Mikhail Kononov: "You need to play so that you are not ashamed in front of anyone"

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

Name Mikhail Kononov takes an honorable place in the history of Russian cinema. The role of the young teacher Nestor Petrovich in the film "Big Change" became the "calling card" of the actor. According to Kononov, all his life he played so that he would not be ashamed either in front of the audience or in front of his conscience.

The future actor was born in 1940 in an ordinary family that has nothing to do with art. Nevertheless, from his school years, Mikhail Kononov was very artistic. He and his classmate Andrei Smirnov, who later became a famous film director who shot the film "Belorussky Station", took an active part in amateur performances: friends put on plays, prepared performances for school evenings. It was this hobby that became fundamental in Kononov's desire to become an actor.

Mikhail Ivanovich entered the M. Shchepkin VTU, and after graduation he was accepted into the troupe of the Maly Theater. In addition to the theatrical stage, the actor mastered the film set. Mikhail Kononov got the role of simple, "bright" heroes. He himself considered himself a tragicomic actor.

Kononov became very famous for the role of Alyosha Bychkov in the 1967 film "Head of Chukotka" directed by Vitaly Melnikov. The extraordinary adventures of the young clerk, who was forced to take over the management of Chukotka's affairs, pleased the audience.

And Mikhail Kononov's "calling card" was the role of the young history teacher Nestor Petrovich in the 1973 four-part comedy "Big Change". The audience simply adored the entire cast of the motion picture. Mikhail Kononov himself was very skeptical about the film that made him famous.

In his unpublished memoirs, he wrote:.

Mikhail Kononov also perfectly coped with the role of a fairy-tale hero. He starred in such films as "Guest from the Future", "Finist - Clear Falcon", "Rings of Almanzora". Despite the fact that he starred in supporting roles, Mikhail Kononov knew how to turn his characters into equal heroes.

With the onset of perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fate of Mikhail Kononov, like many other actors, turned out to be unenviable. There were no job offers, and when commercial cinema began to appear, the actor refused roles, since he believed that shooting in low-standard films was not for him. Kononov said that shame in front of his deceased friends-actors does not allow him to take part in such "nonsense". In the 1990s, Kononov tried to make reports for television, but it was one-time earnings.

Over time, Mikhail Kononov had to sell his Moscow apartment, because his and his wife's pension was barely enough for food. The actor built a small house in the village of Butyrki in the Moscow region and moved there.

The last for Mikhail Kononov was the role of the janitor in the 2006 film "The First Circle". The actor was very happy when he was invited by director Gleb Panfilov. At the time of filming, Mikhail Ivanovich was very sick, each line was given to him with difficulty. For this role, he received a fee of 20 thousand dollars, which allowed him to pay off debts. When the actor passed away in 2007, he was 67 years old.

In "Big Change", both recognized cinematographers and novice actors, for whom the film was an excellent start, starred. Among them was a recent graduate of VGIK Irina Azer, whose beauty was so "non-Soviet" that it gave rise to rumors about her exotic origin.