Marietta Tsigal-Polishchuk: “Ranevskaya’s makeup took four hours”

They searched for the actress for the main role for several months, until they chose Marietta, the daughter of actress Lyubov Polishchuk. By that time, she had already played Anna Akhmatova in the TV series “Wings of Empire”, Sofka (Zoya Boguslavskaya) in “Mysterious Passion” and two dozen more roles.

We met Marietta at the Spirit of Fire festival in Khanty-Mansiysk, where she held a two-hour master class as part of a completely different Territory festival for students and schoolchildren who dream of becoming an actor. Marietta was free and called for the freedom of the guys, while tightly controlling. It was surprising for an outsider to hear: “Swear! Shout your neck at her.” Children will remember these lessons for a long time.

— How did it happen that you started giving master classes?

– Since 2015, Zhenya Berkovich and I have been doing a lot of theater in its various manifestations, working with teenagers from orphanages and foster families. There were two festivals, master classes and workshops. In 2017, from the Territory festival, we went to Dzerzhinsk with a team of teachers and worked there with children in an orphanage for ten days. When I was invited to Khanty-Mansiysk to the “Spirit of Fire”, the organizers of the “Territory”, who hold a series of master classes there, apparently remembered me.

– Often actors and directors simply retell their biography, and this is positioned as a master class. You have it applied. A dramatic actor has to practice intensively, like ballet dancers do?

– If you don’t play a performance for a long time and don’t enter the frame, then this immediately affects how you work. Muscles atrophy when you lie on the bed for a long time. It’s the same here. Rachmaninov said that if he does not play the piano one day, then he forgets everything. I think this happens in every industry. Nobody canceled the difference between God’s gift and scrambled eggs, but it is difficult to get by with God’s gift alone in our profession. It takes practice, practice and more practice. It is important not to stop, to continue learning something new, to work on mistakes, to develop all the time. Maybe I’m wrong, and someone else has other options.

– Entering the course with Sergei Golomazov, did you already know how to do something or were you like a blank slate? Why did you go to him?

“I still don’t know if I can do something or not. And at the time of admission, she studied at the school, as we called it, with a theatrical deviation, where she studied stage movement, other acting sciences, but compared to the theater institute, it was a completely different story, which was of a preparatory nature. So I started with a clean slate. I acted everywhere, as all applicants do. At the very last moment Igor Yasulovich took me to VGIK and Sergey Golomazov to GITIS. I went to GITIS. I was 17 years old. I got in the second time.

– Where did you go after GITIS?

– I went where they took me. And they took me to the theaters “Modern” and “At the Nikitsky Gates”. After that, Sergei Golomazov became the artistic director of the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya. They put on a play called “The Mystery of the Old Closet” based on “The Chronicles of Narnia” by Clive Lewis, and I was invited to play Tumnus the Faun. Naturally, I went. Later I was accepted into the troupe. I worked at the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya for 15 years.

– A lot of. Feel exhausted from working in the repertory theater?

— I don’t know if it’s a lot — 15 years. I love my job. Exhaustion can come even in those things that are pleasant and joyful. It may be associated with uniformity. Again, the question is in practice. There was exhaustion, and, conversely, longing for work. As, however, and now.

Are you your own mistress now?

Yes, and that makes me happy. I don’t owe anything to anyone, I don’t answer to anyone. They ask me if I can play a performance, and I say whether I can or not.

– Many people are dragging their feet, afraid to change anything. The uncertainty and the lack of a guaranteed salary are frightening. Did this movie give you confidence in the future?

Why do you think I’ve gained confidence? When I was left without a bid, I had performances by Zhenya Berkovich. “Daughters of SOSO” appeared before leaving the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya. I wouldn’t be left without money. I do not have ambitions, obsession with the fact that I can only work in my profession and will never go anywhere else in my life. There will be no acting work – I will work as a waitress or a florist. There is no jump that this is beneath my dignity. I have a son, a house, a family, cats and dogs. I am responsible for this, so I do not care how I will implement it, of course, within the framework of the law and decency.

– The professions that you mentioned have already been tested by you. How did it happen?

– After I didn’t enter the theater institute, I graduated from the courses of florist-designers, worked as a florist so as not to mess around for a whole year.

“It’s an interesting and beautiful profession.

Yes, but damn hard. Physically. There is no romance in it. The working day starts at 7.30 am. You haul huge buckets, change the water, prune the flowers. Only after a while does creativity appear. I first worked as a waitress in my sophomore year, after I got my driver’s license and crashed my car the first week. It was necessary to treat her while her parents were in China. I did not want to take money from them, I decided to bear the responsibility myself. So she started working as a waitress. I liked it – a lot of people and communication. I then a few more times this business earned some of my Wishlist.

– There are many people around, and anyone can offend. Is not it?

