He played more than forty-five roles in films. Among them are roles in the films "Squadron of Flying Hussars", "The Truth of Lieutenant Klimov", "Countess Sheremeteva", "The End of the Emperor of the Taiga", "Spare Airfield", which brought him fame as an artist who successfully played the most difficult tricks on equal terms with experienced stuntmen without an understudy. Then, unexpectedly for many, Rostotsky became a director and made the film "St. John's Wort", "Men's Company". A laureate and prize-winner of several film festivals, he is still popular today, when the domestic cinema is going through hard times.

- Andrey Stanislavovich, do you give preference to anyone when communicating with the audience?

- Not an easy question. I will single out some, then I will offend others. I'll answer: "I love everyone!", you'll think, I'm avoiding the question. And yet... Of course, I like those people who know firsthand the specifics of our profession. But I like even more those who can understand and appreciate the work of an actor, respect his work and are able to provide him with selfless help in creating films. Such people, in my opinion, are the military.

- I would like to know why you think so?

"There are reasons. Do you remember the film "Intercept" directed by Sergey Tarasov? There is also the role of a spy superbly played by the actor Vladimir Menshov. This agent in the film received a special task: to find and destroy the receiving antenna that allows us to communicate with our nuclear submarine via satellite. The spy coolly, cleverly crossed the state border, but..... That's when it all started. In the center of events - midshipman (the role of Andrey Rostotsky. - Author). He noticed the intruder from the lighthouse and immediately began to pursue. More than once my hero got into the most unpredictable situations in the film. Sudden changes of clothes, "cool" fights with hooligans and a special service agent are only a weak illustration of what has been said. But whatever stood in his way, the midshipman was always on the trail of the intruder. As a result, the spy was detained and thwarted a carefully prepared operation by enemy intelligence.

In that action-packed film, our volunteer assistants and active participants in the filming were officers, midshipmen and sailors of the marine border brigade. They had the same human qualities that I mentioned earlier.

- Where was the Intercept filmed?

- Near Vyborg, on the island of Vysotsky. Ideal places to create paintings of this genre. It turned out that during the filming days we not only met the sailors, but also became friends.

Reserve officers Valery Makeev and Viktor Zinchenko, for example, are still my most reliable and loyal friends today. After their dismissal, they stayed to live and work in the same places. Zinchenko now heads the team of the port under construction, and Makeev is the head of the hydro service. Both of them are still highly professional, skilled, thoughtful managers. I will even say that both Makeev and Zinchenko are unique people in their own way.

- Who would you like to tell us about the creative personalities that fate has brought you together?

- About Vladimir Pavlovich Basov. We met in the mid-seventies, when he was shooting the film "Days of the Turbins" based on Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard". Basov specially rewrote the text in the expectation that all the characters would sing with their own voices. By the way, I played a young former cadet Nikolka there. He sang and accompanied himself on the guitar. So Vladimir Pavlovich preserved the individuality of the actors. And to create a friendly atmosphere, he came up with something peculiar.

At Mosfilm, filming took place in the same pavilion (according to the scenario, the location of the action is an apartment), and we were allocated a three-room apartment nearby. In one room we rested, in the other we drank tea and ate. Very soon we became good friends and practically became one, the same Turbin family that was supposed to appear on the screen.

- A wonderful actress Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya once said that you can not become a writer, artist and actor, they must be born. In this sense, Andrey, you are lucky: your acting skills are inherited. People's Artist of the USSR, winner of state awards and numerous film festivals, the famous director Stanislav Rostotsky is your father. His films - "It was in Penkov", "Let's live until Monday", "And the dawns here are quiet" have long become film classics. Your mother, the actress Nina Menshikova, is also widely known. Tell me, have you ever faced the problem of choosing a profession?

"No, it wasn't. Yes, I grew up in an acting family. But from an early age, no one told me, much less demanded, that I become an actor. I made the choice of specialty myself. In the tenth grade, I suddenly felt that I couldn't do it without a movie job. When I entered VGIK, I was incredibly lucky. The famous Sergey Fyodorovich Bondarchuk then did not get several people into the group. I joined him in dobor.

- And at the same time, forgive me for being incorrect, you never asked your father for help?

"Never in anything. I didn't ask for his help. Everything I did in the movies and achieved in life, I achieved myself.

- What was your first role?

