my profession gains immortality...

Filmography:

1966 Khmyr
1970 Passing through Moscow
1972 Hello and goodbye
1973 Looking for a man
1973 Appointment
1974 Autumn
1976 Wounded Animals
1976 Sweet Woman
1977 I Guarantee Life
1977 Profitable place
1977 Lyubov Yarovaya
1977 Feedback
1977 Funny people!
1977 Truffaldino from Bergamo
1978 Citizen Nikanorova awaits you
1978 Footprint on the Earth
1978 Leaving - go away
1979 Autumn Marathon (Sad Comedy)
1979 Vacation in September
1980 White Snow of Russia
1980 Dulcinea Toboso
1980 Imaginary patient
1980 Uninvited Friend
1980 Say a word for the poor hussar
1980 One day twenty years later
1980 The investigation is conducted by Experts. Case N15. Left and never returned
1981 Sold Laughter
1982 Children's World
1983 Singles are provided with a hostel
1983 Teenager
1983 Statute of limitations
1983 Mistress orphanage
1984 And life, and tears, and love
1985 Children of the Sun
1985 Winter evening in Gagra
1985 Personal file of Judge Ivanova
1985 Feat of Odessa
1985 Farewell of a Slav
1987 Life of Klim Samgin
1988 Aelita, don't pester men
1989 Two arrows. Stone Age Detective
1989 It
1989 Heart is not a stone
1990 Temptation B.
1990 Passport
1990 Dog Feast
1991 $1000 one way
1991 Vivat, midshipmen!
1991 Lost in Siberia
1991 Chicken
1991 Promised Heaven
1991 Crazy
1992 Midshipmen-III
1992 Challenger fragment
1993 Alphonse
1993 Hostages of the "Devil"
1993 The Queen's Personal Life
1995 Moscow holidays
1996 Dear friend of long-forgotten years...
1998 Heavenly Apple
1998 I want to go to jail
2000 Lyubov.Ru - series
2000 Mysteries palace coups. Russia. 18th century...
2001 The denouement of St. Petersburg secrets - TV series
2001 Rostov-Papa - TV series
2001 Lyubov.ru - series
2001 Salome
2003 Criminal Tango

The popularly beloved actress Natalya Gundareva once complained that life had passed her by. It was strange to hear this for both relatives and fans. Fate gave her a short life, but a bright one, full of both victories and bitter disappointments. She did not hide the fact that she paid many people for her enormous success. First of all - health. And childlessness. Although it was she who happened to become the mother of many children in the USSR - in the film “Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later”...

Text: Svetlana Safonova

Me myself!

Little Natasha’s first words were “I myself.” And her intonation was serious and demanding. Parents - engineers - laughed: they say he will grow up to be a boss! But the girl grew up with a dream of ballet. This desire appeared at the age of 5, when she was first taken to the Moscow Art Theater to see “The Blue Bird”. The stage lights, the curtain, the stage, the actors - everything stunned Natasha. For several days afterwards she could not talk about anything except the performance. And when the girl saw Galina Ulanova on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater - in the ballet “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” - she told her father: “I will be a ballerina!” He smiled back: “You’re a donut!” Natasha pursed her lips tightly in resentment. “I’ll still become an actress!” - she whispered more to herself than to her parents. It was as if she had taken an oath. Since then, her thoughts were only about the theater.

Natasha was in fifth grade when her parents separated. Mom tried her best so that her daughter did not feel deprived of both love and material benefits. She worked for two. But it was difficult to live on a salary, and my mother often borrowed money. On payday, she arranged a festive dinner - baked a chicken in the oven, bought a Napoleon cake. Natasha, of course, was happy about this, but she saw how difficult everything was. And she began to earn money herself: she lifted loops on the stockings of her mother’s friends for 50 kopecks. And soon I learned to sew skirts, sweaters and dresses for myself. Just don't borrow! In the 8th grade, Natasha enrolled in the Theater of Young Muscovites at the city House of Pioneers, within whose walls Rolan Bykov, Lyudmila Kasatkina, and Sergei Nikonenko studied over the years. Soon school, sewing, and the dance floor faded into the background. All free time Now young Natasha devoted herself to a new activity. Returning from rehearsals with friend Vitya Pavlov, they could argue until they were hoarse about every mise-en-scène, about their mistakes and successes. Natalya carefully wrote down all the director’s comments and recommendations in a notebook. And this habit remained with her throughout her life.

After graduating from school, Natalya announced to her mother that she had decided to enter the theater institute. But my mother snapped: “No.” The mother's word was law for Natasha. And she submitted documents to the Moscow Civil Engineering Institute. Diligent and thorough Gundareva successfully passed the first two exams...

"Non-diet" figure

This is what playwright Viktor Merezhko will later say, based on whose script the film “Hello and Farewell!” will be filmed, about Natalya Gundareva, the performer of one of the main roles. And this is how she will defeat admissions committee in Shchuka, where he will eventually go to take exams. And Vitka Pavlov “knocked it out”! Natasha was already standing in front of the door to the building institute classroom - it was her turn to take the next exam. When suddenly someone with all their might pulled her sleeve away from the door. She turned around, ready to slap the insolent person, and it turned out to be Pavlov! “What are you doing! Lost her mind? You need to come to us, to Pike!” Natasha froze for a moment, and then silently turned and went to pick up the documents. He thought that he would have to convince his friend for a long time (he knew how stubborn she was!), and was preparing a fiery speech about her dramatic talent. But I didn’t have to. The next day, Gundareva was already standing at the entrance to Shchuka. That year - 1967 - there was a huge competition at the school, 250 people per place. Thin, graceful, languid painted beauties made up most applicants. It was difficult to compete with them. Accustomed since childhood to the epithets “bun”, “little egg”, “dumpling”, she, of course, had a complex. Therefore, I tried to make my appearance memorable. Pink, with huge blue flowers dress, bright pink cheeks and lips, blue eyelids and curls! Such a large, cheerful flower bed. On the way to the institute, Natasha got caught in the rain. The commission headed by the course master Yuri Katin-Yartsev was shocked by the sight of the applicant Gundereva. And then I was fascinated by her talent. She was accepted! “The freckled miracle” - that’s what Gundareva’s classmates called her: Yuri Bogatyrev, Konstantin Raikin, Natalya Varley. The newly minted student carefully wrote down all the lectures and worked selflessly at rehearsals. Wrapped in three layers of wool, she practiced for hours in ballet class. In her second year, she was given the role of Donna Platonovna from Leskov’s “Warrior”. Gundareva played so brilliantly that the school teachers issued a verdict: she had nothing more to learn, it was time to go on stage. Since her student days, Natasha has had a rule - to analyze every character trait of her heroines and write down her observations in a notebook.

Natasha and I studied in the same course. But when we met on the set of “Truffaldino from Bergamo,” she was already famous throughout the USSR and could afford to say: “Well, I’ll work with what I have.” Meaning me.

Konstantin Raikin

After graduating from the institute, Natalya received an offer from five leading theaters in the capital. She chose the Theater. Vl. Mayakovsky, where she worked all her life. From her first role she became the favorite actress of the powerful, despotic director Andrei Goncharov. The young actress, who had just graduated from the institute, was entrusted with the role of Lipochka in “Bankrupt”. This is her favorite Ostrovsky! Chance helped. Natalya was previously in the second lineup. But she carefully attended rehearsals, learned the role and wrote down comments. When it suddenly turned out that the lead actress was ill, she had a chance to prove herself! Only 10 rehearsals took place before the premiere, and the director was amazed at how prepared the young actress was. As she bowed to the applause of the audience, Natalya thought: “This is happiness! This is what it looks like! I can probably do anything now?” The performance caused a lot of noise both in the theater of Moscow and in Northern Palmyra. Sold out, sold out, sold out. But Gundareva did not relax - she rehearsed and worked, worked... And it will always be like this: first work, theater, and then... Well, if there is time left for anything. Every performance is an event: “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”, “I am standing at the restaurant”, “Running”. She considered herself primarily a theater actress. Actress Goncharova. “I blindly once accepted his faith. I was just clay in the hands of the Master,” she recalled. Because of this, another “epoch-making” actress, Tatyana Doronina, who was considered Goncharov’s favorite, left Mayakovka. It’s cramped for two primamas on one stage, and Doronina left the theater, loudly slamming the door.

Natasha was very free in her judgments and was not afraid of anyone. It turned out to be more difficult to work with her than with Doronina. But she is talented and natural, like a cat.

Georgy Natanson

She did not fit into the endlessly thriving vulgarity. Natasha could be rude, she could send someone away, but there was always a really good reason for that. She could be harsh, furious, whatever, but she was never vulgar in her life, because she did not belong to this dullness. Natasha was out of the ordinary both in life and on stage.

Igor Kostolevsky

And soon the whole country fell in love with the “Sweet Woman” Anya Dobrokhotova - a freckled village girl who gobbles up jam with appetite. Having never found hers as an adult, female happiness. And then Katya Nikanorova - the same citizen who was expecting love. The barmaid Dusya from “Hello and Farewell”, dreaming of a happy marriage... Lonely Nina in “Autumn Marathon”. Naive and kind Aelita, vilely deceived by a “chic” swindler (Valentin Gaft) in the film “Aelita, don’t pester men.” All the heroines seem to live next door. They are spectators who recognized themselves on the screen. This is probably why the actress became so beloved. After all, there was not an ounce of falsehood in Gundareva’s performance. The viewer believed her unconditionally. There were also some oddities: after the release of Vitaly Melnikov’s village melodrama “Hello and Farewell,” Lenfilm received a letter saying that the management of the film studio was doing the right thing, attracting not only actors, but also people from the people to the filming. Like, for example, the performer of one of the roles, the village girl Natasha Gundareva. She complained: “No matter how much I want to play Juliet, the director sees me as a Nurse, and I have nowhere to go.” And sometimes she added bitterly: “It’s difficult to imagine a powerful tragic nature in a nesting doll”...

Husbands real and fictional

Natalya Georgievna was officially married three times. The first passionate romance began on the set of the film “Precipice” with director Leonid Kheifets. He was 14 years older than her, and she wanted to disappear into the Master. They got married as soon as they gave him new apartment. We lived amicably, cheerfully, creatively. Actors came to the house almost every day, discussed performances, and Natalya fed the guests very tasty food. At first, the young wife greeted her friends with joy. Then, when more film work appeared, nighttime gatherings began to interfere: she was terribly sleep deprived. And one such evening, while preparing another culinary masterpiece, Natalya suddenly realized that she was tired of both these guests and this marriage. Love is over.

She lived alone for a long time. There was a short and bright affair with the actor of the Mayakovsky Theater Viktor Koreshkov. The entire troupe of their native theater watched with bated breath the development of their relationship. They got married and... divorced a year later. The reason is banal - treason. In order not to think about sad things, she worked almost seven days a week. To appear strong and independent. And the public of that time, deprived of today’s “media gossip,” regularly married the actress to each film partner. One day they called Alexander Mikhailov at home to arrange a concert. His wife Vera answered the phone. When saying goodbye, the concert agent called her... Natalya Georgievna (Gundareva and Mikhailov played in the film “A hostel is provided for single people.” - Author). Then Sergei Shakurov became a husband. But here the actors did not hide their tender feelings for each other. They worked a lot together and were very friendly. We went on tour together and lived in the same hotels. She carried bouillon cubes for him, as he loved soups, and he brought her fresh milk every morning.

And then Mikhail Filippov appeared in their theater. Talented actor. Behind him is a marriage with Yuri Andropov’s daughter Irina, domestic instability, loneliness. At first they communicated amicably, meeting in the same company. But the interest in each other did not let go, soon there were endless conversations about everything in the world. And then they just decided that they wanted to live together.

It was in the summer, on tour in Chelyabinsk and Perm. Love did not come, did not sneak up, but struck us both. We met at the right time, although sometimes I was sad: how late!

Mikhail Filippov

Finally, not a Genius appeared in Natalya Georgievna’s life, but simply a talented Man with whom she could feel calm, confident and comfortable. They created their own own world, into which very few were allowed. For example, when Natalya Georgievna was recovering from a car accident, Andrei Goncharov, one of the rare close people, visited. He later recalled that the sunny, cheerful, bright actress had such a dark atmosphere in her apartment. Brown curtains, dark wallpaper, twilight. He called her "the woman of twilight." Goncharov then said: “I’ve known you for how many years, Natasha, but it turns out you are a completely different person!”

Gundareva and Filippov wanted children, but for some reason it didn’t work out. Gossip, conversations and idle speculation hurt the actress. She answered incorrect questions from journalists: “I don’t feel the need to have children. The theater replaces them for me.” And in the evening I told my husband - who are they, so that we open our souls and our lives to them?

I look at actors whom I respect infinitely: Mikhail Ulyanov, Marina Neelova, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Alisa Freundlich... And I don’t notice that they make their lives public. They are democratic, but do not allow familiarity. And some do the opposite. But it seems to me that excessive frankness comes from the desire to maintain popularity when there is nothing left to maintain it. When a person is not self-sufficient, uninteresting to himself, and has nothing creative to imagine, endless scandalous publications begin.

The roles, meanwhile, became fewer and fewer, the real ones to which she was accustomed. Like any woman actress, she wanted to play heroines, not “age” ones. It seemed to Natalya Georgievna that her time was running out. She decided to have plastic surgery. She lost a lot of weight and looked younger. She looked great when she appeared in public after a long break. True, it was difficult to recognize her. The new mask face stunned the audience. But Gundareva was pleased - so thin waist she never had it when she was born. She was ready to compete with the young ones!

