Last year, their film "A man who surprised everyone" was at all on the lips and marked at many film festivals, including Venice, where the performer of the main women's role Natalia Kudryashova received a prize as the best actress. Directed by Natalia Merkulov and Alexey Chupov - a couple of victorious. They consider their union with a mutually beneficial partnership of two opposites. And how otherwise, if Natalia received from the former wife Alexey "Instructions for the use of her husband"? About all this and many other things - in an interview with the "Atmosphere" magazine.
- Alexey, Natalia, do you remember the details of the first meeting?
Alexei: It was thirteen years ago. That day Plushenko won the Olympics. I, being visiting, watched the finale of figure skating, and here friends called me, offered to see, having stopped me.
Natalia: And I was just with these people, and drove off the scenario meeting. And it was February 17 - a birthday friend, which was just driving.
- It turns out, friends were Cupids ...
Alexei: No, they did not plan anything like that.
Natalia: And our acquaintance did not promise anything good in the future: some kind of man with a bottle of beer fell on the back seat next to me, I breathe alcohol couples and literally choking an emotional story about Plushenko. I thought that this is some kind of teleoperator-alcoholic, and, of course, felt a sharp rejection, but persuaded herself a little bit to get to the place and quickly dump it there.
Alexei: I have the first impression that the girl is very close, but beautiful. An excellent floor was always interested. Especially if I met a lady without a satellite, she automatically attracted me. I was just a post-stroymatic period - I just divorced, and all women attracted me. And Natasha was special, immediately it was visible - smart, and such in Moscow this is so accidentally you will not meet. Not the city.
- Natalia, as I understand it, you were in a similar situation - also after a divorce ...
Natalia: Yes, and in no hurry to get married again. I then had a novel with a married man.
"Our acquaintance did not promise anything good"
Photo: Nora Jeene
- Your common paintings tell about the difficulties of close convergence with other individuals ... I suspect, and it was not easy for you.
Natalia: Yes, I'm getting used to people for a long time, and then I also give away from them for a long time. Therefore, on the set, where the team is rotated, it is not easy for me. When someone from the kinobroup change, it's right tragedy for me. Naturally, in personal life the same situation.
Alexei: Natasha is a traditional introvert, and I, as she classified me, is an exteroid extrovert. This is such an open person, manicly finishing with attention to himself. That is, when I do not notice me, I chash and do everything possible to attract attention. (Smiles.) I was not going to limitate only one fleeting meeting with Natasha. I persuaded my friends to invite her just for the birthday celebration. At first they resisted under the pretext, which barely know this girl, but I was convincing.
Natalia: I came there from another feast and was already a slightly heated.
Alexei: At some point, Natasha was laughed across the table and took off the leaf of parsley from my lip. I appreciated this as a special mark of attention. I'm so arranged: I find it difficult to believe that I can not like someone.
Natalia: In fact, I was just shown that he had a grass from his mouth. For this table, another young man had a focus on this table, and at the end of the festival, he, being on the car, suggested bringing me to the house. I was not against, and then Lesha said that he lives around, and too sat in the car.
Alexei: Thus, it did not allow to care.
Natalia: At that time, I absolutely confused in my relationship with married men, I did not know where to do them all, so I decided not to start new ones. But Lesha did not lose me, constantly thank me all sorts of invitations, and I have already become awkward for my immune. I decided that you can drink at least coffee with a person, especially since we worked nearby, in the area of the Metro Kuznetsky Bridge. We agreed to meet in the shopping complex, but I was discharged a phone, the chances of going to zero, how suddenly I saw Lesha, who somehow intuitively quickly found me in one of the shops. This impressed me. However, as a further conversation. It was like puzzling.
Alexei: Natasha argues that it was then that I fell in love with me.
Natalia: You know, as it happens: Surrounding you, a group of Gypsies will wake up, it will make it disappear, and later you can not be in a sense, as it made such a disgrace - I gave all the money. Here happened to me about the same. I sat, I didn't think bad about anything wrong - but the space around was changed. Lesha, in his characteristic manner, noticed that I did not go red lipstick, I still blurted out something, and then ran to work. I also went in thought of my affairs, but only going out on the street, I discovered that the bag and a fur coat left in that cafe.
"I did not seek a partner woman, like-minded people. Let many agree with me, but for me a primary beauty, I will not cut"
Photo: Nora Jeene
- Alexey, since then have you learned to talk to my wife compliments?