- After a year of studying at VGIK, Bondarchuk took me to shoot the film "They Fought for the Motherland". There is such an episode. A broken German tank irons our trenches. In one of them, a half-buried and bloodied young fighter throws a molotov cocktail at an enemy tank with a last effort of will. A German car bursts into flames, and a soldier dies. With the performance of this role, my journey to the cinema began. As soon as I starred with Bondarchuk, I received an invitation to shoot in the film "We Didn't Pass This". It is about the relationship of teenagers, the subtleties of the psychological facets of friendship between a boy (my role) and a girl. And then... We started receiving one after another offers from famous directors to appear in their films, only here...

- Something very personal that you don't dare say?

"Not exactly. I thought about the courage of experienced directors to trust young actors with the main roles. You see, cinema is an art form where directors sometimes, without exaggeration, mercilessly exploit the actor's stereotype of the game. Changing it is difficult, and sometimes impossible. But the talent of the director is to be able to "unearth" in the actor what no one else has found before. I remember myself before shooting the film "Squadron of Flying Hussars". About me already in the director's environment there was a rumor that I work without an understudy. At school and at the institute, I was fond of equestrian training, swimming, and in general I was physically hardened and trained. With pleasure participated in films of the adventure genre, where horse racing, chases, fights. I've always liked taking risks... Subconsciously, I dreamed of the main role in this role. Suddenly they call, invite you to shoot the film "Squadron of Flying Hussars". I ask: "Do you need any training?" They respond: "You're a good rider. And to play the role requires riding skills." This is just the place for me, I thought. Not without a certain amount of vanity, I say: "I won't just play some nobleman. Only Denis Davydov." Another director wouldn't even talk to me. But Nikita Georgievich Khubov decided to try me for this role. Five teachers taught: some-French, others-dance, perform tricks, fencing. Filming of the film took place in the Moscow region in the winter of seventy - eight-seventy-nine years. There were forty-degree frosts in those days, and the cavalry regiment that participated in the survey did not give horses because of the weather. The actors still went to the forest, shot various scenes. I think the role was a success. And most of all, the director was happy with the success. The film made me a lot of friends then, and even today it looks interesting.

- Did you mention any friends from the movie? Who are they?

- Great stunt people, in other words, stuntmen. This is Evgeny Bogorodsky, Alexander Andreev (unfortunately, he died). Undoubtedly, Alexander was a great trickster. Today, when shooting a movie, hardly anyone can act as risky as he does. For the first time in the history of Soviet cinema, Andreev's film" Trap for the Jackal " won a prize at the All-Union Film Festival for the work of stuntmen. Alexander Karev, an equally famous stunt performer, was with us in those days. At a recent stunt competition in Toulon, he was seriously injured and is still paralyzed. The French stunt Guild pays him a pension, and he now lives in Paris.

But the most important thing: thanks to this film, I met my main teacher, the head of the stunt team Nikolai Vasilyevich Karpov, and became his student. Today he is a teacher of stage movement, head of the department at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts and at the same time teaches abroad: in Spain, Italy. Nikolai Vasilyevich is a sociable person and does not skimp on his most valuable experience to young stuntmen. At that time, I learned a lot from him, and later we understood each other well in the work on the film "And trees grow on stones".

By the way, I also teach stage movement at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

- In the film "Men's Company", where old friends selflessly fight the mafia, you play the role of a colonel and at the same time act as the director of the picture. Why?

- The eternal struggle with yourself. I really wanted to play the role: after all, the trickster himself. Yes, and the material has accumulated so much that the film was literally "torn from the soul". Why did I, an actor, become a director? I just didn't have enough time to start directing before. .. the time has come, and finally there are the right days for this. And before shooting "Men's Company", I already had the experience of my debut picture. I think that in the future our "Men's Company"will not lie on the shelves.

- Many of your heroes are military people. Have you ever served in the army?

- of course. In the seventy-eighth and seventy-ninth years in the Moscow region, I became a cavalryman in a well-known regiment, which is often used for filming films. On the eve of conscription, I was approved for a role in the film "Squadron of Flying Hussars". But we didn't start shooting it yet. Along with others in the cavalry unit, I took the course of a young fighter. In full - combat training, household work, outfits. Finally, a cavalry squadron was selected for the film. In its composition, I was seconded to a group of actors. That's where I played the lead role in this movie.

- What else is memorable about serving as a cavalryman?

