Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Mosfilm Film Concern – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Vladimir Khotinenko began the master class not with theory, but with his personal story, which, he said, led him to film. An architect by training, he graduated with honors from the Sverdlovsk Architectural Institute and, to avoid three years of mandatory work, deliberately enlisted in the army. Serving in the convoy, transporting prisoners, and military life—this experience became his first schooling in life and his observations of humanity.
It was there, in the army, that a fateful meeting took place. A friend of his informed him that Nikita Mikhalkov was coming to Sverdlovsk for a creative meeting. Khotinenko, in uniform, attended the meeting and amazed the master with stories from his service.
"I told Mikhalkov a lot of stories. Brilliant, funny, and sometimes absurd. He listened and listened, and then said, 'When you finish your service, come and work with us,'" Vladimir Khotinenko recalled.
Thus began his journey into filmmaking. But the main topic of the meeting was the director's work with the actor.
CASTING IS NOT ABOUT QUANTITY, BUT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE SEARCH.
The director noted that he is skeptical of the current trend of auditioning 500 people for a role. He believes that the work of a casting director is not a mass selection process, but a deep understanding of the material and the director's vision.
He named Inna Shterengarts, one of the legendary assistant directors with whom he worked for many years, as his main mentor in this field. She was "a true Middle Ages woman," a theater enthusiast who toured every provincial theater, knew every production, and could accurately predict whether an actor would be right for a role.
"She gave me Makovetsky, Mironov, and all the main actors. As an assistant, she offered me interesting, carefully selected material, and then I decided whether it was my instrument or not. For me, choosing an actor is subconscious. Like in music. A Stradivarius violin and a Guarneri violin—they sound different, right? It's the same with actors. Personal contact is important to me, to understand whether we're on the same page," the director noted.
TESTING AS ART: FROM JOURNALISTIC INTERVIEWS TO “PHOTO STUDIO”.
Khotinenko has long abandoned the traditional audition, where an actor memorizes a scene from a script and performs it in a simulated setting. He creates a situation for the actor that best reveals their personality and potential.
For the film "Roy," the director filmed auditions in a hotel room. The actors were given the script to read, and then Khotinenko assumed the role of a journalist who had come to write an article about the film's events. He asked spontaneous questions, and the actors improvised, answering from the perspective of their characters.
"Then I put together a documentary film lasting over an hour. When the artistic committee watched it, some women cried. Because the actors weren't just playing characters; they were navigating the scene as they went along, answering my questions. And it turned out to be a truly living story," the director explains.
For the screen tests for the large-scale film "72 Meters," which featured many new submarine characters, Khotinenko devised a "photo studio" format. The crew built a stylized photo booth with palm trees. The actors arrived dressed "as if for a movie," and the director played the role of a chatty photographer, asking unexpected questions.
"I didn't formulate these questions in advance. I didn't warn the actors in advance. They answered spontaneously, and you could tell how much the actor already had in the role," the director noted after reviewing the audition materials with the course participants.
"THERE ARE NO RECIPES. THERE ARE CHANCE, LUCK, INTUITION, AND EDUCATION."
Vladimir Khotinenko emphasized that he constantly reinvented his filmmaking methodology, based on specific material and actors:
He asked the candidates for the lead female role in "The Muslim" to read not the script, but Nekrasov's poem "Frost, Red Nose." Poetry revealed the heroine's depth and tragedy.
During his audition for the film "1612," the director asked a Polish actor to read a character's monologue in his native language. Although he didn't understand Polish, the director captured the character's essential energy and inner essence.
While working with Andrei Krasko on the character of the submarine commander in "72 Meters," Khotinenko asked him a key question: "What would be your last words in life?" He replied, "Of course, I mean my wife." This resonated with the director's understanding of the character: on a submarine, such a commander is a king and a god, but at home, he's a henpecked husband. This contrast became the foundation of the character.
"The thing is, there are no recipes. Why? This isn't a lecture… To some extent, luck is also necessary, and we—I've always had a little bit of luck. And then there's intuition! That's incredibly important," Vladimir Khotinenko emphasized.
DIALOGUE WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE INDEPRIVABILITY OF THE ACTOR.
Answering questions from the audience, Vladimir Khotinenko discussed artificial intelligence (AI) in detail. The director is actively exploring the potential of neural networks in developing new projects, for example, for visualizing ideas or finding innovative solutions. However, his position is categorical:
"Without an actor, there's no cinema. And what artificial intelligence will never achieve—though some argue, I know for sure—is tactility. Did you know that tactility is at the core of our lives? Live emotion! We rely on our life experiences. That's something we can't replace."
In his opinion, AI can only displace those who already work in a formulaic manner. But true art, born from the live interaction between director and actor, in the unpredictability of human reactions, will remain the prerogative of humans.
"My firm conviction is that, regardless of its capabilities and the potential to displace others, we've chosen a profession in which we can 'displace' ourselves even without artificial intelligence… There's no need to be afraid, in my view. We just need to learn to communicate with it," Vladimir Khotinenko emphasized.
FINAL: "WHERE DO I START? CREATE A CHARACTER."
At the end of the master class, Vladimir Khotinenko gave the future casting directors his main piece of advice, which, as the director said, he learned from his entire career and from a “conversation” with Fyodor Dostoevsky himself (while working on the film adaptation of “Demons”).
"The saddest thing, and unfortunately, there's a lot of this in today's cinema, is when a character is just a person. When it's 'just a person,' you know? That's why I always say: you know where to start? Create, understand your character! Not a name, but their essence – through habits, the contents of their pockets, their appearance, and so on… A character is always more than just a role in a script. You have to find them, feel them, and then find them in a living actor," concluded Vladimir Khotinenko.
This is the quintessence of the master's approach: cinema as a search for living human truth, where technology, methods, and scripts are merely tools for discerning and capturing this truth in union with the most important material of cinema—the actor.
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source. It represents an accurate account of the source's assertions and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.