Actor Alexander Pashutin will celebrate his 80th birthday at the Russian Museum

The secret of his youth: “I go in for sports, I didn’t smoke a single cigarette”

On January 28, actor Alexander Pashutin turned 80 years old. In the cinema, he played 235 roles – in Alexander Mitta’s Crew, Vadim Abdrashitov’s Parade of Planets and Plumbum, Sergei Mikaelyan’s Prize, Andrei Konchalovsky’s Inner Circle, Nikita Mikhalkov’s Burnt by the Sun 2. And the hero of the day made his debut in Pyotr Todorovsky’s “Urban Romance” in 1971. His acting experience, taking into account theatrical work, was 55 years. So Pashutin has a double anniversary.

On the eve of his 80th birthday, the actor spoke about what he came up with on the “round” date and how he would celebrate it.

– My wife Lyuba and I are going to St. Petersburg for two or three days, – says Alexander Pashutin. – Let’s walk there together. When the “judgment day” comes, let’s go to the Russian Museum. In the evening we will sit in a restaurant. A cat is waiting for us at home, so we can’t leave for a long time. The main gift for me is that my wife and all my loved ones are alive and well. Everything else I will earn and buy.

80 is an unpleasant number, but I always remember two phrases. The first is “You can’t go far in the carriage of the past” from Gorky’s play “At the Bottom”. What does she mean to me? He starred in some role and that’s it! Forgot. Let’s go further. We are only moving forward. The second phrase is “It’s not evening yet.” So I cheer myself up. I also want to act in films, play in performances. The strengths are still there. I really fell in love with the role of Kulygin in Yuri Grymov’s Three Sisters. This is a great picture according to Chekhov. I have been filming for four consecutive summers in the film “Rural Detective”, playing the heroine’s grandfather.

With my colleagues Elena Zakharova and Yuri Chernov, I am rehearsing Neil Simon’s play The Merry Men. The performance will be called “Shards of Show Business”, and staged by actress Olga Anokhina. I go for tests. Such is our profession. The directors need to see what shape I’m in, how I look. My repertoire has narrowed due to age. When I starred in the “Prize”, we rehearsed like in the theater. I remember living in Jurmala and rehearsing for ten days. Is this allowed today? No. Now they work not for 8 hours, as required by the labor code, but for 12 hours. Just learned the text, they say to you: “Come on, come on!”. Everyone is in a hurry. Mikhalkov in “Burnt by the Sun 2” and Khotinenko in “The Death of the Empire” were in no hurry. I worked on the Tango Tanker. with Bakhtiyor Khudoynazarov, who shot the great film “Moon Dad”. So he said: “Don’t rush me. I am not a director. I am a painter”. Awesome! Few people can afford this. But quality cinema was born. There are not so many good movies and series today. I think it’s because of the rush.

For the seventh year I have been teaching at the Iosif Kobzon Institute of Theatrical Art. He himself studied at the Moscow Art Theater School with the great teachers Pavel Massalsky and Vasily Toporkov. They all lived very decently, received huge salaries at the Art Theater. What are we to them? But they invested their skills and experience in students. I even played with Toporkov in one passage. He is a People’s Artist of the USSR, a professor, a laureate of state awards, one of Stanislavsky’s favorite students, and I am a student as a sailor. In our profession, everything is transmitted through experience.

Alexander Pashutin is in great shape. He certainly doesn’t look 80 years old. They give him 60. And when they ask about the secret of youth, he answers like this:

– I’m a sports guy. I have not smoked a single cigarette in my entire life. When I entered the Suvorov Military School, sport was the main thing there. The army needs healthy people. I still go to the sports club, until recently I did it every day. But Leo Bokeria advised me to reduce the load. So now I sometimes sit at the TV with a cat on my lap. According to the two great people Vladimir Zeldin and Maya Plisetskaya, I realized that nature can be deceived. It was impossible to say about Vladimir Mikhailovich that he was an old man. He was over ninety, and he had a straight back, a butterfly, he smelled of wonderful perfume. I am an adventurer by nature, so I participated in the TV projects “The Last Hero” in the Dominican Republic, “Cruel Intentions” in Argentina and “Ford Boyard”, where I walked with Ekaterina Volkova over two strings, and tigers roared below. I was then 69 years old. I passed my triathlon, but if there are new proposals, I’m ready to shake the old days.