The many-faced Andrey Merzlikin: the main roles of the actor who turned 50

Merzlikin’s filmography includes more than 160 roles. These are historical figures – Grigory Otrepyev in Boris Godunov by Vladimir Mirzoev and Vasily Shuisky in the TV series Godunov by Alexei Andrianov and Timur Alpatov, and tank designer Mikhail Koshkin, and playwright Alexander Vampilov, and a whole set of special services officers, military men, bandits.

In Merzlikin, they constantly find a portrait resemblance to some famous person, compare photographs. And the truth is similar. This indicates that the actor is plastic and versatile, able to radically change and take on any appearance.

As soon as you need to show strength and courage, they immediately remember Merzlikin. An exemplary, ideological, “white heterosexual man” is required – again to him. Merzlikin likes to experiment, he is ready to cooperate with young and reckless filmmakers, but sometimes he has to work in what God has sent, with stereotyped thinking people.

Let us recall some of the works of Andrei Merzlikin in the theater and cinema, for which he was praised and beaten, and which made up the pros and cons of his creative biography.

Such a guy lives – Vampilov

In 2018, the film “Sea Buckthorn Summer” by Viktor Alferov was released, where 45-year-old Andrei Merzlikin played 34-year-old playwright Alexander Vampilov. He has some portrait resemblance to the hero, which largely determined the invitation to the role.

The author of “Duck Hunt” and “Elder Son” drowned in Lake Baikal on August 17, 1972, two days before his 35th birthday. Sailing with a friend in a boat. Motor stalled. The friend was saved. Vampilov drowned. “Well, I’m sorry. We have a sea buckthorn summer, ”these are the last lines written by him in a letter.

“I’m 35 years old in two days,” Vampilov says in the film. “I’m healthy, my shoes don’t pinch.”

Vampilov lives in Irkutsk, sometimes in swaggering Moscow. There he meets the arrogant Andron Konchalovsky in a foppish suede jacket, other representatives of the capital’s bohemia, Oleg Efremov, who needs a play about the heroes of the civil war and the first underground workers. Such simple and provincial guys as Vampilov have a tough attitude towards Moscow life: “They always lack something. Freedom? And I think suede jackets.

In Irkutsk it is more soulful, you can drink beer with friends in the yard, live in truth. Andrey Merzlikin plays a restless man, an exemplary husband and father, who, however, does not allow his wife to paint and let her hair down. He carries on an endless dialogue with his dead father, who is sailing across Lake Baikal in a boat, which becomes a harbinger of tragedy. The father instructs his son: there are two ways in life – against the current or against conscience. Vampilov finds his way out.

Shukshin visiting Nadezhda Babkina

“I am not Vasily Makarovich Shukshin and not the hero of his stories. And a person who has a similar worldview,” says Andrey Merzlikin, talking about the play “Kalina Krasnaya”, which is being staged at the Russian Song Theater under the direction of Nadezhda Babkina. There he plays Yegor Prokudin, in fact Shukshin himself, sometimes duplicating his image in the film “Kalina Krasnaya” to the smallest detail.

The director of the play, Andrei Petrun, sees no coincidences and urges not to compare these two works. But it’s impossible not to compare. This is the whole focus. Everything here is like in a movie, only instead of Lydia Fedoseyeva Shukshina, Lyuba Baikalova is played by her daughter Maria Shukshina, and instead of Vasily Makarovich, Andrei Merzlikin enters the stage in a recognizable Shukshin cap and red shirt. And it causes an almost childlike reaction from the audience.

So, 43 years after the release of the film, a performance appeared where everyone sings and dances, where the team of Nadezhda Babkina participates, and she herself becomes the heroine of Shukshin’s story. Everything screams, thunders, makes noise, rushes into the abyss. The spirit captures from such unbridled fantasy and connection of the incompatible.

Andrey Merzlikin plays Shukshin in the concert program “Shukshin. Man of the Earth”, where he actually speaks on his behalf, talking about the life of his predecessor. And the audience puts an equal sign between them.

“Boomer” – bandit Dimon Scalded

In 2003, Pyotr Buslov’s “Boomer” was released about the dashing 90s. One of the bandits, nicknamed Dimon Oshparenny, was played by Andrey Merzlikin. In the company of his dashing friends – Sergei Gorobchenko, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Mikhail Konovalov played their roles – a tough and dangerous guy rushes in a black BMW, fleeing from persecution.

Dimon beats up a trucker. He responds by hitting him with a screwdriver. Heal up and get back on the road. The company rushes to no one knows where in a car with flat tires. On the way, the guys pick up prostitutes, try to commit robberies. They are young and capable of anything. Today, remembering all these adventures is not even interesting. At one time, the daring lads were perceived almost as a symbol of freedom. They are still true heroes for those who are stuck in the 90s.

“The armor is strong and our tanks are fast” – designer Mikhail Koshkin

In 2018, in the military-historical and adventure film “Tanks” by Kim Druzhinin, called by the then Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky “the right Soviet, Russian, Russian cinema”, Andrey Merzlikin played the forgotten designer Mikhail Koshkin. In 1940, he made a 75-kilometer run along the Kharkov-Moscow route on T-34 prototypes, broke through to Stalin, overcoming many obstacles, to demonstrate his combat vehicle, and then put it into production. Stalin approved the developments. And Hitler ranked Koshkin among his personal enemies.

Even at the stage of creating the script, the authors saw Andrey Merzlikin in the lead role, since he seemed very similar to the real Koshkin. If you look at old photographs, the resemblance is indeed obvious. Although the actor said that this is not the point. The main thing is to create an image of the hero of his time, for whom the public was placed above the personal.

The actor tried very hard, was passionate about the role, but it was difficult to overcome the cardboard texture. It seemed to many that what they saw on the screen was offensive to real heroes. Critics called the picture among the worst at the end of the year.

Funniest Role – Straight Director

In 2021, the short film White Heterosexual Man by Gleb Ross was released, and Andrey Merzlikin ventured to work with an unknown director, the son of the famous cinematographer Slava Ross.

The action takes place in the near future. Andrey Merzlikin plays a director who professes traditional values. He dreams of making a film called “Boys Don’t Cry” about real male friendship, where the characters intend to put an end to the illegal activities of a garbage processing enterprise.

Before you get the right to make a movie, you need to pass the commission. It consists of strict and comical experts: a line producer and a masculine creature in a woman’s dress Valera-Karina, an associative producer and a non-binary person who insists that there should be fewer white heterosexual men in the group, dark-skinned Zhan Grigoryevich – either a woman or man. The exotic meeting is headed by a guest from the censorship department, Kira Vladimirovna.

The story about ordinary guys and traditional values ​​is not on the agenda. “Your boyfriends are both white and Russian. Why is it not an Uzbek, not an Ingush?” They tell the director. Another important point for obtaining a rental certificate is the presence of non-white actors.

The hero of Merzlikin loses his patience: “Can you imagine this extras in a barbecue in the Chelyabinsk region?” But he is given to understand that “a white heterosexual man will not have a kin” if he does not listen to the wishes.

With the words “I’m leaving the cinema altogether,” the unfortunate director turns into a monster and … bites off the heads of the experts! Merzlikin can be very funny if the director skillfully plays with his ideals and principles and finds the right intonation. No self-irony and reflection is required, and the effect exceeds all expectations. Be yourself – an iron rule for the actor Merzlikin.