Alexei: Natasha is such a person that all nice words, addressed to her, it is necessary to unrigible. She picks up to intonation, to the lined sense inside phrases. If somewhere stuck - you will be perceived incorrectly. And she also hates surprises.
- It should be noted that you have absolutely different "sandboxes": Alexey, you were born in the capital, in a prosperous, quite a wealthy family, studied in Germany at school at the embassy, and you, Natalia, lived in the suburb of Irkutsk, near Taiga ...
Natalia: Yes, in the village of Edogon, in a wooden house, literally in the forest, and with amenities on the street to any weather. Today I can not even imagine, as in the minus forty we visited this restroom. And I remember, did not even suffer. And in Irkutsk itself, I was when I went to enter the university at the Faculty of Journalism.
- What do you initially have different starting positions, never prevented?
Natalia: I arrived in Moscow at twenty-six years and by that time I had already stopped, fortunately, to shy my rustic origin. Because in Irkutsk, where I was a correspondent, TV presenter, chief editor of the channel, I tormented me. Sometimes I even instilled a little: I said that not from the village, but from the small town of Tulun, who was next to us. I even lied my first husband that I am urban. Then he had to lead to his real homeland, and he was shocked, of course.
Alexei: We met not young when parents play some role, and already people with past, adults, independent, and we did not confuse some facts of biography. I turned thirty-three years old, I was already my father myself, so anyone was not inclined to coordinate my actions and ask the Council.
- You had some taboo with whom you did not want to put up in a relationship?
Natalia: Based on the fact that I had a happy marriage, some painful experience of the marriage I did not have. I myself destroyed that my union herself, going to Moscow. The husband was categorically against the move, but in a different way I could not - self-realization was paramount. At the age of twenty five, being the news director, I found myself depressed, as I did not see more prospects in Irkutsk. I was vital to move on. Of course, after our parting, I was worried, I was afraid that I wouldn't meet such a worthy person ... But these thoughts drove myself, otherwise it would not survive in such a mood in the capital.
Alexei: By the way, I also had a completely prosperous long marriage, however, to some moment. I then earned a little, but as a piercer often went on business trips and was absent at home. This circumstance, most likely, was the cause of the collapse of the relationship. Before the second marriage, I asked former wife to make a memo, where it would be described on the items, because of what we all were upset. And she handed me this detailed list.
Natalia: I am so grateful to her! Imagine, get a husband with instructions!
"I myself destroyed my marriage, going to Moscow. The husband was categorically against the move, but self-realization was paramount"
Photo: Nora Jeene
- What items were the main?
Alexei: The fact that treason is evil. Natalia: the very first point was the understanding of the neighbor: you need to hear a person with whom you live under one roof.
- Period of lapping to each other was difficult?
Alexei: Natasha has a powerful character, like my mom, and then I was not accustomed to me.
Natalia: Lesha so skillfully let me dust into the eyes that I woke up only five years later. Just when he had a crisis for finding himself in this world and I was face to face at all with the enchanting guy with whom we have so much began. It was clear that it was urgent to do something. Our relations saved joint projects. True, the scenarios at Lesha initially did not really succeed, and we fell into poverty. I scold myself that I had a loved one with a good monetary office, doubted whether he had to him ... But later the situation was leveled, the money appeared, and now the authors and my husband and my husband and I are a pretty expensive.
Alexei: I can say about myself that I have not been looking for a woman partner, like-minded people. Beauty is primary for me. Let many agree with me, but I will not cut. And, moreover, your favorite should be interesting. For me, family happiness is when you are with a spectacular woman and you are not bored with her.
- In one of the interviews, you really confidently admitted that professions learn from my wife. Natasha - lady and younger than you ... really?
Alexei : And what about! In the field of cinema Natasha - my chief teacher! It has a unique natural ace on a good cinema. And then, you will not even imagine how my wife is internally a free person than me. This quality is also an example for me.
- You write scripts together, take off ... Tell us about your "creative cuisine," as usual happens?
Alexei: Since I am "Owl", and Natasha - "Lark", I write text at night, send it to Natasha and go to bed. She gets up in the morning, reads, makes their own adjustments, and to dinner, when I wake up, we all coordinate, we often argue often. But before that, there is a preparation process when we walk, discuss the idea, we make the mark.
Natalia: The text base is precisely Alexey - it is our main screenwriter. And on the set, I already have a command.
- Talented women directors are not so much, and they say, they have a male character ...
Alexei: Natasha is exactly a male character. She always tries to control everything and wants everything to develop as she conceived.
Natalia: Isn't that women's features?
- Did you have the workers?
Natalia: Yes, not household. Lesha can be thirty times asking for garbage, but it will not lead to the result.
Alexei: I have a pathologically scattered comrade, I forget a lot of things in this sense, I am not a reliable support. But I adore order and strictly follow him. If Natasha scatters something - remove.
- Curious, judgments about people and art do you coincide?
Alexei: Natasha has a thinner taste, so not always.
Natalia: I think that by and large coincides - we look in one direction. Another thing is that the truth gets different ways. But both invariably catch the flames, although Lesha and the Falling Fall.
Alexei: In order for me to recognize, the wrong enemy is in front of me, I have a wife. (Smiles.) In general, I found that Natasha literally has a third eye. She can feel such nuances that are available to a little. And at the same time she is generous. It was my discovery. At first, I did not even suspect about him.
Natalia: And I did not guessed that Lesha was able to be so caring. Here I think in large forms, I can not endure any small things, mess around with documents, fill in the questionnaires, understand the payments, remember passwords of sites, and it always helps me in these questions, without any reproaches. (Smiles.)
- In a collaboration, did you adopt some other habits?
Alexei: It is amazing, but Natasha managed to do without food in the morning, like most Moscow women who prefer a cigarette on an empty stomach and a glass of water. And it is necessary to simply force yourself and enter this mode. There is no positive attitude for the day on an empty stomach.
Natalia: Yes, I finally learned to have breakfast. Previously, I pushed out of bed for ten minutes before the exit and hardly managed to gather. And Lessa to me, it is that in the morning it is useful to eat tightly that I now do: I get up an hour before serving from the house, I am pretty cooking, then we sit down to the table, and everyone eats, staring into your computer, and between us sits Our favorite is the British Cat Fanny. (Smiles.) And there is some kind of buzz! It would seem that we already work together and could at least break the breakfasts to bring apart, but no, we do it together.
"I was nearly not at all with the enchanting guy with whom I all had so rosy. We were saved joint projects"
Photo: Nora Jeene
- Natasha, you said that you do not like surprises, and how did you respond to the proposal of the hands and the hearts, which Alexey did you five years ago on the scene of the "Kinotava"?
Alexei: Oh, this Natasha still can not forgive me. (Smiles.) She really didn't like it. You see, I was in front of Sochi at the Film Festival in Cannes and there I saw on the beach during some kind of event a guy made an offer to his girlfriend. From the side looked extremely romantic.
- Natalia, did you prefer anything?
Natalia: No, I gave him unequivocally to understand that the official marriage is not very located. Wedding with a white dress in my life was already. And I had some prejudice that the design of the relationship could spoil everything. The award ceremony on the stage for me turned around with a natural nightmare. On the one hand, the joy of the presented prize for our picture "Intimate places", and on the other - suddenly Lesha on one knee and with a ring. Undoubtedly, I was dumbfounded, but helped the top manager's habit of taking instant solutions: I said "yes" - there was nowhere to go. But still, in relation to me, it was a barbaric trick. (Laughs.)
- You are luckless not only in family life, but also in professional. The film "A man who surprised everyone" was noted at the festival in Venice. What is this: go on the red carpet of a prestigious international film reform?
Natalia: We did not have time to enjoy this euphoria, because urgently finished ribbon and barely managed. Venice with its atmosphere of triumph, evening dress, champagne, photographers I remember with some flares, as in a dream. And we didn't even be saved this success, and immediately began to start the next work - the TV series "Call Center".
- Is there a place to household in your marriage?
Natalia: I am economic - I built the cottage! Almost on the Internet. I am against, as in Soviet times, stand above the soul from the masters. When entering the network, I ordered materials there, communicated with the builders in online mode ... They photographed every phase of work and sent to the mail. It turned out that the process of organizing the shooting and the construction of the house is extremely similar. Now this wooden Siberian-style house under Chekhov is the best place to rest for us. I even put Molbert there in the attic - I write butter at leisure. Abstraction, landscapes, some collages ... Mostly it is interior, utilitarian things to serve. I am practical - just doing nothing. (Smiles.)
Alexei: This house is the main place for relax. But we also love to ride on the sea. Monthly spent in Thailand. So morally and physically sacrificed for the year, which was sitting in the water and looked at the horizon. It was a cool reboot!