Irina Apeksimova: biography, personal and creative life of the Russian actress

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

At the very beginning of the daring nineties, viewers of the post-Soviet space discovered on their television screens a young, unfamiliar and very interesting actress. Irina Apeksimova was not like any of her female colleagues, it was difficult to call her a beauty, but it was impossible to forget, she was very original. She played roles in not very expressive melodramas and TV shows, but she did it great, creating some special image, stylish and defiant.

Childhood

The biography of Irina Apeksimova began in the hero city of Volgograd, which was still called Stalingrad just five years before her birth. This significant event happened - the birth of the future actress - in 1966, in a family of people directly related to art. Viktor Nikolaevich Apeksimov worked in the field of musical education, and the mother of the future actress, Svetlana Yakovlevna, a former Odessa resident, did the same. The older brother, Valery (he has a different surname, Svet), became a jazz pianist, and then went to America, where he achieved fame.

The very atmosphere inThe family was permeated with the rays of creativity, and it is no wonder that Irina grew up as an extraordinary girl who tried from childhood to ignore the rules prevailing in society. While studying at Volgograd School No. 9, she was not inferior to the boys in the quantity and quality of pranks, she could easily take part in brawls, and considered every random excellent grade received as a major failure.

Odessa and mom

At the age of thirteen, my mother divorced my father and, taking Irina with her, returned to her native Odessa. Then in this city there was a school with a theatrical bias, and they sent the girl to it.

Odessa dialect is generally sticky, and especially to those who have recently arrived in this southern city. Indigenous people either get used to it and in general “do not hear it point-blank”, or have a stable immunity to this accent. Odessaisms stuck to Irina, it seemed, tightly, and the worst thing is that she herself did not notice this at all. It is this circumstance that explains the first failure when trying to enter the Moscow Art Theater School-Studio. But the creative biography of Irina Apeksimova was just beginning, she understood that hard work lay ahead, and therefore she was internally ready for it. The Odessa operetta has always been condescending to the presence of a kind of reprimand, especially when you consider that many of its artists and even leaders themselves sin with it. Moreover, it was necessary to work in the corps de ballet.

Hard work, especially when done on yourself, pays off. The ability to control one's own body is achieved by training until the seventh bloodysweat. The next year there was another attempt, unfortunately, also unsuccessful, and for the same reason.

Volgograd and admission to the Moscow Art Theater School

Irina Apeksimova spent the next year in her native Volgograd, trying to forget the Odessa speech. On the Volga, the reprimand is different, and also differs from the ideal, but the result of selfless efforts was the successful overcoming of difficulties. In the Volgograd Musical Comedy, they managed to get rid of the wrong accent, and at the same time get new skills in stage acting.

Failure with admission depressed Irina, but the girl was especially upset by disbelief in her vocation of her own father. Viktor Nikolaevich appealed to prudence, offered to look in the mirror and do something more practical or, at worst, reliable. However, a dream is a dream. By her own admission, Apeksimova, the desire to succeed in the acting field was in many ways an attempt to prove to her father that she had talent and will. Time has shown that both were enough.

Chekhov Moscow Art Theater

The third attempt was successful. I was also lucky with fellow students, who were Evgeny Mironov, Vladimir Mashkov, and also Valery Nikolaev, whom Irina Apeksimova even married. It was also lucky that Oleg Tabakov himself was the head of the educational process.

After graduating from college, she entered the troupe of the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov, where she served until 2000. She had a chance to play the roles of Maria Mnishek in "Boris Godunov", Sophia in "Woe from Wit", Elena Alexandrovna in "Uncle Vanya", BaronessShtral in the play "Masquerade" and many others.

Film work

Already the early films with Irina Apeksimova (starting from 1987) were interesting, the actress was lucky. Having played Ksyusha in the drama "The Tower" directed by Trigubovich, she immediately declared herself and demonstrated remarkable talent. In Zheregay's "Dissident", success was reinforced. Then came the series: "Little Things in Life", "Birthday of the Bourgeois". But there were also real successes, such as "Mu-mu" (Irina Apeksimova played a foreigner, Frenchwoman Justine), "Chekhov and Company" (wonderful adaptations of the stories of the great Russian writer), "Cage", "Men's Revelations", based on the short story, written by Renata Litvinova.

Very solid serial films "Death of the Empire", "Northern Lights" and "Yesenin" made it possible to reveal the original talent of the actress, since her characters corresponded to the already developed stereotype of a strong-willed and purposeful woman of an adventurous type with some hint of bitchiness, supported by the peculiarities of the external appearance and high-quality makeup.

The desire to get out of the usual image for everyone, to become someone else besides the on-screen vamp, prompted the actress to take up directing. The Ukrainian-Russian project "The Sleeper and the Beauty" was the first experience in this field.

Versatility of talent

Personal life of Irina Apeksimova stalled in 2000. The actress divorced her husband, Valery Nikolaev, with whom she lived for five years. Joint work in the "Birthday of the Bourgeois" became impossible, and therefore the character, whose role she played,screenwriters killed. Which did not shake Irina's confidence in her giftedness, and it was during this period that her creative career took off.

The theater company "Bal-Ast", later renamed in honor of the owner, became another confirmation of the versatility of Apeksimova's personality. Roman Viktyuk expressed a desire to work together with this creative team, they staged several entreprises, including Our Decameron XXI (a play by Edward Radzinsky) and Carmen.

Unexpectedly, Irina Apeksimova also sang. The program “Two Stars” laid the foundation for this, and when it turned out that she also succeeded, things started to go. Recordings of yard songs were especially successful, the actress learned some of them in Odessa. They sound fresh and perky, young people like them, and older people are reminded of many things….

Is Apeksimova married?

The fate of such an outstanding and multifaceted artist, of course, arouses public interest. Many are curious to know what kind of people the husbands of Irina Apeksimova are, how many there were, what is the current matrimonial status of the star. For better or worse, it’s not yet necessary to talk about spouses in the plural. The family of the actress is her daughter Daria. Being a self-sufficient and strong person, Apeksimova is in no hurry with new marriages, although there is no doubt that proposals are received from time to time. She is currently single. How long? Time will tell. She herself does not want to talk about it.