Short Film Careers of Captain Grant's Children: How the Fates of Young Actors Developed

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

When the television series In Search of Captain Grant was released in 1985, 20-year-old Galina Strutinskaya and 14-year-old Ruslan Kurashov, who played the children of Captain Mary and Robert, were incredibly popular. No one doubted that after such a successful start they would make a brilliant film career, but Strutinskaya played only 9 roles, and Kurashov - 5. Both of them left the acting profession of their own free will and never regretted it. How their fates developed after that - further in the review.

For the first time, Galina Strutinskaya came to the set at the age of 17 - in 1983 she starred in the youth comedy "Talisman". In the corridors of the film studio. Gorky once saw her assistant Stanislav Govorukhin, who was looking for actors in the film "In Search of Captain Grant", and invited the girl to audition. So, thanks to a happy coincidence, Strutinskaya got the role of Mary Grant.

When filming began, she was only 18 years old. While working on the film, Galina got married, and a year after the premiere, she gave birth to a child. A year later, she continued to act in films, playing 7 more roles, but all of them were episodic and subtle. The role of Mary Gran remained the only major and brightest in her film career.

Together with her husband, Galina Strutinskaya moved to Germany. This marriage soon broke up, but the actress did not want to return to her homeland. After that, she married a second time, to a German official. This union did not last long either. After 1990, Strutinskaya did not act in films anymore. She trained as a beautician and opened a beauty salon.

Today, 54-year-old Galina Strutinskaya admits that she never regretted leaving the acting profession and moving to Germany - she is not sure that her fate would have been happier in Russia. Today it is difficult to recognize that very touching girl Mary in her - even with red hair, she said goodbye a long time ago, having dyed her hair blonde.

Ruslan Kurashov was the youngest actor in the film "In Search of Captain Grant" - when the shooting began, he was only 14 years old. He grew up in a creative family: his father was a soloist of the folk dance ballet in the studio of the Pyatnitsky choir, and his mother was an art critic and host of programs of the same choir. For the first time, Ruslan came to the set by accident, which he later told about: "".

But his film debut was another role - Robert Grant. Once the director Stanislav Govorukhin saw a photograph of Ruslan Kurashov in the file cabinet and decided to invite the boy to audition. His competition was very serious - Fyodor Stukov, already known throughout the country as Tom Sawyer from "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fin", applied for the role of Robert Grant. But he noticeably grew fat in the time that had passed after filming in this film, and the role went to the inexperienced Kurashov. The cast turned out to be brilliant, but the boy was able to understand how lucky he was only years later: "".

On the set, he had a hard time, a 12-year-old teenager faced such tests that not every adult actor could withstand. Kurashov recalled: "". Despite the fracture, he continued to act, because there was no time to wait for his recovery, and the director did not want to look for a replacement for him. As a result, in some shots, you can clearly see that Robert Grant's left hand is in a cast.

Because of the filming, the teenager missed school, but this film became more than a school for him. Stuntmen were engaged in sports training with him, and Stanislav Govorukhin himself taught acting lessons. Before that, Ruslan had never read or learned so many texts and on the set at first he could only think about not mixing up the words. To overcome his stiffness and develop his speech, the director forced him to memorize large excerpts from Taras Bulba. Within six months, the boy was ready to play anything. And the governess went through the school program with him, however, he constantly dodged lessons. The greatest pride for him was that he was able to get used to the role and cope with all the director's tasks, and the greatest happiness was that he was able to purchase a moped with his fee.

After the premiere of the film, 14-year-old Kurashov woke up famous. He received bags of letters, and at first he tried to answer everything, but then he realized that it was simply impossible physically. The boy managed to avoid star fever: when one day he was indignant at the low grade put to him in class and declared that he was acting in films, the teacher quickly put him in his place: "You are not the first, you are not the last." And after that all his arrogance passed.

After that, Ruslan Kurashov played 4 more episodic roles in the cinema, and since 2002 he has not appeared on the screens any more. After school, he entered the Academy of Slavic Culture at the choreography department and, like his father, became a ballet dancer of folk dance. At first, no one believed in his talent - they said that he was taken to the studio only because his parents worked there. But Kurashov was able to prove his own worth as an artist. And he was so carried away by dancing that he decided not to enter the theater university at the acting department.

For 10 years Ruslan Kurashov performed as a member of the Gzhel ensemble, and then moved to the Academic Song and Dance Ensemble of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. He successfully realized himself not only as a dancer, but also as a choreographer and choreographer. On February 19 he will turn 49 years old. Today, he calls filming "Finding Captain Grant" the greatest adventure of his life.

On the set of this film, a lot of interesting things happened: How Captain Grant was searched for in Crimea and Bulgaria.