As soon as the third call rings, you are no longer you. You take a step on stage and your life is transformed. You no longer have control over yourself. The profession is strange, because it contains betrayal in itself: when you take off your clothes, leave your habits, you, in fact, betray yourself, become someone else, and not necessarily good.

When Natalya Georgievna fell ill - hypertensive crisis, stroke, coma - Mikhail Filippov did not leave a single step. He talked to her all the time, read poetry, told news, and composed fairy tales. Just him and her. No strangers, not even friends, were allowed to see the actress. The media exploded with articles stating that if the actress had not lost weight with a scalpel, she would not have been in such a deplorable state! Every day new and new editorials were published: Gundareva has weak blood vessels, and in this case, any surgical intervention and anesthesia are deadly. While Natalya Georgievna was in a coma, while she was recovering for a long time and with difficulty, the country’s journalists seemed to have gone crazy. “Sensations” appeared on the front pages: an interview with a housekeeper talking about the Thai pills that the actress took. Then with a psychic who claimed that the disease was the revenge of her first lover. Then with cosmetologists who talked about the “bodily ailments” of the no longer young Gundareva. With “friends” who saw how Natalya Georgievna communicated with psychics and fortune tellers. With doctors and nurses, with theater administrators, with everyone who had even the slightest connection with Gundareva. Mikhail Filippov said with bitterness that journalists were writing an endless Mexican series about his wife. “They photographed the sick Natasha at the Burdenko Institute, and I thought: did they ever have mothers?”

Filippov's efforts, his patience and love were rewarded - Natalya Georgievna began to recover. And I dreamed of returning to the stage. But again misfortune: while walking, the actress slipped, fell, and hit the back of her head. And again hospitals, despair, hopes... For five years she struggled with the disease. She really wanted to live, because she believed that now she could stop and look around. To see how it rains, leaves move, fog rises... In one of the rare interviews, the actress said: “It is difficult to break out of the rhythm that life has dictated, it is difficult and even, if you like, scary. It starts to feel like you're losing something. Although I think that there comes a moment when you realize that you have achieved something and you can look around you. The world is so diverse and significant, but we run towards our goals, peaks. And then from these peaks you see everything that remains at the foot, and it’s so interesting! And you didn’t see anything while you were running.”

To be treated well, you must at least die. Then everyone starts to suffer, saying how good you were. Everyone becomes your friend. And while you live...

Natalya Georgievna Gundareva died at less than 57 years old. Once she saw off Ivan Kozlovsky on his last journey, heard Sviridov’s “Blizzard” at his funeral and asked her friends to bury her to the same music. Her wish was fulfilled. “My soul is cheerful, it’s true, but all the impressions that I bring to the stage are associated with torment for me. Life is still a tragedy, because the ending is tragic: we die. It seems to me that from the inside all people are unhappy and lonely,” she said in a rare interview...

Life is always something more. And it continues. Even after death. As long as they remember us, we are alive.

Actress Natalya Gundareva was born 68 years ago

"Once upon a time my little son, and within five minutes he, without hesitation, showed Natasha his toys. That day they took a photo together. I printed twenty of these photographs, brought them to the site and said: “Natasha, write on each one: “To the beloved teacher of my little friend Petya as a souvenir from Gundareva!” He’ll have to go to school soon, it’ll come in handy.”

She laughed and signed. But, as it turned out, I even underestimated the effect. For the first few school years (until the photographs ran out), the teachers treated my son not only favorably, but downright doted on him, calling him super-capable! - recalls film producer Alexander Malygin.

She loved children very much, and she had everything in her to become wonderful mother, but it didn’t work out.

And all her tenderness, love, and sincerity went to the audience. And for this the audience paid her with absolutely crazy love:

“One day while filming in Rostov, Gundareva asks: “Sasha, take me to the market. A seller I know there promised me good caviar.” I saw her taking two huge wicker baskets with her. I asked: “Is this all for caviar?” - “You’ll see. It’ll come in handy.” She was without makeup, put on glasses, a hat... It seemed like you wouldn’t recognize her. But as soon as we entered the market, word of mouth spread that Gundareva was here. And from all sides fruit fell into these baskets , butter, sausage, vegetables - everything! By the time we got to the caviar, the baskets were filled to the top. Well, they sold the caviar to Natasha, of course, for some ridiculous money. And so I dragged these baskets to Natasha’s room, so she took the jars of caviar and says: “Bring everything else to the film crew, let the guys sort it out.” - “How so?” - “What did you think, did I take all this for myself?” - Alexander Malygin in an interview with 7days.ru.

Today is her birthday. And I won’t talk about her husbands or anything else, no less personal. I won’t, because Natalya Gundareva herself once said:
“I look at the actors whom I respect infinitely: Mikhail Ulyanov, Marina Neelova, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Alisa Freindlich... And I don’t notice that they make their lives public. They are democratic, but do not allow familiarity. And some do the opposite. But "It seems to me that excessive frankness comes from the desire to maintain popularity when there is nothing left to maintain it. When a person is not self-sufficient, uninteresting to himself, and there is nothing creative to imagine, endless scandalous publications begin."

To remember a brilliant actress and a most beautiful woman, you don’t need scandalous stories, you just need our grateful memory.

GUNDAREVA NATALIA GEORGIEVNA

Honored Artist of the RSFSR (03/05/1980).
People's Artist of the RSFSR (02/07/1986).

She grew up in the noisy and always crowded Taganka, in a family where work and knowledge were valued. “I inherited from my parents: my father’s prudence, that is, a real understanding of the moment, and on the other hand, my mother’s intolerance - to do it at all costs.” The love for theater was passed on to her daughter from her mother - in her free time she played in the amateur theater of her institute. At first, Natalya Gundareva played in the school drama club, and in the 8th grade she enrolled in the theater at the city Palace of Pioneers. But she never considered herself an actress, believing that theater was not for her, supposedly it was fun, but her appearance didn’t inspire much hope, so let’s be realistic. In the 10th grade, she went to evening school and got a job as a draftsman in a design bureau, preparing to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a designer.
In 1967, she began taking the entrance exams to MISS and, most likely, would have entered. But as sometimes happens, chance intervened. Natalya's friend, Viktor Pavlov, who knew her from the amateur stage and believed that she had real dramatic talent, persuaded the girl to give up thoughts about a career as a designer and instead become an actress.
In that 1967 competition at the B.V. Theater School. Shchukin was huge - 250 people per place. Natalya successfully passed the exams and was enrolled in the Yu.V. course. Katina-Yartseva, together with Yu.G. Bogatyrev, N.V. Varley, K.A. Raikin, V.V. Tikhonov. In her second year, Natalya Gundareva brilliantly played Domna Platonovna from Leskov’s “Warrior”. After which, as they say, the rector of Shchukinsky, Boris Zakhava, exclaimed: “Gundareva has nothing left to learn - it’s time to go on stage.”

In 1971, when she graduated from college, she was offered a job by four Moscow theaters at once: the Moscow Art Theater, Sovremennik, the Vakhtangov Theater and the Mayakovsky Theater. During her studies, out of all the academic theaters, she immediately singled out the Mayakovsky Theater, where she watched Okhlopkov’s “The Aristocrats,” “The Death of Tarelkin” directed by Pyotr Fomenko, “Destruction” directed by Mark Zakharov and Andrei Goncharov’s performances “Vanyushin’s Children” and “Tram” that stunned her “Desire.” Therefore, out of all the offers, she chose this theater and stayed in it for the rest of her life, which she never regretted.
At first she played episodes and small roles: Vanyushin’s daughter Katya in “Vanyushin’s Children”, Vasilisa Odintsova in “Maria”, Varka in “The Duma of the British Woman”.
The first significant role of Natalya Gundareva, which the audience and critics started talking about, was the role of Lipochka (the play “Bankrupt” based on the play by A.N. Ostrovsky “We Will Be Our Own People,” 1974). Already in this work, the actress’s bright talent manifested itself, knowing how to work not only with “luscious strokes”, but also to use the most subtle psychological motivations.
In 1978 A.A. Goncharov staged on the stage of the Vl. Mayakovsky's play "Running" by M.A. Bulgakov, where N.G. Gundareva played the “camping wife of General Charnota” Lyuska, finding new colors for her heroine that made Lyuska one of the main characters of the play.
In 1979, she played Katerina Izmailova in the play “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” based on Leskov. Among the significant works of N.G. Gundareva of the initial period should be called Marfenka in the television version of the novel by I.A. Goncharov's "Cliff" (director Leonid Kheifets).
New significant works by N.G. Gundareva on the stage of the Mayakovsky Theater marked the 1980s: Larisa Sadofieva ("Rumor" by Afanasy Salynsky), Madame ("Agent 00" by Genrikh Borovik), She ("I'm Standing at the Restaurant..." by Edward Radzinsky). It was during this period that N.G.’s film activity flourished. Gundareva, and she plays less in the theater, especially in the late 1980s - late 1990s. Last job in the theater there was the role of Lettice in the play “Elisir of Love” (1997).

Natalya Gundareva began acting in films in 1966. But the actress’s real debut is considered to be 1972, when she played the main role in Vitaly Melnikov’s village melodrama “Hello and Farewell!” This was followed by such well-known works as Dusya ("Autumn" by Andrei Smirnov), Anya Dobrokhotova ("Sweet Woman" by Vladimir Fetin, this role required considerable experience from the actress - Gundareva played three different women, three different destinies through which her heroine comes to herself), Tasya (“Wounded Man”), Katya Nikanorova (“Citizen Nikanorova is Waiting for You”), Nadya Kruglova (“Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later”).
In 1979, Natalya Gundareva played Nina in the film by Georgy Danelia based on the script by A.M. Volodin's "Autumn Marathon", for this work Natalya Gundareva was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR (1980). Matchmaker Vera from the lyrical comedy "Lonely are provided with a hostel", director of the orphanage Alexandra Ivanovna Vaneeva from the television play "Mistress of the Orphanage", singer Melnikova in the tragicomedy "Winter Evening in Gagra" - these and many other roles of the actress have become beloved by television viewers.

On July 18, 2001, the actress suffered a stroke at her own dacha near Moscow. Last years She was seriously ill, hoping to recover and return to the stage of her native theater, but the miracle never happened.
Natalya Georgievna Gundareva died on Sunday morning, May 15, 2005, at the age of 57 in Moscow. The great actress was buried on May 18 in the 6th section of the Troekurovsky cemetery.

A documentary film “Natalya Gundareva. Our Natasha” (2008, produced by “Winter Production”) was created about the life and work of the actress.

The first husband is director Leonid Efimovich Kheifets (born 1934).
The second husband is theater and film actor Viktor Koreshkov (1952-2011).
The last husband is theater and film actor Mikhail Filippov (born 1947).
PRIZES AND AWARDS
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree (02/3/1998).
USSR State Prize (1984) - for playing the roles of Sadofyeva in the play “Rumor” by A.D. Salynsky and Katerina Lvovna Izmailova in the play “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” by N.S. Leskov.
State Prize of the RSFSR named after the Vasilyev Brothers (1980) - for playing the role of Nina Evlampievna Buzykina (film “Autumn Marathon”).
Lenin Komsomol Prize (1978).
Prize of the President of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art (2002).
Best actress of the year according to polls by the magazine “Soviet Screen” (1977, 1981, 1985, 1990).
Prize of the IX International Film Festival in Bulgaria (1981).
Nika Award for Best Actress in 1990 (“A Dog’s Feast”).
Award for Best Actress at the Montreal International Film Festival, Canada in 1990 (“A Dog's Feast”).
Prize “Diamond Crown” of the All-Russian festival “Constellation” (1990, “Dog Feast”).
Moscow Prize (1994, for participation in the play “Victim of the Century”).
Crystal Turandot Award (1996).
Independent award "Idol" (1999).
Award of the East-West International Film Festival in Baku for the best female image (2000).
International Theater Prize named after K. S. Stanislavsky for his contribution to theatrical art (2001).
Prize Russian Academy cinema "Golden Eagle" in the nomination "Best Actress of the Year" for the film "Rostov-Papa" (2003).

For the anniversary of Natalia Gundareva ( Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 08/27/1998)

Dubrovsky V.Ya.
Natalya Gundareva. Actress. - M.: ZAO Publishing House Tsentrpoligraf, 2000. - 413 p.

"DON'T MAKE YOUR ANNIVERSARY!"

Natalya Gundareva's birthday, ironically, falls on the most untheatrical month - August. This is vacation time or, as they say, low season. All theater people go on vacation, and some, on the contrary, use this month for filming, concerts, enterprise tours, and trips abroad. Celebrating a birthday, much less an anniversary, in August is pointless and impossible. In this case, the celebration is postponed to another, more convenient time.

Gundareva did not change or move anything; she simply did not celebrate her anniversary, despite the fact that the date was the roundest and most solemn.

Of course, the anniversary of the most popular and beloved actress did not go unnoticed. Articles about the hero of the day appeared in many newspapers; television organized a screening of the best films with Gundareva’s participation, the theater held a decade of performances by its leading actress at the beginning of the season, and released a special anniversary poster; Colleagues and partners in a close circle behind the scenes congratulated Natasha and raised their glasses to her. But according to Natalya Georgievna’s wishes, there was no national holiday with a final multi-hour anniversary evening, at which speeches are made, theatrical greetings are performed, a skit party is played and amicably proceeds to a buffet table.

Gundareva’s reluctance to be the object of anniversary celebrations is explained, firstly, by her dislike of various party events and fear of being involved in something similar.