– No. I do not consider waitresses, or, as it is commonly called, any service personnel, people of a different rank. As I treat people myself, I expect them to treat me as well. If it doesn’t, then it’s their problem, not mine. It never humiliated or offended me.

What was your first film experience like?

– In my student years, I starred in a lot of extras, so I don’t remember what the first movie was like. We worked like that, and what we didn’t do. Once, like prostitutes, they stood on the Leningrad highway outside Moscow. There was a funny story back then. A man passing by tried to pick us up. Seeing this, the foreman of the extras ran out and shouted: “Get out of here! We’re filming.” There were a lot of funny stories.

Do you remember your first meaningful experience?

– Certainly. It happened when I came to star in the extras to Alla Surikova. There are situations in cinema when they suddenly see a suitable textured face and give you some words. There is extras and grouping, and there is, relatively speaking, grouping with words. I came to the extras, which suddenly grew into a group with words. I had several lines, close-ups, and even the name of the character appeared. I became something like a friend of the main character.

– Alla Ilyinichna did not know who you are?

I think at some point I found out. Someone could say: “Take this girl. She is Polishchuk’s daughter.

– Alla Surikova loves actors, treats them cordially. Have you ever faced harsh treatment from directors?

Yes, I did, but I won’t tell.

– Is it really Ilya Khrzhanovsky and his project “Dau”?

– On the “Dau” there was a story with samples. I already talked about it and I don’t want to repeat it. Khrzhanovsky was not there, only his people. But I didn’t remember that. On the set, there were situations of humiliation and insults, but God bless them. Forgotten, gone.

– Has anything changed after Ranevskaya?

Do they recognize me on the streets? No, they don’t. Did you get more audition calls? Maybe they did. It’s hard to say, because we have a strange profession – sometimes thick, sometimes empty. I had situations before when nothing happened for half a year, and then fifteen trials happened in one week. And now I have been invited to audition several times. Whether this is connected with the release of Ranevskaya or not, I don’t know. Probably a little more people from the film industry got to know about me and began to have me in mind. But I go to auditions in the same way, I cope with them or I don’t cope. It’s great when there are more opportunities to at least try something. When they don’t approve, it’s sad. But when they don’t try, it’s a shame. You are not even given the opportunity to show that you can do something.

– How long did your makeup take in Ranevskaya? Did it create additional difficulties?

– Age makeup took 3.5-4 hours. During this time, I repeated the text, prepared, listened to the voice of my Faina Georgievna, found something to do with myself.

– Ranevskaya is no longer there, as is Akhmatova, in whose role you starred. And what was it like to play the now living Zoya Boguslavskaya in Secret Passion? Are you familiar with her?

We briefly met on a TV program after the series aired. I bowed to Zoya Borisovna at the feet and apologized. She knew my grandparents. They had one common company. Perhaps that is why she could not say to my face: “Baby, you are complete …”.

– You can often be seen with your father – the artist Sergei Tsigal. It feels like you have a subtle relationship. He also came to your master class in Khanty-Mansiysk and reacted so vividly to everything.

We have the closest connection. I am his only daughter and he is my only dad. Everything is logical.

– A descendant of Dostoevsky told me how he brought his granddaughter to the monument to Fyodor Mikhailovich and said that this, girl, is your famous ancestor. How did you find out about your great-grandmother Marietta Shahinyan?

“This is a lifelong gift. In the Arbat apartment of grandparents there were always her photographs in the rack. I knew that I had a great-grandmother, Marietta Shaginyan, after whom I was named, that she was a writer, she wrote about Lenin. When I was very little, my grandmother read me a fairy tale about the magical land of Merz.

– You have two dogs that actually participate in our conversation (Marietta’s interview had to be periodically interrupted by cries of: “Mika, come to me! Excuse me, but a curvy poodle has appeared. Zhuzha, what are you digging there?). How do you manage them?

“These are two mongrel sisters. We took one before leaving for Khanty-Mansiysk, and when we returned to Moscow, we found that her sister had not yet been attached. We took her in for overexposure and left. Now we have two fools and two more cats. They require constant attention.

What else does your daily life consist of?

– Family, dogs, performances, auditions. There will be several shooting days in the series “Survivors 2”. There I have a small but very interesting role. We work with the “Daughters of SOSO” on the independent platform “Space Inside”.

– Is it not crowded in the small space of this theater?

– It’s not tight at all. It’s a different format when the audience is nearby. There is a special level of trust, relatively speaking, without a theatrical presentation. I also have an immersive show called Returned, where there is no usual auditorium at all. We are playing the life story of the Alving family based on Ibsen’s play “Ghosts” in a four-story mansion. People are wearing masks. Artists are at arm’s length. This is not a promenade theater where actors lead you along. In our house, spectators go where they want. In parallel, something is happening on the four floors of the mansion in different rooms. All this is very interesting, a separate unforgettable experience.