Producer of the series “Spy” Mikhail Khleborodov spoke about the shooting and Bezrukov’s train

Sergei Bezrukov plays FSB analyst Andrei Rybin in the series, who turns out to be an American spy. However, as it is customary to express it recently, not everything is so simple. The hero of Bezrukov will have to figure out who he really is, and at the same time save his own family.

The main driving force of the series was the producer Mikhail Khleborodov. For those who were fond of music in the nineties, Mikhail is a kind of legend. As a director, he shot truly breakthrough music videos for those times, which largely determined the image of Alena Sviridova, Bogdan Titomir, the Mumiy Troll group and dozens of other artists. Over time, Khleborodov began to shoot a full meter (“Paragraph 78”, “Courier from Paradise”), and then series (“Temporarily unavailable”, “The Magician”). “Spy” became a production project for him, but in this case, the term “producer” means much broader powers.

“I originally came up with all this and spent a lot of time in order to find people who can write the script,” says Mikhail Khleborodov in an interview with MK. – I had to look, because the Yuliana Semenovs are now in short supply. In addition, the plot itself, in which America, Russia, spies … There were doubts that the channels would accept this. But in the end, at their own peril and risk, they decided to do it, they found the author of the script, Oleg Timoshishin, who did an excellent job.

– The spy detective genre itself is almost never found in your personal filmography. Why is he suddenly interested in you?

– I was interested not so much in the genre itself, but in deviations from it. A spy detective involves looking for an enemy, and it is usually not clear who he is until the very end. Already in the second series, everything is clear. And this is not about an investigation, but about a person who found himself in difficult circumstances. At some point, the concept of “homeland” changes for him. According to him, this is not America, where he was born, but a place where there are people he loves. The protagonist seems to be caught between two fires, and all the time he has to make a choice: how to act so that life remains the same, so as not to lose what is already there.

– You are from that generation of people who, of course, watched “TASS is authorized to declare” and other Soviet spy classics. Sometimes it seems that this classic is very pressing on the authors of modern series, and they are struggling to do about the same thing, but in a slightly different scenery …

“Unfortunately, you are right. It is indeed difficult for many to go beyond the boundaries that have long been designated. First of all, in the mental sense. I got it all by accident. I was at a friend’s birthday party, and there we watched the Israeli TV series Motherland, which was later remade by the Americans. This is a very extraordinary film, and there, too, we are talking about a person who finds himself in difficult circumstances. Such a plot hooked me, and right at the birthday party, the idea of ​​​​how you can do everything here and in your own way seemed to descend from above. It happened about seven years ago, and the time that has passed since then has been spent to bring the idea to the screen.

– With your directing experience, you probably had a pretty clear idea of ​​\u200b\u200bhow everything should look in the end. How does the result match your ideas about the series, given that you were not sitting in the director’s chair this time?

– Usually I do not climb to the directors with advice. The task of the producer is to find the right people to bring the idea to the end, and not interfere with their work. Initially, of course, I did everything for myself and wanted to shoot myself. Unfortunately, at the moment when everything was ready to launch, my state of health did not allow me to enter this difficult project as a director. Which I am very sorry about. Of course, when another person shoots, it turns out differently. But I like how everything looks, how it is filmed, how the actors play. In my opinion, this is different from the usual serial presentation for many channels.

– With Sergei Bezrukov, who played the main role, you have already worked. Was this script written for him?

— Yes, we can say that he is one of the co-authors. We met and discussed the plot even before the work on the script began.

– Bezrukov didn’t play anyone, but he had spies – once or twice and counted. Looks like he’s new to the area…

– In my opinion, this is more of a human story than a spy story. And the main thing was his acting talent, and not the ability to play spies.

– A big star in the frame is, on the one hand, an almost native person for the audience, but on the other, an actor who drags along a huge trail of roles, and sometimes scandals. Do you think this could be a problem for the series?

– I didn’t think about it, because if you have doubts about this, then it’s better not to shoot at all. Of course, a popular actor has a train of roles, but he should not prevent him from playing other characters. Imagine what a huge trail De Niro or Al Pacino has! But it is unlikely that Scorsese doubted whether to shoot De Niro in “Casino”, because he had a trail from his role in “Taxi Driver”. Good actors should be able to transform and do something new and interesting.

– Sofa critics unanimously doubt how suitable Olga Lomonosova is for the role of the wife of an intelligence officer. Is it too glossy, albeit in a good way?

There were, of course, tests. For us, the issue of femininity was important and, of course, that the family in the frame looked like a family. Olga plays, first of all, a wife who has been waiting twenty years for her husband to retire, but on the same day, when he seems to be retiring, he is returned to the service. For her, this is a terrible blow, and it is not clear whether their family will survive or not. And this is also intrigue.

– The functions of the producer sometimes also include merciless editing. Did you have to cut a lot?

– Initially, the script assumed ten episodes, and at some point it became clear that everything would have to fit in eight. But when it’s not about the platform, but about broadcast television, the episode cannot be an hour or ten hours long, as we did. Everything is strict here: from forty-nine to fifty-two minutes. Of course, no one will shoot in order to throw it away later. I had to shorten the script pretty quickly. It was a difficult moment, but the director and scriptwriter managed. As a result, a more extended line of relations between the daughter of the protagonist and the guy who sold drugs left. But its main essence still remains. I also had to sacrifice some characters.

– If you will, the question is not about the series. Now, after the sweeping criticism of the nineties, this era is back in vogue. Not so long ago, the film by Gregory of Constantinople “Clipmakers” was released. And it’s about people, among whom you were in the nineties. How do you like the new reading of history?

– This is kitsch in the style of Gregory, in fact, everything happened in a completely different way. I started shooting commercials and music videos in 1988, so I was practically at the origins of the movement. We were all in the thick of things. If something was filmed by Fedya Bondarchuk, then all the clip makers hung out there, if I filmed, then they came to me, each shooting was an event. I watched the film with pleasure, but it does not give an idea of ​​how we lived then.

Do you have nostalgia for that time?

Yes, and it’s deadly. Now we just work, but then we made the future out of nothing. There is no longer such music and such artists, real nuggets. Now everything is produced, and the self-sufficient people who are still working are all from the nineties. And the clips are no longer clips, but funny pictures.