And secondly, Natasha, demanding of herself, intelligent and ironic, knew the value of anniversary praises, seeing in them, as Mayakovsky wrote, “speeches and incense.” Following the poet, Gundareva is ready to say: “Don’t celebrate your anniversary!” She said this very clearly: “I would not like to think of this day as the result of some part of my life, because I want to be in motion. I can't accept that this is the outcome. I wish it was too early to sum it up.”

Understanding and accepting Natasha’s similar desire, one cannot help but assume that on that day she still remembered the past, thought about the years she had lived, and involuntarily analyzed what she had played. Only Natasha herself knows what occupied her mind and filled her heart that day. But we have the opportunity to guess and model the movement of her thoughts on this day. If we assume that, without summing up, without perceiving this day as a milestone, she remembered herself in different years of the past, we can remember this with her. For there is documentary evidence telling about Natasha Gundareva in these different years of her life. Such evidence is her interviews. In each of them the content is very important, then What Natasha says, but no less How she says, that is, the mood, atmosphere, emotional state. These interviews are like cardiograms; they record the movement of thoughts and the mood of the soul. And just like cardiograms, they convey the dynamics of her spiritual growth. Let’s try to look through Gundareva’s interviews and select the most meaningful and interesting ones from among them.

The first interview was published in " Literary newspaper"in the New Year's issue for 1978. By this time, Gundareva not only made a successful debut, but managed to gain some fame. In the theater she already had such successes as Varka in “The Duma of the British Woman”, and especially Lipochka in “Bankrupt”. Ten roles were played on television, among them such memorable works as Marfenka (“Cliff”), Mirandolina (“The Innkeeper”), Dunka (“Lubov Yarovaya”). The most favorable response was evoked by his film roles - Dusya in “Autumn” and Anna Dobrokhotova (“Sweet Woman”), who brought resounding success. There were all the signs of emerging popularity. In these conditions it was easy to feel confident and victorious. The first interview tells a different story - the young actress pays high tribute to the directors who worked with her, and calls herself clay in their hands.

“The conversation about “Bankrupt” arose naturally when I asked to talk about the debut. “Lipochka,” answered Gundareva, naming the role played after three years in the theater troupe: this is how it happens...

Formally, there were other debuts,” says the actress, “for example, I was immediately included in three performances, then I was given a role in a modern play. Bad role. As Lear tells Cordelia, “Nothing comes from nothing.” I did everything that was possible, but - such a shame! Every performance I lost my voice. Everything in me resisted. There's nothing worse than a bad role. I can not...

But “Bankrupt” is another matter. I love this performance, I love the role, and I am happy when I play. I like her all: I love Ostrovsky, I am pleased to pronounce words that have culture, there is respect for language, meaning.

They say that when drama is good, it is hard to work on it. This is true. But I personally experience inner lightness despite all this. I doubt, I bite my nails, I'm afraid, but I feel - how can I tell you? - like in the saddle. And I am happy at these performances, because I love to work. And for the sake of such worth the work. It’s not worth it for the sake of bad plays, it’s better to do something else - dig in the garden, grow flowers...

What is the importance of a director to you?

For me, the director is everything. And by that I mean really everything. In general, I often think that I am clay. Maybe that’s why I’m “grieving”, because many actors believe that... well, let’s say this: you have to carry yourself. And I believe: the higher the quality of the clay, the more likely it is that the master will get a better result.

What if you don’t like what the director offers? You can’t play, you’re not interested, otherwise you see your role...

Well, people meet to talk. You can always come to an agreement... And, you see, I noticed: we often suffer from the fact that we insist when we are wrong. But you need to try to understand the other and explain what you want yourself. And you should also try to understand me... Are there options when you categorically don’t want to do something? There are. Then there is a conflict. And if they don’t see eye to eye at all, then it’s better not to act at all, because working without contact is a lost cause. Then we have to leave.

Yes, I am clay, clay! - Gundareva laughed. “But maybe I’m not this director’s clay - I’m from a different quarry or not his material at all: he maybe likes to work on wood or cut diamonds, but I’m clay, clay...”

Exactly two years after the first interview in the New Year’s issue of “Soviet Culture” for 1980, Gundareva briefly and modestly reported on her last two roles, although they provided the basis for loud triumphant reports.

“Like everyone else, the last year was probably filled with different events- happy and sad. But there were still more joyful ones (I hope that the readers did too). That’s why I’m glad that a year has passed, and at the same time I’m sad to part with it. And I dream. The New Year will come... Maybe it won’t bring me anything special, but you always pin your brightest hopes on it. I also want to say good-bye to the year that has passed and remember only the best and happiest things about it. For example, two new roles: in the film by G. Danelia based on the script by A. Volodin “Autumn Marathon” and in the play based on the story by N. Leskov “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” on the stage of the Vl. Mayakovsky.

Both of these works are about human drama. And although “Autumn Marathon” was filmed in Danelia’s usual comedy genre, the story the film tells is quite sad. That’s why I believe in the audience’s empathy for the fates of my heroines.

It was nice to see such understanding abroad: we showed our new performance this year in Yugoslavia, and the film “Autumn Marathon” received the “Grand Prix” in San Sebastian, and we went with it to American audiences. And I had two more interesting trips this year - to Hungary and France, where we filmed the new Mosfilm film “White Snow of Russia”, dedicated to the life of the great Russian chess player Alekhine.

Fairy tales must come true. Definitely. Many years ago, when I was very little, I came to the theater for the first time. They showed "The Blue Bird". I don’t remember the performance itself, but I remember this magic well: the lights quietly go out and the curtain silently moves apart...

That holiday remained in my memory forever, and I wish everyone who comes to the auditorium to find their Blue Bird there every time...”

Six months later, in the same newspaper “Soviet Culture,” Gundareva spoke about these and other new roles in detail, deeply analyzing the dramatic basis, the work of the director, and her own efforts. The actress speaks openly about her doubts and shares her thoughts about the direction and nature of future work in theater and cinema.

“The now impressive list of screen works of the Honored Artist of the RSFSR Natalya Gundareva began once in a tiny cameo role in the film “Passing Through Moscow.” And years passed, as critics wrote, “the day of great success came” - the film “Sweet Woman” with Natalya Gundareva in the role of Anna Dobrokhotova was released.

It was a very important, one might say, landmark film for me,” says Gundareva. - Success is generally a strikingly serious phenomenon in an actor’s life. Not only because it, as they say, “inspires.” What is acting? They say: “Creative work.” So I work as an actress? But I don’t work - every day I go on stage to win over the viewer, so that he, alienated at first from the stage or screen, forgets where he is, dies with me and is resurrected. I want it to be like this, but I rarely know if I succeeded? So, real success, and not nurtured by capricious fashion, is a criterion, if you like, an actor’s moment of truth, and from now on I don’t have the right to play below it, I simply “work out” the role. They call me a maximalist. They say it’s difficult to live with such a program - you’re constantly on edge. Why should it be easy?

Why do you think Georgy Danelia invited you to play the role of Nina in his “Autumn Marathon”?

I asked Georgy Nikolaevich exactly the same question, although, I admit, having read Alexander Volodin’s wonderful script, I didn’t doubt for a single minute - the role is mine! At the same time, I clearly understood that I would work myself until I lost my pulse - the image of Nina required different colors than many of my past roles. Danelia, I remember, replied that, in his opinion, it was clear without any words why I should play Nina. And I was quite, you know, satisfied with such a “specific” answer.

I suffered to my heart's content, and they tortured me, they re-shot a lot. I was always drawn to play in the usual manner - with strong emotions, with a broad gesture - like, say, in the film “Citizen Nikanorova is Waiting for You” or in “The Innkeeper”. But it was necessary to restrainedly, with hidden pain, which can be “louder” than violent sobs... Here, by the way, is an example of a rather painful break in one’s own manner.

Nina taught me a lot, I fell in love with her, as you love everything that is born with great difficulty. I penetrated into her state when she sits on long dreary evenings alone in front of the TV, with fear frozen in her eyes: what if today her husband Buzykin, kind and sowing nothing but suffering all around, will announce that he is finally leaving for someone else. And one day, when they had already filmed the scene, and I still couldn’t stop crying about the fate of my unfortunate Nina, Danelia said: “Because of these tears, it was you who should have played Nina.” This is where the hearing and vision of a true artist affected - Danelia knew long in advance that they would come, these tears. And how accurate the most seemingly unexpected advice from the chief director of our theater, Andrei Aleksandrovich Goncharov, always turns out to be when we are preparing a new performance!..

So, this is what is important in an actor’s life: success and a thoughtful director?

No, on the contrary: director, and then success. But the beginning of it all, of course, is drama.

What are your requirements for it?

Well, any actor will tell you that he is interested in playing a character who is ambiguous, bright, reliable... For me it is very important that in a script or in a play a living person struggles, suffers, makes mistakes, rejoices, so alive that it seems strip along the line - blood will appear. A person, and not a personification of some, even a very true acting idea. Have you ever seen such oddities: filming is in progress, and suddenly some actor begins to get nervous, pointing his finger at the script, announcing that he will not play “this”, because there is nothing to play here, and it is impossible to pronounce the text “humanly” - so written in cloth. The saddest and most amusing thing here is different: it happens that a screenwriter appears, corrects something on the sheet in half an hour, and everything is already “dramatic,” there is already “something to play.” In my opinion, this is handicraft. Well, if you please, good drama cannot be created in half an hour on the set! Behind real dramaturgy there is always work, enormous personal suffering of the writer. I feel Leskov’s pain while playing Katerina Izmailova in “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.” Katya was born free, for happiness, but lives almost as a slave in a merchant’s house - so I feel Leskov’s rage because such a lot befell her, and I am charged with the author’s rage. I plunge headlong into the tragedy of Katerina - the tragedy of a whole soul, split by the pangs of conscience and a humiliated life, by the musty and terrible “racial” reality. I feel the power of dramaturgy when playing Lyuska in Mikhail Bulgakov’s “Run”. And what kind of talent was needed to show, through the prism of brilliant laughter, as Ostrovsky was able to do in the comedy “Our People - We Will Be Numbered,” the wolfish grin of the young bourgeoisie, taking the place of the semi-patriarchal Russian merchants. A strong playwright invites an actor to co-create - you strive to become on par with great literature...

But you all talked about the theater... What has the dramaturgy of cinema pleased you with recently?

I have already spoken about the “Autumn Marathon”. A very unique character happened to be embodied in V. Tregubovich’s film “When you leave, go away” according to the script of the excellent film writer V. Merezhko. My heroine, a lonely young woman Marina, having lived with her legal husband for eight years, drove him away “for being boring.” It's sad alone, but is it more fun with someone you don't love? Doesn't she have the right to dream of a strong feeling?

Understanding a character that was new to me was the role of Nadezhda, the wife of the brilliant chess player Alekhine in the film “White Snow of Russia,” which director Yu. Vyshinsky filmed based on a script he wrote together with grandmaster A. Kotov. A Russian noblewoman, a brilliantly educated woman, Nadezhda experiences separation from her homeland very hard in emigration, and her almost deliverance is an absurd death in a car accident.

A completely different character, a different role - of our contemporary, a young woman who has ten children, and she is immensely happy with this, I played with pleasure in the film by Y. Egorov based on the script by A. Inin “One Day Twenty Years Later.”

In general, it seems that my film roles are becoming more complex over time: if at first the screen offered me characters that were more “open-minded” - say, the same “sweet woman” or citizen Nikanorova, then the last few roles are marked by greater psychologism.

How do you explain this? What role can film director “X” offer Natalya Gundareva in his future film, having seen her, for example, in “Autumn Marathon”?

You know, explaining and predicting is still the job of criticism, which, unfortunately, it does not always do as thoughtfully as we would like. We have somehow developed a certain general “stating” style in criticism - regarding the present and non-binding forecasts “wait and see” - in conversations about the future. I am, of course, not talking about individual amazingly wise and subtle speeches. You see, my mother and my loved ones like everything I play. Well, who will help me figure out what the success of the role depends on the merits of my acting art, and what, say, on the recognition of the embodied character? How to continue to live, what to play, what innovations can be expected from me and where, without knowing it, have I already stepped on the dangerous path of self-repetition? Painful, extremely important questions for an actor. But sometimes what happens is that while you play a lot and seem to be successful, the criticism is entirely panegyric; failure, failure, without which our life is unthinkable - and that’s all, silence.

In criticism - real, artistic - there is an extension of the actor's fate, an extension of art in general.

How is the image created?

It's almost always difficult for me. Only the “sweet woman” I somehow immediately “saw”: a synthetic fur coat, a green crimplene dress, a nylon wig, slightly worn heels... And so there are always a million doubts, long thoughts about the role. It happens: you seem to be completely electrified, your entire spiritual experience is in motion, everything you have read, experienced, heard, but the image does not form - and that’s it! This was the case with Katerina from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, until the image of flight appeared. I suddenly saw Katya with her arms and wings spread wide - so she would do anything: to her bitter happiness, to murder, to hard labor - and the role receded and the face of a man appeared. But even a happily arrived gesture, musical rhythm, intonation is just a first impulse, everything is then refined and polished a thousand times later...

So, does this mean that acting is still a job?

Rehearsals, the process of sculpting the image - yes, work. It is akin to how - forgive the pompousness - a sculptor cuts off all that is unnecessary from a block of stone, releasing a beautiful image. And an actor’s appearance in front of people, be it on stage or in cinema, is a holiday, not an everyday thing, it is an hour of triumph of your art.”