- Officers, experienced soldiers developed my skills in equestrian sports, taught me how to care for horses. Their help was evident in everything. I made some real friends there. That's right they say: those who served were friends.

- Is Stanislav Rostotsky currently making films?

- Now my father has other concerns, more and more dacha ones. He's seventy-seven years old. But to be honest, I'm kind of glad that he doesn't make movies anymore. Because making a film requires the director to exert such tremendous mental and physical strength that not all young people can stand it. He told me once: "If you're going to make a movie, and if you want to, I'll be your artistic director." My father can do it now: give useful tips, share his experience. But to pull the whole shooting process, yes today...

- Tell me, and your mother - actress Nina Menshikova, after the acclaimed film "Let's live until Monday", what other significant roles did she play?

- You see, she then played a lot of roles, but the pictures were not very popular. Among the famous films are: "Love of the earth"," The Secret of the Yellow Room " in the title role with Vyacheslav Tikhonov. Yes, and together with me, she starred in the film "Mr. gymnasium". This picture covers the period of the beginning of the Russian Civil War. I play the high school student, and his mother is my mother.

- You, Andrey Stanislavovich, mostly play roles in films of the adventure genre. And suddenly the image of Tsar Nicholas II. Has this role become a milestone in your career?

- To a certain extent, yes. But I remember working more with great Russian and foreign directors. It turned out that I played the role of Tsar Nicholas II in the films "Mother" by Gleb Panfilov, "Dreams" by Karen Shakhnazarov, "Europe Danced a Waltz" by the Czech director Otto Karvavra, "Rift" by Sergey Kolosov.

Otto Carvavra was the first to try me for the role of Nicholas II, but while he was "starting up", I already starred in Panfilov. The greatest impression was made by the Czech director Karvavra. He is a world-famous classic of Czech cinema, professor at the Czech Academy of Arts. In the Czech Republic, he is called "Pan Professor". He has not just films, but such paintings-parables, philosophical things, like our Sergey Bondarchuk. So, to make his film, Otto Carvavra gave us, the actors, lists-characteristics for our characters. In other words, extracts from works of literature, memoirs. The result is a deeply philosophical and interesting picture of the beginning of the First World War. Here, the action takes place around Serbia. Human ideals that come to the fore are the main theme of the film. I play the role of a person who could have solved the issue of war and peace and did not. The film shows those who were involved in the war, who started it, and why.

In general, while preparing for filming, studying the literature about Nicholas II, I was convinced of the deep tragedy of this man's fate. An intellectual who is completely unfit to rule the country, and even in such a difficult historical period. Opinions about his cunning and cunning, in my opinion, are wrong. He was a very gentle, subtle, noble man. He also taught his children not to resist evil by violence. And every day in the war, write letters to your wife and declare your love for her? Is everyone capable of doing this?

- Andrey Stanislavovich, for you, a fan of the adventure genre, there is plenty of material today. What are you working on now?

"Ovid has these beautiful words:' We admire antiquity, but we live in modernity.' Yes, there are really a lot of different textures about Afghanistan and other hot spots right now. But, to be honest, I hesitate to use it, because, in my opinion, the truth is almost impossible to tell. And no one knows what it is. And I don't want to make some kind of sneering action movie like "Rambo" for this or that reason. I would like to make a film about the complicated Russian history. I'm trying to shoot a picture with the working title "Tmutarakan". The script was written by the actor of the Moscow Mayakovsky Theater Yuri Sokolov. This is such an action-adventure movie. The tenth century. Ancient Rus, Tmutarakan Principality, its connection with Novgorod. Five Russian guys go there on horseback with swords. Along the way, they are attacked by different tribes. Of course, there will be chases and fights... Something like The Magnificent Seven movie. The film will feature actors and simultaneously directed by me tricksters Pavel Abdalov, Sergey Lozdeisky, Alexander Gizgizov, Vsevolod Khabarov and others.

- How much does it cost to make such a film now?

- According to our calculations, after the well-known financial events last summer, more than forty thousand dollars for the TV option.

"So the same problems as everyone else. Need sponsors?

"Alas, yes.

- Tell us about your family...

- My wife Marianna is a film critic by training, engaged in science, philosophy of art. Daughter Olga is a schoolgirl. We've been living together amicably for fifteen years.

"Thank you for the frank conversation.

The interview was conducted by Yuri DRAZHNIKOV.

Permanent link to this publication: