– Do you recognize in your personality any typically Russian traits of character and do you feel a true representative of the "Russian soul", as it is often told about you?
– For me it is difficult to identify myself with a myth difficult to define finally: in the same way, you could say that a Japanese actor represents the Japanese soul and so on... But it is a pity that a big part of the very rich popular tradition is not used in films, I think that in the future it will change.

– How do you prepare for a part ?
– It depends of the part. For some parts, it is necessary to be well informed on the subject, for other parts you have to have long conversations with the director; and for other parts it is better to begin working and let the vision come to light.

– You are one of the favourite actors of Nikita Mikhalkov. Do you have a special way of working with him?
– With him, there is such an understanding, such a trust that it is not necessary to prepare everything. We use to talk a lot before beginning the film. We talk about everything, about the interpretation of every scene. When the shoot starts, I have just to enter into the part and act because the two of us exactly know where we are going.

– Is there a place to improvisation?
– Yes of course, but first of all it is necessary to get very ready for the character, not technically but emotionally. At a given time, you have to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the film and think as the character would think. At a given time, the character begins to talk to you and guides you.

– Your latest comment leads us to another giant, a Russian who has changed the way of acting not only in Russia but in the whole world (I think of Brando and De Niro) – Stanislavski...
– The Stanislavski method is not a series of rules to observe schematically, you can't find the answers in a book. Everybody has to search the answers in his (her) own inward feelings. Stanislavski did not discover anything, but he has noticed some observations that are a part of a universal conception of acting. I give you an example: once a professor asked to his students to play a bird before it takes wing. He said to the students: "the bird begins to spread its wings". But they did not understand what he meant. So he said "Before taking wing, a bird feels proud.

– You are actor of theater and also a movies actor. What differences do you see? What do you prefer?
– Except the technique, I don't see a difference. On stage sometimes I have felt some moments of pure happiness that I've burnt and shared immediately with the public. In the movies, with Mikhalkov, these moments have been fixed forever on the screen. They are the "moments during which time stops" as says Mikhalkov. During these moments, you can hardly touch the time, feel it.

– How is the situation of the cinema in Russia? And what is generally the present cinema that you like?
– The Russian cinema needs, like the cinema of the other countries, bright personalities, great directors who know how to create something new.

– Is it possible in Russia to watch what is produced in the rest of the world ? And what is it produced in Russia?
– In video it is possible, but not in the theaters. But the situation is tremendously getting better, compared with before. When I was a student, you could not watch anything, everything was forbidden. Then the situation changed but 4 or 5 years ago it was still impossible to watch anything because there are no movies auditoriums.

– In the USA, the passage from movies screen to politics exists. Is it also the case in Russia?
– Yes, but in a perverse way. Politics should be the way of influencing positively on reality of the people and on the contrary in Russia those who dedicate to politics do it because they want to reach a social standing and make some profits.

– What are your present projects ?
– I am going to make two TV films: in one of them, I will play the part of Dr Zhivago, in the other I will be Ostap Bender, a very popular character in Russia, a parody of Sherlock Holmes. I did not work for such a long time that I could not refuse when these two projects came to me.

– But I had read that you had another project, a sequel of Burnt by the Sun, with Mikhalkov, a film that should be released in 2005?
– Yes, Mikhalkov is working now on the screenplay. The action takes place during the Second World War, he wants to give a cinematographic version a little different of this war.

– And also another version of your character, because you committed suicide in the first version!...
– Cinema is pure fantasy and its power is limitless. All the characters of the film died at the end, it is the reason why some re-adjustments are necessary. For the moment Mikhalkov is working on this project by himself. Maybe later somebody else will help him.