In 1981, ten years after she began her acting career, Gundareva, in response to an interviewer’s question, willingly spoke about her entry into art. (Later she will return to this episode of her biography more than once, remembering new details.)

But the main content of this interview is an analysis of the roles played, correlating them with life impressions.

Natalya Georgievna, can you remember when you first felt like an actress in yourself?

It's hard to say when. Maybe at school, in literature lessons, when they read “by roles”?.. You know, we go through, say, “The Inspector General” and then we read aloud: I’m for Anna Andreevna, someone is for Khlestakov. She loved it very much... She also enjoyed coming to singing lessons: for some reason our Bronislava Yanovna was sure that we were all natural vocalists, and I didn’t want to dissuade her... Then the Palace of Pioneers, Tyumen Theater...

Excuse me, but what is TYUM?

Theater of Young Muscovites.

Was this where you played your first role?

Yes, the mother in The Wild Dog Dingo. Don’t be surprised, I always looked older than my peers, and I was most often assigned just such “adult” roles.

Straight from school to theater institute?

No, it wasn’t that simple... I left tenth grade after quarreling with one teacher. I studied in the evening class, worked at a design bureau, took preparatory courses... I decided to become a builder, I had already passed two exams - when suddenly a friend ran in: “Natasha, is it true that you are applying to MISS?! Lost her mind! Immediately bring the documents to us in Shchukinskoye!” For some reason I listened...

Do you think you are lucky in your acting career?

Of course I was lucky; I was invited to the theater immediately, and a year later - to the cinema. By the way, this happened here in Leningrad, when Vitaly Melnikov began working on the film “Hello and Farewell.”

Once, while talking with one undoubtedly talented and popular artist, I started a conversation about why he often stars in mediocre films. In response, I heard a whole theory about the “mystery” of the film process, about the impossibility of predicting the result in advance, and so on... But, now remembering your work in cinema, I don’t see any need to ask such a question. How, Natalya Georgievna, do you manage to “get” good roles and good films so smartly?

What do I have to do with it? Thanks to the directors... By the way, in all my time in films I had only three central roles, if I had done two or three a year, maybe nothing would have worked out... I remember when they offered to play a “sweet woman” It even became scary: for an hour and a half on the screen, from frame to frame - “a painfully dear face”... The audience is tired of me! We need to invent something so that they don’t get bored... In every scene, look for the paradoxical in order to sharpen the sense of the essence. (They remember that Alexei Dikiy, every time starting a rehearsal, said: “What are we going to surprise with?”) In Anna Dobrokhotova, I wanted not only to expose her selfishness and spiritual satiety, but for the viewer to feel her loneliness and fear, which Anna hides behind carpets and sofas... After this picture, I painfully wanted to play a completely different role, a completely different character - open, humane, reliable, and it was as if my heart had been overheard: they offered “Citizen Nikanorova.” Then a new gift - Nadya Kruglova: in this film - “Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later” - I wanted to bow low and low to all mothers... It seems that both the role and the whole film were well received, but I’m worried. You see, probably in the soul of every actor there is a fear of oblivion. Recently they offered me two roles, but I refused because they seemed like a past stage to me. It seems like she acted according to her conscience, but what if the directors conclude that she’s arrogant and stop inviting her to act in films? In general, I refused, but my heart trembles like a sheep’s tail.

When you were just talking about the “sweet woman,” it seemed to me that your words showed some kind of sympathy for your heroine. Did I understand you correctly?

Absolutely. Even my most “negative” heroine I try to somehow justify, I look for a good beginning in her... For example, Gubenko offered me an episodic role in “Wounded Animals”. I read the script and even shuddered. “Kolya,” I say, “why is she so angry?” Gubenko explains: “I need her as a symbol of evil.” Filming has begun. I dressed myself in a Japanese robe, put on makeup, tried, twist and turn, but it didn’t work. I can’t, that’s all! The thought haunts me: why is she so angry? Finally she came up with an idea: she has a disabled husband and no children of her own. One in such a situation is ready to kiss someone else’s child, and the other begins to hate it. In general, I “justified” it for myself and then I was already able to act in films... And so I suffer every time. It is very important for me that the viewer of any of my heroines believed exactly - any. And if I play, say, an evil person, but at the same time I reveal something good in him, then if an evil person finds himself in the cinema among the audience, he, I am sure, will begin to look for this good in himself too. Because I am convinced: you cannot burn out the evil in a person with evil - this will make him even more bitter, especially if he has a strong personality.

How does your own biography help in working on your image - at least one example?

There are roles: I read the script - and it’s already in front of you in all the details, so it was with “Sweet Woman”. Then, of course, there is huge and difficult work, but still the role in its entirety is clear to you. But it happens the other way around: you can’t imagine everything about your heroine, but you know one feature on which you build the whole image...

Do you merge so much with your heroines on screen that you probably can’t get rid of them in life?

It happens... I remember when I was filming “Sweet Woman”, under the influence of this rollicking lady, even my conversational manner changed: it became, you know, such a “tram”, open sound... However, I “get used to” them all in advance - both on the street and at home, to get used to it better, and then, on the set or on stage, not to think about it anymore. But this happens most often unconsciously. Let’s say I’m peeling potatoes, but in my mind I’m at a performance: I run in, pronounce a monologue...

Now, Natalya Georgievna, you remembered about the theater. Do you think that the experience of a theater actress helps on film shoots?

There is such a concept - theatricality. It is often pronounced with an ironic tinge, but I, being an ardent supporter of the modern style of acting, at the same time adore this very “theatricality”. There are several parts in the TV movie “Dulcinea Toboso” where I felt like I was wide open like in a theater! If the whole picture were like this, it would be a good musical...

Did you have to fight for the role, to prove that you should play it?

Every screen test for a role is essentially a fight, but you don’t know your opponent. And there was a case in the theater when, replacing an actress who suddenly left, two days before the premiere she prepared the role of Lipochka in “Bankrupt”. A similar situation arose on the eve of the release of the play “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”. However, every performance is a self-affirmation...

If we return to cinema, what kind of viewer do you think is most interesting to you?

My main audience is, of course, women, ordinary women. Especially, apparently, they understand my heroines in the countryside. After the film “Autumn,” the film studio received a letter from near Kursk: “Tell Comrade Smirnov that he is great, because he films not only professional artists, but also us, ordinary people. Peasant Gundareva played the milkmaid Dusya beautifully...” I received many letters after the film “Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later.” One admits: “You reminded me of my mother.” Another: “My sister died during the war, she was as kind as you...” One day a woman comes up on the subway: “We always expect a lot from you...” How scary it is when you always waiting for a lot...

Let's get creative. Let's say today you have a very, very free day. Where will you go? What will you do?

Completely, completely free? Then the first thing to do is go to the pool. I love water so much that I often see in my dreams as if I were swimming - at depth, without a mask, like an amphibian... Then I would knit it (I have a whole bag of knitting here). Then I would go to the Russian Museum to stand for a long, long time in front of Marc Chagall’s painting “The Walk”... And I also like to paint flowers in watercolors. True, my flowers are not real: for example, a carnation may not look like a carnation at all, but for me it is a carnation, my carnation...

In a long interview conducted with Gundareva by theater critic N. Staroselskaya in the same 1981, the actress’s response to last question: it contains one of the substantive elements of her aesthetics and even worldview.

Tell me, Natalya Georgievna, what would you like to play in the theater or in the cinema?

I don’t know... I already said that What I'm interested, What most concerned about: something I can't play. At least according to the first feeling. For some new quality you need very good material, but for now they offer me - especially in cinema - what has already happened. I often refuse, but there is always work in theater and film, so I can probably afford to read fiction for myself, without thinking about what I would like to play out of it. Read without selfishness, without pretense...

It seems to me that in order to be understood today, it is absolutely not necessary to develop new themes and characters. I have already spoken about my conviction: what is modern is not the present day itself, but the eternal hidden in it. This makes up our life and never ceases to excite a person. The pace of production, production worries and conflicts change and are eliminated, but people, their relationships, their ability to be humane and perform actions remain...

What remains is such a difficult, everyday human life, love, death, betrayal, loneliness... That is why Leskov and Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Gorky seem modern to me. This is the value of Trifonov and Astafiev, Rasputin and Aitmatov...

Modern plays should take us back to our past more often. Indeed, in our today's rhythms and way of thinking, it is so necessary sometimes to “stop, look back”... When a person thinks about the “eternal” - about life and death, about good and evil - he cannot betray anyone. Maybe that’s why we turn to the classics so often today?

And, in my opinion, this has the most direct relation to modern literature. It exists only when there are living, deep, eternal characters - something that cannot be misunderstood today.

We already know from the previous presentation that Gundareva did not like questions about what was more important to her - theater or cinema. And if they persistently sought an answer, she invariably said: theater. But one day on the eve of the Day Soviet cinema in the article “Love for All Seasons,” the actress declared her love for cinema. Natalya Georgievna is easy to understand - cinema brought her enormous popularity. But this article is also interesting because it nostalgically recalls the extraordinary attitude towards the audience’s favorite art that existed back in the early 80s, when the article was written, and which, unfortunately, ten years later collapsed along with the collapse of the former country ...

“I am an actress, and for me cinema is a huge part of life. I film often, I get incredibly tired and sometimes I think: when will this filming finally end? But as soon as they end, I already feel how much I miss them, and I’m already waiting for a call from the studio, and, worried, I go to my first meeting with the director. And when I read the script, I rejoice in the future and look forward to it, in which I will go on the set again. And - it will start, it will turn... Such familiar and dear days to the heart, when you are preparing for a shoot, you arrive at the studio, you go to the costume designers, then to the dressing room and, finally, to the pavilion. And after filming is over, there is joy again: meeting with the audience. And also - excitement: how will people perceive your new work?

I really love the film “One Day Twenty Years Later,” in which she played a mother of ten children, a woman with a difficult but wonderful fate. Naturally, I was happy when last year this film won the Golden Plateau prize in Italy, when at the International Film Festival in Varna I was awarded the prize for best performance by an actress. I’m not talking about this out of any desire to boast. Today I just want to talk about the recognition that our cinema has won abroad. Here is another of many examples. Three years ago, the United States bought five paintings from us. The success of Soviet films in America was so great that a year later the “Russian Film Cinema” was opened in New York.

In our country, filmmakers and their work enjoy great national love. I once had the opportunity to participate in the famous “Comrade Cinema” program, which has existed for several years. The performances took place in Luzhniki. Not a single empty seat in the stadium! People don't just come to see the actor - they are sincerely interested in our work! And they expect cinema to respond to everything that worries them. That is why, when we meet with the audience, there is not just an exchange of opinions about this or that fate in the film, but also a debate - a heated, principled one. Real, authentic and understood by people art strikes that fire of restlessness in human souls, for which we work. A film comes out - and you forget that it was difficult on the set, that you went on expeditions and didn’t see loved ones for a long time, didn’t eat, didn’t rest, that there were minutes, even hours of despair when something didn’t work out, and you suffered, didn’t I found places for myself... In the end, all this becomes a thing of the past. But the recognition of people, their kindness and warmth, their trust, their love for our beautiful art - this is the main thing.

How to explain such interest of people in cinema? This is not such a simple question. It worries both those who “make” cinema and those who study it, sociologists, psychologists... Of course, I don’t undertake to give an answer now. But together with everyone else I share the love for this beautiful art.”

In a large article “Time Requires a Hero” in the professional magazine “Iskusstvo Kino” (No. 12, 1982), Natalya Gundareva again returns to her idea that the concept of the modern includes centuries-old ideas and moods.

“What is a modern hero? What is modernity? For me, what is modern is what is for centuries, what has existed for a long time and will exist for a long time, what has worried many generations before us and will continue to worry after us...

It is well known: there are plays, scripts, films - one-day ones. It would seem that they reflect today, written and staged on the topic of the day. But tomorrow they will become obsolete. And Joan of Arc and Dulcinea of ​​Toboso, who lived many centuries ago, remain modern heroines. Why? Because they are looking for answers to questions that always concern people: why do people live? How should they live? And what is true and lasting in life?

What are we all standing for? What do artists' efforts amount to? To harmonize the personality. Harmony of feelings, harmony of human relationships, harmony of your life’s work and your hearth - this is what worries us all. It so happened that all my movie heroines are busy searching for this harmony, everyone wants to find their place in life, to find themselves. In other words, to solve the eternal question of existence. Who are you? What are you for? Why were you born into this world? And Anya Dobrokhotova from “Sweet Woman”, and Katya Nikanorova, and Nina from “Autumn Marathon”, and Nadya Kruglova from the film “Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later” - to change internally, to reach for something unknown, but bright.”

What is important in this article is Gundareva’s expressed fear of repetition, the desire and need to look for something new in herself and in her roles.

“In general, I now have the feeling that it was easier for me before. And play and reason. Everything was easier because everything was just beginning, and now you need to overcome your old self so as not to repeat yourself. And this is very difficult. After all, you have to draw from yourself, so you need stops, periods of accumulation, or something.

There are not many directors who babysit actors, educate them, and monitor their creative destiny. More often it happens that they take on a role mainly on the principle: “She has already played it - let her play it again!” But the viewer judges differently: “It already happened, it’s not so interesting anymore!” Therefore, for an actor, I think it is very important to be able to wait, to be able to choose. When they offer me scripts now, and I see that I’ve already played something similar, I refuse. After the film “Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later,” I immediately turned down two scripts in which I was offered leading roles. I preferred several small roles - it seemed to me that I could do something new in them.

