On the TNT television channel and the PREMIER platform, the show of the flight "Flight" - dramatic history about the office of the construction company office, the life of which can no longer be the same after they were all late for the plane, all passengers of which were killed as a result of a plane crash. The desire to start a new life from the heroes performed by Oksana Akinshina, Pavel Tabakov, Mikhail and Nikita Efremova, Evgenia Dobrovolskaya and Yulia Khlynina Veliko, but they have the right to the second chance - a big question. It was about this that, as well as about star casting, the difficulties of filmmaking and luck, which plays a huge role in life, we talked to the director and the author of the scenario of the flight "Flight" by Peter Todorovsky-younger.
You not only became the director of the series, but also wrote this story. Tell me why the life of your heroes began?
I wanted to tell a story about a painful awakening when people start gradually to analyze their lives and try to radically change it. For this I needed the circumstances that could simultaneously turn the life of several people at once. Then I decided that the proximity of death was good conditions for the implementation of this idea and from here an idea with a plane crash appeared.
Just this initial event reminded me of a franchise "", resolved in a completely different genre.
We did not have any reference, all the more I did not think about the "destination", which, for his shame, did not even look. I know that there is such a film, but I am not his fan.
When they say that everything starts with a plane crash, waiting for some epic start, you also have such a rather quiet. That is how you saw initially this point of reference or still implied a certain action in the spirit of the conditional ""?
I understood what genre I want to work and just like to start the series with a chamber story, a private event, from which, then, as I hope, a big drama grows. No matter how the complexoral genre of speech did not go. Another question that I wanted, of course, somehow this story to sharpen, to watch the series was fascinating, so I tried to flash the series and the criminal plot too. But it was not the main thing for me.
All your heroes have a completely different fate. How did these characters be born if they had real prototypes?
Many of these heroes are written from nature, but, of course, not 100%, after all, when you write a script and try to develop characters characteristics, real stories become a certain mosaic. At first I came up with Iru, which Oksana Akinshina plays, and understood that the pilot I want to do about it. And then, others gradually came up with: I understood that there would be a Zhabenko and that he would be exactly the fact that there would be other heroes of the office. But the kitten (Character of Julia Chlynina - Approx.), Probably, came up later.
Interestingly, the story was born from a female character. The series still has this gender polyphony. It was easier for you to write about a woman?
I generally love to write about women, I am interested in me. When creating a series of release, which I wanted to start, as I said above, from a private story, I had an idea with such an ideal wife or at least a woman who is very trying to be, and faces a coup, rethinking your life. In reality, I know a lot of women who seem to me, something like the middle-aged crisis occurs much more often than in men, about which, mostly, and speak in the context of such a crisis. Rethinking very important, even global things - such as marriage, motherhood, self-realization, relationships with parents - now, it seems to me very common and I was important to tell about it.
It also becomes relevant - more and more often the films and TV shows are talking about women. Moreover, the "Flight" actually looks in the Pandemic era, which many, in my opinion, forced to rethink their lives. Now, the release of the series, did you think that he can resonate ordinary people of today or this story is always relevant?
It is difficult for me to judge how important this story is relevant at all times and whether this series can be interesting how you expressed the usual viewer. You know, I do not consider myself a big intellectual and astrett, and it seems to me that I tell about things that understand most, although, of course, I can make mistakes on this. Whether "flight" is interesting to a wide audience, I do not know, but if it is, I will be happy about it.
It's just our movie for a long time reproached that it is scary far from the people.
Our movie is very different and always so it was. Movies that are far from the people, not so much, especially if we talk about the series. On the contrary, both producers, and directors, and screenwriters wanted to be with the people, closer to the people, just often this desire degenerated into some kind of insincerability, vulgarity and stupidity.
Continuing the conversation about your heroes, how quickly the project casting has developed and, maybe the actors themselves participated in the development of their characters?
Casting was not born immediately, it was a very long and difficult process. Thank God, a large number of talented artists became interested in our history, and we had a choice. As for the influence of actors on characters, this is a difficult question. In principle, we almost all the series were removed according to the scenario, but, naturally, when a invented character acquires blood and flesh, there is a certain interpretation. But I believe that casting in this project is something that can be truly proud of. The actors were able to fully and even more express what I was laid in the text.
Who did you search for longer? And who maybe found right away?
You will laugh, but from Dream Caste, who I had only Pasha Tabakov, and all other roles during the casting were rethought. The fact that Misha Efremov is the perfect Zhabenko, it was also clear from the very beginning, but negotiations went for quite a long time, and others came to samples, very good actors. I quickly found YULY Khlynin. But Oksana Akinshina, Zhenya Dobrovolskaya, Nikita Efremova not immediately. And, by the way, we had no task to shoot both Efremov in the series, so simply coincided.
Naturally, I can not ask about Mikhail Efremova, because the story of Zhabenko refers to the tragic events that have occurred. As you think, looking at your series, whether people will treat Efremov differently - maybe through the prism of this hero who passes a certain path of its formation and in some sense of redemption.
I do not know. I can say one thing - I am very sorry for me, and Zhabenko madly sorry. And all the people I gave to watch this series were tested the same feelings. But people are different, I can't predict how they will treat this character and, even more so, through this character to treat Misha.
And didn't you have any discussion after those events - to remove this story or on the contrary to start with it?
On the hero of Misha, this series holds. If we changed something or cut out, we would kill this film. Zhabenko appears not only in the first series, he has quite a lot of scenes and closer to the final, and this would mean that it would have to recall more than half of the series. So no discussion, thank God, was not.
It seems to me that it is also because you are lucky with producers - and. How did you find each other with them?
Even before I met Fedorovich and Nikishov, I really wanted to work with them. I deliberately did what in my power so that I did it. And I hope we worked. Now we started with them with a full-length film and for me it is a huge luck. Fedorovich and Nikishov - incredibly ambitious producers, for which the quality of the final result is of great importance. I learned very much and very much hope that they will be interested in me and on.
Just about your new film with the working title "Healthy Man", which you represented on. I understand that he is also about finding the meaning of life. But if in the "flight", the original event forcing to rethink your own path is from the outside, then in a "healthy person", if I understood your presentation correctly, the hero himself goes to commit a certain act. But it turns out that it still does not help change life.
Not certainly in that way. It's just what he wants to get, it turns out not exactly what he needs. In the final in this scenario, he passes his way to the end and gets what really needs him, unlike many "flight" heroes. So, despite the fact that the "healthy person" is a rather sad story, it is still more optimistic in some sense than "flight."
Recently, the cartoon "Soul" was released, where it also reflects on the meaning of life. In your opinion, why such films, comprehending life, but no longer forcing us, viewers, do some feat, and just live as far as possible, becomes more?
I think there were always films, books, paintings that tried to comprehend life. As for the conditional maidency "Live and all", I disagree with him. In any case, I know a lot of examples from life when people acted exactly from this logic, and they ended tragically. Still, you need to live something, and not just live. For something - it will probably sound too pathetic and demanding, I agree in this. But still something needs to be inside, so that somehow life has been evoked.
And you can change your life? How do you feel about the "second chance", roughly speaking?
Complicated. I do not really believe in the story about the second, the third chance - it still depends on a person. Probably, I do not even know people who, already getting on some rails, suddenly, at some point were able to radically change their lives. Including this series "Flight". Of course, everything affects - and your life, and who are your parents, and in what environment you live. And luck actually plays a huge role in our life. Perhaps a person in childhood receives the code by which he lives further and then widespread efforts and huge spiritual powers to somehow write their own new code. And the worst thing is that even in people who succeed, still laid the code that they are capable of it. So in this sense, I probably, while such a pessimist or fatalist, I do not know.
I distracted by philosophy. Are you afraid to fly on airplanes? And you can remember your some kind of strange flight. Or the one that did not happen - unfortunately or fortunately?
I am not afraid to fly on airplanes, and my wife is afraid and sometimes infects me with this phobia. And some particular flight to remember difficult. Probably, I had the most dumb flying at Solovki, where I flew on some "corn by" or like that. And it was a very strange connection between the very place, in which inevitably you start thinking about the meaning of life, and this aircraft, which at any time can collapse into the icy sea.
How do you see yourself in our industry? "Flight" has become your first director's TV series, and work on the series, it seems to me, is different from work on a full meter. Is this the most luck?
Of course! I was not lucky, by the way, before. But this is also something that you do as the last time in my life. It is difficult and difficult - physically and psychologically. And after each film, and I was lucky to remove them already two, the thought is only one - I will never do this in life, because it is a terrible stress. Therefore, now I do not assume to position myself in the industry. There is a script, a film that I will try to remove as best as possible in the measure of my abilities, and then we'll see.
And the scripts are also stressful for you?
This is not such stress. It is no less difficult to write scripts than to shoot, but from the point of view of the physical, psychological burden, the number of people with whom you have to interact are incomparable things. Over the script you can work, sitting in the country, - to dinner to write something, then walk in the forest, watch the cartoon "Soul".
You are so ideally describing this work now.
No, this is not the perfect work, very complicated, and not everyone gets, especially at the beginning when legs wipe you - this is the fate of the scriptwriter. But still in this profession you communicate only with the editor, producer and director, and not always, and try to write as much as possible. And when you try to engage in directory, there is a feeling that you get to hell, where all something from you want. So from the point of view of stress it is absolutely different things!
The series "Flight" on the TNT channel from January 25.