How to correct the mistakes of youth and remain an exemplary family man for 30 years: Sergey Puskepalis

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Sergey Puskepalis is one of the most private people in the acting and directing department. He has a hard time getting along with people, very rarely gives interviews and prefers not to indulge in revelations about his personal life. But he adheres to the main principle - not to let down his teachers and loved ones. Sergei Puskepalis found his own path in art and his happiness not on the first try, but all the more valuable for him life acquisitions.

Geography of life

Sergei Puskepalis was born in Kursk, but the geography of his life and work turned out to be very extensive. The actor's father, Lithuanian Vytautas Puskepalis, was a geologist, so the whole family followed him around the vast country. The mother of the future actor was born in Transnistria, was a Bulgarian by nationality.

Sergei's childhood was spent in Chukotka, where there were no theaters, but his father's library was very large. Already in elementary school, Sergei re-read many books and firmly decided to become a pilot. Dad often took his son to work, to the central Chukotka airport, where he served, and Sergei watched the planes take off and land for a long time, listened to the stories of the pilots and dreamed of how he would one day sit at the controls of the plane.

However, after the family moved to Zheleznovodsk, the boy had a new passion: he enrolled in a drama circle and suddenly became carried away. Dreams of the stage gradually replaced the desire to become a pilot. It was there, in the drama circle, that he first saw Elena, the younger sister of his classmate. She was still very small, as it seemed to Sergei then, and he did not have any romantic thoughts at that time.

After leaving school, the young man entered the Saratov Theater School on the course of Yuri Kiselev. After receiving his diploma, he almost immediately went to military service in the navy. After demobilization, he returned to Saratov, worked as an actor in the theater and even managed to marry Elvira Danilina, also a graduate of the Saratov Theater School.

Today, both actors do not like to remember their first marriage. Surely, then they were too hasty to tie themselves by marriage. They also do not talk about the reasons for parting, believing that now each of them has a new life. Only Elvira Danilina once admitted in an interview: both of them did not have enough life wisdom and experience to save a young family.

Re-acquaintance

From time to time, the actor came to Zheleznovodsk, where his parents lived, and went to the very theater studio in which he once met art for the first time. It was there that his second acquaintance with Elena took place. The girl has already grown up, received the profession of a geologist and has become very prettier.

According to a long-established tradition, the entire matured collective of the theater studio in the summer of 1990 went on a hike to Arkhyz. Hiking romance and joint overcoming of difficulties brought the young people closer together, and Sergei firmly decided that Elena would definitely become his wife.

In the winter of 1991, young people signed. Sergei is sure: then, almost 30 years ago, he made the absolutely right choice, Elena turned out to be completely “his” person. In 1993, a son, Gleb, was born in the family, thanks to whom the actor first appeared in films.

And when his son was still very young, Sergei suddenly realized that his creative ambitions were no longer satisfied with the profession of an actor, he wanted something more. Leaving his wife and little son in Saratov, Puskepalis went to enter GITIS and became a student of the directing department of GITIS (now RATI) on the course of Pyotr Fomenko.

Happiness is when you are understood

At first, it was hard for him: at the age of 32, he again found himself on a student's bench, lived in a hostel, trying to spend the scholarship only on the essentials. A little later, he began to take small part-time jobs, began to direct the production of model performances, rented an apartment and was able to transport the whole family to the capital.

Elena immediately found work in Moscow in a commercial company, and Sergei often took his son with him to the Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko. During the entire course, only Sergei Puskepalis had a child, so when Pyotr Naumovich needed a boy for the play "Fro", Gleb Puskepalis took the stage. At the same time, the actor himself doubted for a long time whether it was worth getting involved in all this: taking his son to rehearsals, teaching him the role. It would be difficult for him to allocate time for this, given that he himself combined work with the preparation of his graduation performance.

But Elena took all these troubles upon herself, regularly took her son to the theater, waited for him from the rehearsal. So it was the time when Boris Khlebnikov decided to shoot Gleb in his film "Koktebel". Sergei Vytauto hesitated again, but as a result gave his consent, deciding that such a school would not interfere with his son.

Working in this film changed the life of both Gleb and his father. It was there, on the set in Abramtsevo, where Sergei and Elena came to visit Gleb, that the actor and director met Alexei Popogrebsky. As a result, the acquaintance resulted in the work of Sergei Puskepalis in the film "Simple Truths", although by that time he already considered himself an accomplished theater director and headed the Magnitogorsk Drama Theater. Only once before that he starred in a cameo role with Alexei Uchitel.

Gleb, after filming a movie, firmly decided to become an actor, in 2013 he graduated from the course of Sergei Zhenovich at the RATI and entered the troupe of the "Studio of theatrical art" under the leadership of the same Sergei Zhenovich.

And Sergei Puskepalis never sat still. The geography of his life can be easily traced by the geography of creativity: Saratov, Yaroslavl, Magnitogorsk, Moscow … Elena was often difficult: her husband's lifestyle with his constant moving from place to place did not contribute to the arrangement of the family nest. But she did not grumble and, like a real Decembrist, followed her husband everywhere.

In the end, Sergey and Elena decided that it was time to stop and somehow arrange their lives. They chose their native Zheleznovodsk for permanent residence. True, while Elena supervised the repair and created their family hearth, Sergei was still traveling around the country. However, he is simply not satisfied with what has been achieved and always strives for more. Elena understands this very well. And he waits.

Now Sergey Puskepalis and his wife constantly live in Zheleznovodsk, but at the same time he is the chief director of the Yaroslavl Russian State Academic Drama Theater named after Fyodor Volkov and easily flies to the shooting anywhere in the country. He does not plan to move to Moscow, the life of the capital seems to him too hectic, which did not prevent, however, from opening a restaurant next to Chistye Prudy with his friend German Gromov.

He is constantly developing, looking for new creative ways and solutions and knows for sure: Elena will always support him in all his endeavors. However, this has been the case for all 30 years that they go through life hand in hand.

Vladimir Khotinenko, like Sergei Puskepalis, could have become a pilot, but a meeting with Nikita Mikhalkov, who advised him to pay attention to cinema, turned his whole life upside down. Cinema has become his greatest passion. His marriages fell apart one after another, the director always considered himself a bad father and grandfather, but fate once gave him the opportunity to change everything.