In V. Kremnev’s film “Children’s World” I played a woman who was completely devoted to her only late child. Unlike my heroines with a sharp, explosive temperament, this woman is lonely and withdrawn. She says about herself: “I’m a terrible person, I don’t trust anyone!” This was some kind of new turn for me, a new move. Whether the role worked out or not, I don’t know. I usually don't watch the material. The picture comes out on the screens, I put on dark glasses, pull my head into my shoulders and go to the cinema to watch the film with the audience.

“Children’s World” is finished, and now from morning to evening I am filming with director E. Tashkov in the television film “Teenager” based on the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky...

Returning to thoughts about the modern hero, I will say frankly: I dream that our filmmakers would boldly walk untrodden paths - abandon the usual methods in depicting characters and destinies, create their heroes alive, full-blooded, learning from life its diversity and variability.

Different people come to the cinema, and everyone has their own worries and problems. Everyone is looking for answers to some pressing questions. And these answers can only be found in life. Including in the lives of on-screen characters. And just as there are no identical people in life, there shouldn’t be them on screen.”

Returning in one of the interviews to the question of the relationship between theatre, cinema and television, Gundareva again and again speaks of the decisive importance in the artist’s work of life impressions, his human and creative position.

What helps you personally on set?

Firstly, good dramaturgy. AND perfect image can convince the viewer if it is written in the script with psychological accuracy. Secondly, observation helps me personally. I always try to look around. I am interested in life and people - how they look, what they think, how they speak. I remember at the Moscow station in Leningrad I saw two middle-aged women saying goodbye. It seemed strange to me that one of them kept throwing her head back. I came closer and suddenly I saw: her eyes were full of tears! Then this detail, observed in life, became the key to the image of Citizen Nikanorova: my heroine, who hides melancholy and pain under the mask of cheerful swagger, also seems to proudly throw back her head, but only so that tears do not inadvertently spill from her eyes.

I don’t like to theorize, because, to tell the truth, only one thing helps in my work: the feeling that the role excites me, that I myself understand well what it’s about we're talking about in a play or script. I once read in one review: “In “Sweet Woman,” Gundareva discovered a new social type of urban bourgeois woman of peasant origin.” Maybe this is so, but to be honest, when I took on the role of Anna Dobrokhotova, I was thinking about something else: in my life, I am very hurt by emotional dullness, inability to communicate, reluctance to notice others. My heroine is worried about only one question: what will I get from this? A woman vitally, biologically needs the wisdom of sacrifice and kindness.

I always play about what makes me happy or sad, because in life, every day I pose questions to myself, to which I, Natasha Gundareva; you just need to answer or formulate your attitude.

When I get a role, I never feel like the battle is won. After all, victory does not lie in the fact that you were approved for filming - no, from that moment the battle only begins. And then I am even overcome with delight from the anticipation of what is to be done. The relationship with the role, reverent and fragile, is always born only in the creative process, in collaboration with the playwright and director. Maybe that’s why I love the theater so much, with its live stage, long rehearsals, the opportunity to check and refine your character even after the premiere. True, I also love movies, I miss being on the set.

What about television?

Still less. There is a lot of haste here, there is no thoroughness. Filming shifts are short: filming an episode in three hours is simply torture. However, television, in my opinion, helped a lot in making movie directors believe in me. After all, in cinema, many actors face the danger of constantly using what has already been found. And on television I was lucky enough to play completely different roles, even such polar ones as Marfenka in “The Precipice” and Mirandolina in “The Innkeeper”, Catherine II in “The Captain’s Daughter” and Dunka in “Lyubov Yarovaya”, Smeraldina in “Truffaldino from Bergamo” and Tatyana Pavlovna in "Teenager". I even have the experience of a one-man show - on television I read Leskov’s “The Stupid Artist” page by page. In my opinion, without television, no matter how you look at it, the formation, even the very existence, of a modern actor is simply impossible.

Theatre, cinema, television... How do you have enough for everything?

Lacks. And I still envy those who get enough sleep, who can manage themselves and their free time. After all, I love to knit, do housework, cook, and draw. But I simply can’t not play, not work hard. Because gaming is my passion.

Natalya Georgievna made an interesting and frank admission in an extensive interview for Literaturnaya Gazeta in September 1984. Concluding the conversation with the journalist, she admitted that when she goes on stage, she is nervous, like an aspiring actress.

“Our people are kind, they treat the actors well, they recognize them and ask questions. But what's hard? Responsibility. I began to notice that now, when I release premieres, I worry much more than ten years ago. For example, “Agent 00”, the recent premiere. The first ten performances are, well, ridiculous! - I drank valerian during intermission. I went on stage, my jaw shook, my voice began to tremble.

Once Boris Evgenievich Zakhava, the rector of the school, told me: “Natasha, never prove anything to anyone in art.” With your head you understand that he is right, but still your heart beats. And it seems that something still needs to be proven. Every time you go on stage..."

Without resorting to big words and profound terms, Gundareva, in a short answer in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper (September 1984), spoke about the most important function of art - to serve people.

“I recently watched “Sweet Woman” and realized that life has moved far ahead. Meanwhile, you cannot get tired, you must definitely move forward, you must definitely do something. This is how I understand the modern woman. Because otherwise Tomorrow stay in yesterday. You have to live intensely all the time: either have ten children, or be the mistress of an orphanage and raise other people's children, or, if you want, be lonely, but again do something for someone - for tomorrow. My happiness is that I had the opportunity to do something for people all the time. I can’t imagine how you can live without ever doing anything to anyone. As a result, you are left alone and then there is emptiness.

The beginning of your creative life is connected with the Mayakovsky Theater. Are you sure you will work there for the rest of your life?

I have always loved my home. My home is my theater."

In her own way, the same idea was expressed by Gundareva in the TV lounge of “Soviet Culture” at the beginning of 1985:

“Was it not under the influence of the classical heroines of Russian literature, who always evoked compassion and sympathy in readers and viewers, that some changes took place in our contemporaries on the screen? If two or three years ago heroines rushed around the big and small screen in search of personal happiness, that is, their beloved man, now they care more about the happiness of their loved ones.”

The Literaturnaya Gazeta interviewer in March 1990 began with the question that was asked in Natalya Gundareva’s first interview, when the actress called herself clay.

Natalya Gundareva’s answer to this question and to many other questions from journalist E. Krasheninnikova testified to the actress’s deep and mature mind, serious spiritual accumulations, and her rich and varied professional and human experience.

This interview captured Gundareva’s spiritual world during the troubling years of change taking place in the country, and echoed dully in her thoughts.

Natalya Georgievna, in one of your interviews you compared the actor to clay in the director’s strong hands. But a creative person, it would seem, does not tolerate pressure. And doesn’t the clay actor’s own individuality hinder him? Is there a contradiction here?

I don't see a contradiction. It seems to me that the richer, more powerful an actor as a person is, the more he knows, the more he sees, the more deeply he feels, the more opportunities he has to penetrate into the world of another person. Many people. You will object - but you need to submit to someone else’s will. This is what the profession is all about! I don’t think that, say, Dzhigarkhanyan, Leonov or Smoktunovsky were initially so stupid as to count on complete and uncontrolled freedom in the theater: I am an individual, and everyone else - the playwright, the director, and the actors - should be around me "rotate". No, in my opinion, the taller a person is, the more tolerant and attentive he is to others. Here we are rehearsing the play “Victoria?..” based on the play by the English classic Terence Rattigan - the love story of Admiral Nelson and Lady Hamilton. For the first time - and this is my nineteenth season at the Mayakovsky Theater - I have now encountered “dense” work with Armen Borisovich Dzhigarkhanyan. And I see that he is much more receptive than all of us to the director’s comments, and is more careful about dramaturgy. Because God blew into his ear this understanding, patience, wise attitude towards another person, his thoughts.

And vice versa, the smaller a person is as a person, the more ambitions he has, and the worse he plays. Because everything is narrowed, just by a penny - both the smoke is thinner and the pipe is lower. Such people will fuss, theorize, prove something, because they cannot understand. To understand means to do. And because they can neither understand nor do it, they begin to engage in demagoguery, talking shop, and propose their own solutions, which they also cannot implement. They probably need to delay the moment of going on stage, when you are asked according to the Hamburg score: can you or can’t you?

Just don’t perceive “clay” as something amorphous and passive. Yes, pliability. But also freedom. While rehearsing, I can do whatever the director wants, and then I show what I want. Because I understand: he tries, and I try. We're both looking.

But, if you like, in our profession, like no other, there is a great betrayal of oneself. When the body is yours, but the soul is someone else's. And there’s nothing you can do about it, you have to betray yourself in order to play another person well. Only by renouncing yourself completely and submitting to something that is not characteristic of you, do you come to discover the role.

Probably, in some things you need to completely trust the director. But not all of them are in tune with you, are they?

Of course, when you have your own director, or rather, he has you, it’s happiness. Let's say Andrey Aleksandrovich Goncharov, with whom I have been working for many years. He's already used to me. And another director, say Portnov, will see something new, even unexpected for me. Therefore, it is not only interesting, but also necessary to try both. The easiest thing to do is say no. Although the directors are different, some are more interesting, others less so. The third one is not interesting at all.

Sometimes an actor, in all respects, is much higher than the next director or role that is offered. He understands that this is just another conjuncture or just a weak thing that has nothing to do with art. And still he takes it. It’s clear that you have to earn money, feed yourself somehow, feed your family. But isn’t the actor losing something more here than he gains? Moreover, it is irreversible.

The fact is that you never know, with very rare exceptions, whether it will be an act of high art or a complete nightmare. Sometimes the script is average, the director is average, and then you are declared the best actress of the year. It turns out that the film hit on those pain points that are very consonant with today. And sometimes the script, the actors - everything is wonderful. And yet it is not clear why the picture was made at all.

Of course, in the theater when I was young, I was given roles that I didn’t like. But how could I refuse? I'm at work. People naively think: oh, art! And this is a factory. We have the same production as everywhere else. With a financial plan, with bonuses for social competitions, with thirteenth salaries.

But in cinema you are free to choose?

Free. But sometimes you feel that the material is weak, but you still hope to pull it out. It happened that she pulled it out. But you can play wonderfully, but the camera is positioned so that only your ear is visible. And whether you play or not... Here you need everything to come together - the director came up with the idea, the actors felt it, the cameraman understood and filmed.

And then... It is very difficult to determine where is art and where is non-art. Let's say Sokurov. There is a lot of talk about him now. Only some say that a genius lives next to us, while others say how do they even give him money for filming? Or Kira Muratova. For some, she is an outstanding director, but for others, they cannot understand anything. And it is not known what is still needed. Okay, let's create only elite films. But people don't understand them. Here sits a working man - golden hands or a teacher with a higher education. They would be happy, but they don’t understand. They say we must proceed from their level. But this is terrible! But the opposite calls are also terrible: no, guys, we have to pull the viewer! Don’t pull me if I don’t like it, I watched it once and don’t want to anymore. I switch off.

They say that real, truly high art is understandable to everyone. This is also not always true. For example, many years ago I took my mother to see Fellini’s “Juliet and the Perfume.” I really liked the picture. Mom left completely disappointed. I said: “Mom, you know, this is such an associative movie. It is necessary for the person to come up with the idea himself.” And I told her the whole film, not in flashes of individual pieces, but plot-wise. All that Fellini gave me and said: now come up with whatever story you want. Mom listened and said: “Oh, if only he had filmed it like that!” I say: “Well, he’s different, you know, he thinks like that.” Mom: “In general, of course, he thinks unusually and interestingly, I understand now.” To do this, it was necessary to organize some kind of educational program, although my mother, let’s say, is a near-theater person, she has more opportunities to go to theaters and cinema. A simple average person What is his fault for not understanding Sokurov or Muratova? I repeat, it is quite difficult to determine where art is. And when you take on a job, you don’t always know either... And we’ll never come to an agreement here. Probably everything should be, because people are completely different, and they themselves will figure out what they need.

Are there other people's works that you view with envy, with the feeling that you are ahead of yourself or that you are not capable of it?

You know, this cannot be called envy. Rather, I experience a feeling of helplessness, from which I could, for example, cry. Once I listened to Vishnevskaya sing in La Traviata and cried because I would never be able to sing like that. As for cinema and dramatic theater, there were, perhaps, no such immediate and acute manifestations. Although I really love actors, especially good ones. I admire some of their works, I begin to look with enthusiastic eyes like a dog - wow, what kind of people there are! How can a person do this? This is some kind of unusual person! Then my profession is forgotten, I cease to feel involved.

Do you tend to create idols for yourself?

I think the creation of idols is characteristic of youth. At thirteen, you can love madly, worship, and tremble. And I collected postcards with portraits of actors and idolized someone. And then comes reasonable love. I just try to learn from the actors I admire today. Understand their secret. Find answers to the questions that torment me. Although I know that this is a pointless exercise. You still can’t reach such galaxies. You can even do harm: you won’t gain anything, but you’ll break yourself. And probably everyone should answer the eternal questions themselves. You need to find your own way. But experience, your own and others’, is also, of course, needed. Also - incessant, exhausting work from morning to night, from night to morning. With it comes experience and the path becomes clearer.

One person has been living in my soul for a long time. A great actor, a great worker Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin. And the more I read him, the more I read about him, the more relentlessly he follows me. Or am I behind him, I don’t know... But if they ask: “Natasha, would you like to become the second Chaliapin?” - I will answer: “No!” Some actors are proud when they say about them: he is the second Nicholson. Or: she is the new Eleonora Duse. I don’t want to be any second, fifth, one hundred and forty-fifth. I want to live, rejoice, cry, hate, admire in my life. And to be an actress Gundareva in her native Mayakovsky Theater. Even if not to the whole world, but to Herzen Street, the scale does not depress me at all. Trying to be my first generation self. If, of course, there is something in me.

But do you yourself feel that you belong only to Russian culture or to the world too? After all, many of us put Gundareva on a par with Meryl Streep and Liza Minnelli. Don’t you feel like you’re in a cage because you don’t have access to, say, the best stages in the world? Would you like to work with world-class actors and directors?

No, I don't feel caged. I believe that our actors and directors are no worse than in the West. Probably because of an indiscriminate love for everything foreign, not realizing that diamonds are disappearing nearby, we bury placers in which we are rich, perhaps a hundred times more. We are burying something with the same bucket that has been used for more than seventy years... Yes, they have more possibilities. Thanks to advertising, on which enormous amounts of money are spent. But if you carefully consider everything they do there, not everything is smooth either. And the magnificent Liza Minnelli and Meryl Streep have simply bad works. We only know about the Oscars...

I repeat: our actors and directors are wonderful. We truly are a country of Lefties and can shoe a flea. But it turns out that no one needs this. Now, when a lot is possible, it turns out that nothing is required except porn pictures, well-costumed films on historical topics, with beautiful women, preferably with bare breasts and some pieces in bed. And then, we are so far behind in filmmaking technology that I’m afraid we will never catch up with them.

Of course, as an actress, I would like to work with, say, Bergman, Strehler, Fellini. For myself, I would consider this a great acting happiness. True, it is unknown how it would have ended. But it’s still interesting to penetrate, to lift this veil. Well, to see the world in general! In this sense, the “cell” probably still exists. At least I’m not deprived at all, and I’ve already been to America four times, and I’ve traveled to other countries, but everything is within a tight framework: work, filming. I've never had the opportunity to just take a leisurely look...

Is the impression strong or can you live without it?

Usually, when people travel abroad for the first time, especially to capitalist countries, it is so amazing! And out of spite, perhaps, for the first time I decided: so what’s special? But with each trip, on the contrary, I am more and more amazed. Of course, they live there very powerfully! One of the eastern teachings seems to explain why a person does not live life to the fullest. Because we always think about either yesterday - oh, I was yesterday! I smoke a cigarette - it’s already gone, it’s unique. And all this time I was unknown where. And so, it seems to me, we all live here. Sometimes I just catch myself thinking: Natasha, stop! You will go, but it will be in another hour. Just sit down and go. Why are you going somewhere now? Now sit, drink coffee and look at the world... And there they know how to live every second. It is very important. When I finally manage to overcome the constant fever, the “race” in my brain, time stretches and fills up.

Apparently, every actor brings the experience of his life to the stage and to the screen. Isn't the reverse process happening when the played images begin to gradually influence his behavior, manners, and character? Doesn’t the actor “blur” his own unique face in this way?

Well, that's who it is. My roles only influence me during my work. Let’s say I play a woman in “Sweet Woman” - many people remember this film - and I notice that in life I begin to walk and talk the same way... But I understand that these are my auditions. The shooting ends - and no trace remains. I just need to get into character for a while. So that you can go out later. Otherwise it would be boring. They say that in the theater you need to, you know, like in life. Why confuse? For myself, I don’t combine one and the other at all. Although some can't stand it. And I, probably like you, have more than once witnessed how a person simply changes exaggeratedly. You knew one person, time passes, and suddenly such a ma-ne-ra appears. And once again... Still, you need to have stronger brains. For example, every evening I pray to God and ask: “Lord, save me, don’t deprive me of my mind. Take everything, just don’t deprive yourself of your senses...”

Do you believe in God?

I believe in God, but not ecstatically. Once in the church in the Menshikov Tower, at the Kirov Gate, I heard the priest utter wonderful words: “God is love.” This is what I believe. I believe that the entire colossal reserve of positive things - the best aspirations, dreams, love - over many millennia and in other civilizations that we don’t even know about - all this, unlike flesh, does not die. And probably, the spiritual experience of humanity will be transformed into some new, higher energy, hitherto unexplored by people. After all, once upon a time we did not know electricity, microwaves, or anything else. True, I must say right away: I am an earthly person, completely devoid of shamanism. But why is it sometimes as if someone told you something or some kind of premonition that later comes true, or you walk somewhere for the first time, but it seems like this smell and this tree stood here once before? There is probably still a connection with the spiritual past. And in order to somehow designate this energy, they found a convincing visual equivalent - the face of God. Icons and legends about him appeared. And I believe in God, who is love.

Is it possible to achieve inner harmony in our inharmonious, disintegrating time?

Some people succeed. Unfortunately, I can't. Probably, then you need to quit your profession, because it, like no other, requires publicity. When you start interacting with your fellow citizens, with the street, with the world, then chaos ensues. The discomfort is complete. Harmony, in my opinion, comes when you manage to distance yourself from everything, go away - to a monastery, to a cell, to your own narrow world. For example, in our theater there was an amazing person who corresponded with Sakharov when they were still punished for it. He, it seems, was a physicist himself, one of the exiled ones. A highly intelligent, sensitive person with a biblical face. I think he worked for us in the carpentry shop, tinkered with wood and didn’t want to communicate with anyone anymore. outside world. This was also a kind of departure.

Why? Every person, especially an artist, especially one who spends himself so mercilessly, has the right to a creative break, even a crisis. Finally, you just need to relax, accumulate strength, energy, soul. Make sense of everything that is happening around...

It seems to me that spiritual accumulations cannot be viewed in such a way that there is a bucket and you need to wait for it to rain for it to be filled. The soul is filled drop by drop. And my task is to run around cities and villages, north, south, and collect everything drop by drop. I have no way to stop. Of course, I understand that I live to the max. But this is a profession. This is how it should be understood. I lived on a train for several months because I went to Leningrad three times a week to film a new film based on the script by Vitya Merezhko, “A Dog’s Feast.” You wouldn’t wish such “travels” on your worst enemy! If you also consider that I don’t sleep on trains... But the role is too unusual for me.

They are used to seeing me in images that are, as they say, magnificent. Maybe that’s why they like my heroines because I introduce people into a certain fairy tale. By portraying a mother of ten children, we are not talking so much about her problems as about the possibility of such a happy existence. A kind of fog, you know. And there were enough such vague roles. But here, in this film, it’s completely different. I'm wondering how to refuse? It is forbidden! It's okay, I'll go. Then we'll rest...

This script, at first glance, creepy, about two drunks, for some reason really hooked me. With all the horror, the massacres, and the fact that they were drinking, it suddenly seemed to me that the picture could be very humane. Look what's happening now. Many have completely forgotten, I’m not talking about ideals, just about the elementary principles of community life. And these two, a man and a woman, being not even on the brink, but already beyond the brink of human existence, turn out to be very human. They understand that they are probably doomed not to jump out of the abyss into which life has pushed them. But they always feel a person next to them. And these seemingly fallen people have their own pride, they have dignity. They cannot fall lower than some so-called decent citizens who, say, take bribes, being at the height of their position... And these two will never drink with other people's money, because they have dignity. Life accidentally brings them together, they find themselves in terrible situations together, but come out of them as human beings, supporting each other. My partner Sergei Shakurov...

Do all the deformations of our society occur for you not tangentially, but through the heart?

You know, I've been trying to get away from everything lately. I hardly turn on the TV. You still know everything. I try not to read newspapers, I force myself not to get active, not to delve into it, otherwise my soul becomes very embittered. Cruel time. Lies are elevated to the rank of communication at the level of the entire system. And no one wants to just work. There are very few truly decent people left who were brought up with the idea that they need to work. The classes that lived and worked consciously were exterminated. The best were exterminated. Now what? What kind of national pride are we talking about here? I saw how Americans love their country and are proud of it! And we talked for so long about patriotism, a sense of duty, allowing the country to be robbed and sold. They take it away in pieces.

It always seemed to me that democracy is respect plus respect. And now, for some reason, it has become possible to seek out and make public the worst in any person, which he may be hiding from himself. This is also where someone earns privileges and makes a name for themselves. Then it turns out that this “someone” is a decent scoundrel himself. And I believed in others and always believe. Maybe later I will be deceived, but I believe them.

Has this ever happened?

No, there were no big shocks. Probably because over the years I began to communicate less and less deeply. I try not to make friends or expand my circle of close acquaintances. I am a sociable person, but I usually keep my distance and do not enter into close relationships that could reveal the inconsistency of both parties. I'm very afraid of disappointments. In general, I came to the conclusion that I have two friends in my life and they don’t look for good from good. After all, friendship requires a lot of time and effort, and I have a hard time with it. I also want peace.

With the advent of new times - troubled and alarming - material and everyday problems became the focus of public attention, because everyone was affected by shortages, lack of money, and anxiety about the future.

Gundareva, a person with a heightened sense of life’s problems, just like everyone else, peered into the upcoming events, trying to maintain sobriety of assessments and faith in possible changes.

It is known that our cast iron “Nika” “weighs” two thousand premium rubles. Of course, there is no comparison with the Oscar; our “lady” is much lighter. But really, besides the prize, did it bring you anything else?

Yes, actually, no changes. In youth, a prize first of all confirms that the path has been chosen correctly and that there is big hopes. And now I suddenly realized: the more prizes already received, the fewer there are left to receive. The state award, for example, is given once. And from what you have already been given, it becomes clear: most of your life has passed. I brought “Nika” home and thought: “Well, it’s probably the last one in my life.” Although, maybe we are just not all too optimistic right now. But, oddly enough, only work still remains on earth.

Doesn't your personal life matter to you?

You can't oppose it like that. Of course it does. In my opinion, the absence of some important aspect of a person’s life generally emasculates. Love is also the highest thoughts. But my personal life rather relaxes me. And work mobilizes. Here you are lying tired - that’s it, I don’t want anything more. And suddenly a call comes and you are offered a good role. Where does the energy come from...

Actors are superstitious people. Do you also have your own signs?

Yes, in our theater they already know that I don’t like it when I meet a woman with an empty bucket or box; it seems to me that the performance will be empty, even if there are many spectators in the hall. That’s why women from our services try not to come across me with empty buckets, even hiding on purpose so as not to upset me. When I forget something in the dressing room and have to go back, I definitely look in the mirror. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t drive, but when I actually got into a car accident one day, I had no premonition.

Main roles in films, in the theater, prizes, have a car, a dacha... Can you say to yourself that you are a rich woman?

No I do not think so. In the theater, after all the increases, my salary is two thousand rubles a month. Previously, I received three hundred and fifty and that was enough for me. Now the cost consumer basket more than three thousand. It turns out that he is already below the poverty line. My husband is an actor in our theater, and the salary is at the same level. My parents are pensioners, I naturally help them. Once, before the salary increase, we talked to a woman in the theater, and she told me: “Natasha, but you probably don’t care, you get half a million for a film.” Alas, another rumor, I get about twenty thousand, and today this is not at all great money.

Yes, for a star, frankly speaking, not much. Do you follow fashion, is it important for you to be well dressed?

I like to “throw myself up” sometimes, but I’m not a fashionista, I’m a working person. And then everything became so dirty - on the set, even in the theater, you have to change clothes. After all, our situation will be made like in Western pictures, but they may not notice how dirty it is all around. I can't understand this.

What does “jump up” mean?

That is, dress especially smartly, look great, go somewhere. But I have such a mood, perhaps, once every five years, no more often. I always say that I am not a secular person and I have no special need for social life.

But you live not far from the House of Cinema - do you at least visit here?

Not often, and usually I come right before the movie. And I also don’t go on a visit to “kill” someone with clothes. I have two old friends who have nothing to do with theater or cinema. When my husband and I come to them, we immediately begin to “live as a family,” that is, they already know that I will immediately demand a robe and slippers, and we will stay with them for two days to communicate for a long time.

Do you recognize the gossip that is being told about you?

Yes, sometimes. At one time, I was “married” to Sergei Shakurov - he and I acted together, which means we traveled together, lived in the same hotel, we could often be seen together, and then we appeared together on television - quite enough for people to draw the appropriate conclusions. Then I was “passed off” as Alexander Mikhailov - his wife told me about it very funny. One day they received a call to negotiate a concert with Sasha. Vera answered the phone, the other end of the line was delighted and invited her to speak too. She is not an actress and therefore was very surprised: “What will I do?” They also replied that you would tell me something. They persuaded for a long time, and finally began to say goodbye: “Goodbye, Natalya Georgievna.” Of course, everything immediately became clear to Vera. The inventions are incredible. Sometimes someone heard my random word, remembered it, retold it - and a whole event grew.

The situation in theater and cinema in general is, of course, sad, but still, what do you have in the near future?

I’m not prone to panic - what if the theater is closed down, what if they stop filming movies... The point is completely different. Previously, we had, as we called them, “Danish” performances, that is, for some date. I always knew that for two “Danish” ones they would give one wonderful one, and I was waiting for this hour. Now new people have arrived. They give money, but they have their own idea of ​​art, which sometimes horrifies me. Radzinsky has such a true phrase; “The more they hit, the more you ring.” I would begin to look for how to hold out, to survive in any situation.

Respecting the life and creative experience of Natalya Georgievna, some journalists expected her to evaluate her life and some results. But Gundareva was still moving away from this.

You have a great opportunity to work - in the theater, in cinema, on radio and television. And meet completely different interesting people. What do you remember? Who left a mark on your soul?

I think that selection in humans occurs later. The time comes for thinking about life, about what happened to him in his life, who was the most important in his life... What events influenced the rest of his life. I don't have time yet. I am very grateful to all the people I have met because each of them left a mark on me. But I haven't posted photos of the people I've met yet. I'm still working...

And will you work for a long time?

As God willing.

Are you a leading person or a follower?

I don't want to be led. One way or another, providence guides you through life, it tells you something, it denies you something. So it was, so it is and so it will be. But I am not a driven person. Sometimes I walk in the wrong direction, but I try not to lose my bearings, I look around, I understand that I have gone the wrong way, and then I return to this stone, where it is written: who will go to the right... who will go to the left...

Izvestia interviewer G. Melikyants asked the actress about the same thing.

Natalya Georgievna, you have been working at Mayakovka for more than twenty-five years, you can say that you have surpassed many in rank and popularity, and have become a kind of leader. Do people in the theater look at your mood? Are they waiting for your word?

Everyone wants to be considered. As for the mood, I’m not sure that this would be particularly interesting to anyone. What's it like in the theater? A group of leading actors is emerging. They set the tone, or rather, the tone of the troupe’s life. Everyone is a character, but at the same time everyone goes their own way, without pretending to be each other’s roles. It’s like a mighty bunch, a core, without this everything falls apart.

But among the leaders there is... how to say... the most leading...

For us this is Andrey Aleksandrovich Goncharov. Far from being a young man. And you think: you’re tired, but he’s always at the theater. Someone is late for rehearsal, but he never... Balance in the troupe, psychological “swing” - this is from him. Despite the fact that he himself is explosive and uneven. For Alla Balter, our theater seems to be the fourth; so she said in one interview that she had never worked so calmly anywhere... A leader is one who takes everything or a lot on his shoulders. I can't say that about myself. It’s hard to understand someone else’s life, but it would be better to understand your own.

The content, nature and tone of the interview depend, as is known, on the professionalism of the interviewer. But even when the journalist did not hit the tone, was constrained or, on the contrary, too cheeky, Gundareva knew how to lead the conversation in the right direction and, despite some initial irritation, was frank and serious in her answers, tried to speak out on a range of issues, her truly exciting.

Natalya Georgievna, you accepted the request for an interview with a certain amount of humility, but obviously without much joy. Don't you like journalists at all?

How can you not love them “at all”? You are all very different... But I am upset by the carelessness with which they write not only about me, but also about my theater comrades, about my colleagues. You can't write about artists without love. The trouble is that a journalist, especially a young one, wants to manifest himself at the expense of another person who has already achieved something in life: why don’t I write something nasty about the same Gundareva! And they write. But I try never to settle scores, it's pointless. Probably, time forced journalists to simply take this tone, and it’s probably no longer possible to do otherwise.

I understand that the profession of an actor has been expanded to the limit, I now earn less than a baker who sells near the metro, but this does not mean that I can be treated with disdain. The journalists who come to me are often younger than me and very arrogant, believing that in the half hour that we talked, they managed to comprehend my “secret essence.” Yes, I am a contact person, I feel comfortable with strangers, but this does not mean that I will pour out my soul to anyone. I believe that I should be interesting only as an actress, so I can’t stand questions about my family, my habits, what I eat, drink, wear and read. I am an actress who has been working all my life.

By the way, do you have many unplayed roles?

I never thought about it. This is the most unproductive thing, because you immediately begin to get angry: who didn’t let you play?! And it begins: this one, this one and this one. And also circumstances and my own data, which did not allow me much. Unplayed roles and dreams about them are like remorse. The heroine of one of my plays says: “Remorse is the most meaningless feeling.”

Have you ever had ambitious dreams of being the best in the theater?

Setting yourself the task of outplaying everyone is not a task at all. The theater, the stage, is not a boxing ring or a bullring. The late rector of the Theater School named after B.V. Shchukin B.E. Zahava once told me: “Never prove anything to anyone.” I follow this advice. But there is a book, “The Fourth Height,” about Gulya Koroleva. After I read it as a child, it became clear to me: if you want to prove something, prove it to yourself first. And if, having had an accident, I got behind the wheel again, it was only to get rid of the feeling of fear. But this does not mean that I will fight, proving how brave I am.

Of course, you know how much nerves and sweat goes behind each role. Doesn't this take away the magic of live theater for you?

Firstly, I don’t really know how theater is “made”. Only the director can know this. An actor, in essence, is not even secondary - he is tertiary, because there is a text, there is a director. I’m glad that I managed to preserve that childish elation with which I watched “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” with Galina Ulanova. How many years have passed, and I still go to the theater, approaching it with the expectation of a miracle.

What about life?

I tried never to confuse life and theater. I love everything in this life, any weather, any mood. I do not believe in the transmigration of souls and believe that a person only lives once. I want to know the fullness of life and understand a lot about it. Maybe to some my “much” will seem insignificant, but it is mine. Did you bury secrets in the yard as a child? A piece of glass, and under it - ribbons, candy wrappers, pieces of paper. It was just your secret, no one knew about it. It’s the same in life: you want to know everything and keep something else for yourself.

You are not visible at social and acting parties...

The places that we call “hangouts” and where I am actually invited quite often are not the places where you can get even a little closer to the person you are interested in. It's a whirlwind where people don't look each other in the eye. I was lucky that I realized this early and did not waste my life on these gatherings. I don't like being in chaos.

Natalya Georgievna, why do actors today willingly join enterprises? And you too...

Sometimes there is an opportunity to do something that was not possible in the theater. But first of all, this is an opportunity to really make money. Theater has never been a Klondike, but cinema used to save us all. Now we are given it in such doses that it is ridiculous to talk about it. Before, I wasn’t afraid of age, because I knew: if I get old, I’ll move into a different role and I’ll still be needed. Now I am not at all sure that I will, like Tatyana Ivanovna Peltzer, work until old age. At the same time, by a certain age you already reach some familiar and stable position in this life: a three-room apartment, a Zhiguli car, a dacha one hundred and forty kilometers from Moscow. But you have to pay for the apartment, put gas in the car, and the dacha requires a land tax. And if you refused to earn money, you would have to sell it all.

I have never had a rich or sophisticated life, but before, if I wanted to buy something for myself, I did it without any problems. I’m used to stability, but from childhood I still have the fear of being someone’s debtor. I really don't like borrowing money. If I don’t have extra money in my purse, or in the bedside table, or in the tureen (that’s who stores it where), not millions, but just for expenses, I get scared, I feel defenseless. Until I started working, my mother and I lived on credit. Of course, on payday, after half of it went to paying off debts, mom would buy a cake or chicken, and we would have our own little feast. But this fear remained with me.

If a bell tolls for someone, it tolls for you too. If tomorrow I have nothing to do in the theater, if the theater no longer needs me, I will at least be able to go to the country, I will heat the stove with wood and collect brushwood in the forest so as not to go crazy. Although I am a purely urban person, I don’t like the land and I have no idea what to do with it, but if I don’t have the resources to live in the city, I’ll have to go there.

Do you delve into the political subtleties of our life?

A person cannot care what happens in his country. He depends on it. You can try to create a “microstate” for yourself, while achieving relative peace. But this is like a paradise for fools, a rather dangerous and fragile business that can be swept away by a hurricane at any moment. Of course, I am deeply concerned about everything that happens, I do not agree with everything, but I do not envy those who occupy high positions.

You don't have your own children...

Probably, when I get old, I will really regret not having children. Or maybe not... I don’t know what will happen to me next, but so far I don’t feel the need to have children, I don’t feel their absence. The theater replaces them for me. I was always so filled with the theater, I was so excited by everything that happened in it and around me, that it was a pity to give part of my life somewhere else. From time to time, however, I imagine old age and don’t see anything rosy about it. It wouldn't do much good to have two lonely old men wandering the streets. Or maybe it’s good? But I don’t regret anything, because the main thing in my life has always been theater.

Two months after the anniversary, in November 1998, an interview with Gundareva was published in the women's magazine “Women”. Unfortunately, the publication does not indicate the name of the interviewer. But, without a doubt, he is an experienced, professional and tactful journalist. The questions asked outlined the range of problems that made this conversation meaningful and purposeful. The interlocutor clearly remembered the recent anniversary. And Natalya Georgievna, who had repeatedly declared her dislike of remembering the past, willingly talked about both the past and the present; talked about roles, about personal things, about politics, about life. And this interview was a kind of completion of those reflections, those feelings and thoughts that, as it seems to us, visited Natalya Georgievna during those anniversary days and which, as we assumed, were captured in her numerous interviews over the years, fragments of which formed the content of the chapter “Don’t celebrate your anniversary!”

Natalya Georgievna, you are a very popular actress. How did it all start? From a childhood dream?

Yes, God knows, I don’t remember anymore. I lived next to a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. These houses were inhabited by very famous people, and our school had a strong parent committee. They took care of us: they took us to theaters, the conservatory, and invited interesting people to school evenings. Then I decided to go to the Palace of Pioneers. I liked this pastime more than going to the dance floor. Maybe I was destroying some complexes in myself, because my texture is not the most suitable for an actress. In the theater, you always need a young, beautiful heroine, but I was plump, doughy, and embarrassed of myself. Imagine, with my height and build, I entered the basketball section sports school. Once, a ski trip was organized at school, and I, who had never been on skis, went and walked without a hat in windy weather to prove that I was frost-resistant. Probably, it was a kind of getting rid of something in myself. To prove that even in such flesh, which seemed imperfect to many, the spirit is important. When Goncharov found out that I was driving again after the accident, he said: “Natasha, are you again proving that you can do anything?” I prove it, but to myself. My mom says the first word I said was “sama.” My life began with “sama”; This is probably how it will end.

Serious accident?

I couldn’t play for three months, I didn’t even go on tour. But they really encouraged me at the Odessa Film Studio, inviting me to play a role in the film “The Feat of Odessa.” I tell them: “How am I going to play?” - and they answered me: “We are in wartime, we don’t care what’s on your face,” which gave me hope.

The desire to play... What is this? Perhaps prolonging the state of childhood?

I wouldn't say that these feelings are similar to childhood. Childhood is associated with carelessness. And all the impressions that you bring to the stage are associated with torment for me. When you suffer, your soul gains a lot. A lot becomes clear to you. Not only the bad, but also the good - it becomes more significant, clearer, more distinct. Therefore, you can calmly go on stage and perform a comedy brilliantly, because you know what happiness is. And you can understand any beggar, orphan, wretched, because you yourself have gone through suffering. For me acting- not pampering. I had funny roles, but I don’t know how to make people laugh, I’m ashamed. I don't like the circus. It seems to me that from the inside all people are unhappy and lonely. I think that those who laugh a lot in public hide sadness deep down in their souls. They try to push it into the far corner so that others do not know that they are in pain. This is a form of protection. Shell.

Suffering and life experience go into the actor’s treasury. What about happiness?

In mine - no. When I’m happy, I become so full, I even get fat. I don't care anymore. And I hate myself in the “don’t care” state. I prefer the torment of hell. I'm used to them. This is how my life has turned out, and it cannot be changed. It seems to me that sometimes I perceive reality inadequately. It would be possible not to pay attention to something, but I do: I have to go through everything, survive everything. In many situations, I take an extremely negative option, live through it all, and then it turns out that everything is resolved positively. And then I start to think: what a fool I was, walking around with a bad heart, drinking Valocordin... But the next moment comes, and everything repeats itself from the beginning. Apparently, such an organism.

Now, looking from the top, what attracts you?

What attracts, oddly enough, is life not in its bright manifestations, shocks, but in its calm, sophisticated fluidity. I really want to stop this run, to see how it's raining, the leaves are moving, the fog is rising. After all, you either live in the past (which I never do, I don’t even remember dates), or you always think about what needs to be done tomorrow. But you almost never live in reality. And I really want to feel it! However, it is difficult to break out of the rhythm that life dictates, difficult and even, if you like, scary. It starts to feel like you're losing something. Although I think that there comes a moment when you realize that you have achieved something, and you can look around you. The world is so diverse, significant, there are many topics that are missing in our lives, but we run towards our goals, peaks. And then from these peaks you see everything that remains at the foot, and it’s so interesting! And you didn't see anything when you were running.

Are you not a secular person?

When I need to, I put on a “long” dress, make eyes instead of eyes and go. But I go like a lamb to the slaughter. Of course, it can be nice, but spending most of your life like this, when there are friends nearby whom you very rarely see, when you always need to read something, learn something, pack or unpack your suitcases...

What do you spend the second half of your life on?

I practically don't have it. I work all the time. A long-term habit. I've never seen vacations before. Vacation - and I’m filming the film “Citizen Nikanorova is Waiting for You.” There are almost no films now. I recently turned down two offers. I know that later I will regret it to death, but the moment came when I realized that I needed to rest. The last two years have been busy with work. And she didn’t work very much in cinema: Roman Ershov had a small job in “Lackey Games”, Alla Surikova in the film “I Want to Go to Prison”, and “St. Petersburg Secrets”. I can’t say that there are powerful works in cinema.

What do you think you pay for success?

Probably children. I always had a job. And she was constantly ahead of the next need to have a child. I thought I would finish this work, and then... I made everything depend on the work. And I always worked very hard. I think I will pay for loneliness in old age.

Not scary?

Life is generally scary. In addition, there is such a quiet hope that God will not abandon his mercy; maybe all this will happen overnight, and you will not hang a heavy burden on those who remain next to you. And you will leave by pushing off with one foot from the ground.

Are there times when you don’t want to play?

As soon as the third call rings, you are no longer you. You take a step onto the stage, entering a strip of light or darkness, and your life is transformed. You no longer have control over yourself. The profession is strange, because it contains betrayal in itself: when you take off your clothes, leave your habits, you, in fact, betray yourself, become someone else, and not necessarily good.

Do the bad qualities of the characters you play leave an imprint on you?

I think every person has a mixture of everything. Normal people simply try to get rid of bad qualities in themselves, while others flaunt them, saying: “Yes, I am like that, but what should I do if I have such a character?” You need to change your character, give up something, think not about yourself, but about someone else. As long as a person is ready to change, to learn something, he does not grow old. This year I flew on a parachute for the first time, on the beach from the pier. Flew over the sea. The feeling is wonderful! I could be a pilot. I love the airport, planes, I love watching them take off and land.

How do you see yourself?

I think I'm not sugar. I have an elastic character.

What do those around you say?

With us, to be treated well, you need to at least... die. Then everyone starts to suffer, saying how good you were. Everyone becomes your friend, and as long as you live... Oh!

Have you been betrayed?

I can’t say that there were many such cases. From what I remember, once. I still don't communicate with this person. Even though she came up to me on Forgiveness Sunday, I can’t get over myself. I can't stand betrayal more than anything in life. Other weaknesses can still be forgiven. Betrayal means that you are left without a rear, that you built your castle on quicksand. And you have nothing left in life.

What do you regret?

It may seem presumptuous, but I don't regret anything. I saw a lot, laughed a lot and suffered a lot... I felt the volume of life and I don’t give up a single breath. This is my life, and I am glad that it was so fulfilling. Work, meetings with interesting people... Some passed, others lingered.

And as the final chords of many years of reflection on one’s own creative work, over roles, over life, the words of Natalya Gundareva from other interviews of the same time sound:

“I don’t like my past (not that I’m ashamed of it, I’m not interested in it), I’m interested in what’s ahead. I don't want to stop."

“I love this life very much, I love this life too much to divide it into love for work, love for family, love for friends, love for books, for art. For me, this multidimensionality is life. And I can't refuse anything.

Of course, I am partial to work. This, I would say, is the meaning of my existence.”

“There is another part of life that was unknown to me. I knew that she existed, that not only was she unknown, I didn’t need her. I was interested in theater in life, now I’m interested in life in life.”

The “second half” is not over yet, it is only gaining strength. Many years will still pass before its completion, during which Natalya Gundareva will have to play many roles. And for this she has desires, strength and far from exhausted creative potential.

Her first teacher, Yu. Katin-Yartsev, noted: “In Gundareva’s individuality, surprisingly many aspects of her talent were discovered and recognized; but there are still unsolved, undiscovered ones that have yet to be discovered.”

E. Ryazanov said the same thing: “Gundareva has a polyphonic acting and emotional reserve. Everything is under her control... In a word, the well is deep. Life will tell how long the water will last. But the wonderful thing is that the bottom is not yet visible. That’s why we look forward to meeting her so much, we love her so much.”

Natalya came to the shooting of the “First Persons” program for the TNT channel at the National Hotel. Your correspondent worked as a leader there. She behaved very simply and with dignity. She looked simply gorgeous. Lost weight, after plastic surgery. No extra wrinkles, no fat. Her eyes were full of life, energy simply radiated from her. The only thing that bothered me was her irresistible desire to smoke. “Yes, smoke right in the frame,” I suggested, “many of us do this.” “No, what are you talking about,” she shook her head reproachfully, “I can’t upset my fans. They are used to seeing me differently.”

- How do you, such a pleasant woman in all respects, make ill-wishers?

I think this is because I reserve the right to tell the truth. I either don’t say anything at all, but if they ask me, I don’t think it’s possible to be disingenuous in any way. Well, who likes the truth... There is such a wonderful joke about this, when one actor asks another: “You know, I only trust you, so tell me, how did I play the premiere?” - “Should I tell you honestly?” - “Honestly, because only you will tell me the truth!” - “Honestly, it sucks...” - “No, I’m serious...” Maybe I will seem very arrogant, but there are no talented people who don’t have ill-wishers.

- How do you react to them?

I believe that I have one way of dealing with all the negativity around me - this is to do my job well. I don't know any other way to take revenge. If I manage to play a role decently, I consider that this is my revenge. I won’t pour salt under the threshold.

- Feelings of envy are not inherent to you at all?

It is present, but it is different. For example, I see a woman who is well, stylishly dressed, with gorgeous hair. Then I see her a second time and understand that this is her way of existence. This is how she is. Or I watch some actress in a role and suffer: why not this role for me, how I would like to play it... Why do I think so? Because she plays well too. Maybe if I had just read this role, I wouldn’t have seen it. And I saw it because she played wonderfully. And then I feel sad, envious that I don’t have such a role or one similar to it.

- What role do you dream about?

Best of the day

I never dreamed of roles. Of course, I choose when they offer me 10 scripts. But the director sees me in this role and not in any other. And here, no matter how much I wanted to play Juliet, he sees me as a Nurse, and I have nowhere to go. You see, I always tried not to make guesses, tried not to dream. I thought that the coming day would bring me something, that God would not leave me, the viewer would not forget me, and somehow my crooked path would still lead me onto a bright path.

Is the acting world aggressive?

No matter how much you try to show everyone what a self-sufficient person you are, in demand, if you sit at home or do some trivial things, if you run around some small things, parties, these dens...

- What do you call nativity scenes?

I call this kind of pastime a nativity scene. Empty, it brings nothing to either the soul or the mind. And the body simply physically wears out. It seems to me that such a crazy false active existence harms actors. This is a flickering, meaningless, useless to anyone, giving nothing to anyone, bringing nothing to anyone... When people forget about their profession, this is where, in my opinion, the most tragic moments of an actor’s existence begin.

- Do you like to philosophize?

I have lived my life and I reserve the right to think. I have a time when I walk from my house on Tverskaya to the theater. I walk 35 minutes to the theater. This is what I call “my time”. At this time I answer my questions. I ask myself questions of different kinds. Who will be the president? How prices will increase. About working on the role. I try to answer all these questions for myself. When I answer them, then, in principle, meeting with a journalist is no longer difficult. It’s as if I’ve already thought about everything. This is not philosophy. With the power of thought, I force myself, when there are so many dens around, not to go there, not to waste myself. I'm kind of saving myself for something. Maybe I will remain an unfilled vessel - well, that means that’s my fate. But I still strive for a full life. I understand that the time of my life is running out. Well, it’s like I’ve lived more than half my life. And I don’t want to do it like this, off the shoulder: ah, now I’m going to all the trouble - here they invite me to this bar, here are gifts, here they will give me a fountain pen, here they will give me chewing gum... Well, I can’t afford it. Because I love myself very much, and I love myself so directly, from morning to night. And because of this, I don’t allow myself so much!

- Are you inventing your own world?

I don't confuse life with theater. Life is one thing, and I believe that life is beautiful because it is life. And the theater is beautiful because it is a theater. It seems to me that it is a great misfortune for some actors when they confuse these two concepts. They can’t play anything on stage anymore, but in life you just can’t get enough of them. But you get tired of these very quickly.

- Don't you like merry people?

Time has scattered people so much, rocked them so much... Everyone is like fragile little boats on these waves of the sea of ​​life... So I turn on some program and watch. And now everyone is joking, joking, everything is sad, but everyone is joking. Is it all so funny to you? When a person goes on stage and starts telling jokes - a professional pop performer! Yes, he is a joker, but not to the same extent as to tell jokes about the back seat. Well, we probably need to prepare some kind of program. People laugh, but how can I tell you... I believe that during life we ​​rise, our task is to rise, not to fall. Otherwise, why go somewhere? I don’t understand this: why is there such a wild stupidity of people sitting in front of the TV? We used to listen to what emphasis the announcer would put, and we learned from them. Well then, let’s all say: “doors”, “linol”, let’s burn Dahl’s dictionary on Red Square, come on!

-Can you lie?

No, it’s difficult to lie; your eyes start to wander. 28 years in the theater, it would seem, like an artist, but as soon as I lie, I feel the pupil trembling and the eyes shift. Well, of course, I won’t tell a cancer patient that he is hopeless, and if a friend of mine comes after a sleepless night and says: oh, I look so bad today - and she needs to perform... I say: what are you talking about, it’s normal, I even I was surprised, you said you didn’t sleep until three, but you look very decent! But I understand that she needs support now... But in general, I can’t lie.

- Well, you didn’t lie when you were a child?

Mom caught it once. I went on what was called an extended day. On Saturday we were taken to the cinema, and at home they gave me 50 kopecks. I collected them, went to GUM and ate ice cream, with a mound, very tasty. And one day my mother caught me doing this. We got off the bus together, although I, in theory, was supposed to ride on the other side. "Where have you been?" Unfortunately for me, my mother was also at this film, which it seemed like I was at. There was such a scandal at home! Until I screamed like crazy. (She never hit me, she hit me on the butt with her palm once - I cried for three hours - it was such an insult and humiliation of my human dignity! It was scary, I didn’t want to live.) And then I screamed: what, I can’t even eat ice cream ?! My pain spoke to me. (Laughs.)

- Were you spoiled as a child?

They never made fun of me, they never called me Natasha. Natasha - that's all.

- After whom were you named Natasha?

I left the maternity hospital with this name. Like any newborn, I had this huge head. But they say that my mouth was even bigger than my head, and I screamed accordingly. And when they rolled in the stroller with the children for feeding, my mother said that the nanny in the maternity hospital simply threw me at her with the words: take your Natasha! When my mother left the maternity hospital with me, I was already responding to this name, and my father said: well, let him be Natasha.

- Why do you look so good?

And I have nothing left to do.

- You are in great shape, have you managed to lose weight?

And I eat myself, from morning to night, so I’ve lost weight.

- But seriously - diet?

Well, I made some efforts, but not cruel ones. I didn’t take pills, I think it’s harmful (the so-called Thai pills were in fashion then. - E.N.). And so I “died” on something. I lost weight for a long time - more than a year.

- You don’t eat buns, do you have any sweets?

Well, I really love puff pastries with cherries. When one of your friends comes, they say: how come, you seem to be losing weight? What about buns? I answer: stupid, what is not clear is my vitamin: B1, B2...

- How do others react to your updated appearance?

Ill-wishers' jaws drop when they see me. And my friends are very happy.

- Do you travel and relax a lot?

Well, my husband and I are going somewhere, but I can’t say that I’m a traveler. I once sailed on a ship. I thought I would go crazy in this closed space, where the same people were. I'm a very sociable person, but I need a place where I can be alone. In general, I believe that whoever God wants to curse, he rewards with loneliness. But I love privacy, I need places where I can retire.

-Have you ever thought about leaving the theater?

There was a conflict when we were rehearsing the play “Running”. I played Lyuska. The runs had already begun, but Andrei Aleksandrovich Goncharov made very few comments to me. And now there is such a decisive run-through, a dress rehearsal, and after that he suddenly tells me - he makes comments to everyone, comments, and then he says to me: I have nothing to say to you at all, you rehearsed monstrously today, you have some kind of home direction. I say: what home directing... while I’m in this church, I pray to this God. He doesn't listen - we are in two voices. He suddenly began to say: don’t scare me, that you will leave me (this is after the words “while I’m in this church”). And he started yelling at me, and I got up and left. I went to change my clothes, came home and thought: I’ll leave the theater if he talks to me like that... Well, how can it be - for 20 days of the run-through he didn’t make a single comment (I would have reconsidered), and suddenly at the dress rehearsal I’m doing everything wrong? ! There are failures, but not to the same extent. I thought, thought: no, I decided, I’ll still find the strength in myself and tomorrow I’ll come to the rehearsal, and if he says one word to me, I’ll turn around, leave and write a statement. I came, got dressed, we all went on stage. He came up and said: now let’s start with the scenes, there, “Lyuska - the sixth dream,” he looks at me and says: rehearse, please. And he didn't tell me anything else. We didn’t apologize, we didn’t suck up, he just said: rehearse, and I started rehearsing... And so I never had to leave. Because I am, after all, a service person - I am dispassionate, I am patriotic, I love my Motherland, I love my theater. Well, indeed, Goncharov managed to create an amazing aura in the theater. When Goncharov was in the theater, I actually felt good.

- Does life force you to do something? Are you forced to somehow hold yourself, show yourself, control yourself?

Yes, sure. You see, getting to the top is easier than coming down from it. But staying there is even more difficult. Because, in principle, if you want to go down, you can move out from there at the fifth point. The hardest thing in life is to hold on.

- What would you like to wish for yourself and the audience?

Every morning when I get up, I wish myself one thing - to survive. Because we are born into this world, and God gives us every opportunity, and until we are pulled away from the outside, we retain this God’s breath. I would like every person to keep this within themselves. I would like to wish you patience and love. I would like to thank the audience, because I understand that as long as there is at least one person who sits in the auditorium and watches what I do, my profession gains immortality...

Blitz interview

Natalya Georgievna answered all these questions in the affirmative.

Lifestyle - consistency in the family, in the choice of theater?

Native Muscovite?

Don't remember all your roles in cinema and theater?

28 years at the Mayakovsky Theater?

Did Yeltsin congratulate you on your 50th birthday?

Role in cinema - soulful woman with an unsettled personal life?

Deputy from “Women of Russia” in the first Duma?

Couldn't you combine politics and theater?

Does art necessarily require sacrifice?

Are there any ill-wishers?

Are you ruthless in your assessments?

Favorite thought: God can help you, but only with your help.

And only to the question: “Is there no big role for you today?” - She said with a sigh: “Not yet!”