Inga Ilm: biography, personal and creative life of the actress

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

At the beginning of the eighties of the last century, a musical about children appeared on Soviet television screens, which definitely fell out of the cage of conformist Soviet children's films. Those were two two-part film stories about the adventures of Petrov, Vasechkin and their first love, Masha Startseva. Inga Ilm played a beautiful straight-A student in the film.

Children's dreams

The actress was born on December 22, 1971 in Leningrad. Her parents adored noisy companies, they lived, so to speak, in an open house, where the Leningrad creative intelligentsia came. The actors of the Lensoviet theater were also regulars at these "parties". One of them, admiring Inga, her wide eyes in fluffy cilia, advised her parents to give the girl to the cinema, and even volunteered to take her photo to the Lenfilm card file. Inga Ilm herself did not dream of spotlights and the stage at all, she liked biology, and the girl wanted to follow in the footsteps of her father, a doctor. But fate had other plans for her.

Happiness to be an actress

Six years after her photo was in the Lenfilm archives, in the Ilmov apartmentthe phone rang. The girl was asked one question: how old is she now. Upon learning that Inge was twelve, the voice on the other end of the wire cheered up: it turned out that this was what was needed for filming in a new children's television movie. So Inga Ilm ended up in the film crew of The Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin. The film was shot by director Vladimir Alenikov, who got his hands on the funny sketches of the Yeralash newsreel. It was 1983, the time of stagnation, the tape, which turned out to be mischievous and dynamic, was almost banned from showing for the “non-pioneer behavior” of the characters. But the film came out and was a resounding success. And immediately the second, summer part of the sparkling adventures of restless schoolchildren was filmed - "Vacations of Petrov and Vasechkin, ordinary and incredible." The role of an excellent student Masha Startseva, who won the hearts of inseparable friends, was claimed by Nastya Ulanova, a girl who later played Anka in the camp where the heroes came for the holidays. Inga Ilm was approved for the role of Masha thanks to the unanimous choice of her screen buddies Yegor Druzhinin and Dima Barkov, who became her lifelong friends.

On-set antics, ordinary and extraordinary

Never fond of excellent students, Inga played the most "notorious" good boy imaginable. And she studies for five, and everything works out brilliantly for her, according to the script, she even received a medal for saving drowning people. In real life, Inga also did not sit idle, she studied at a dance studio, went to a circle of writers, was a junior, was engaged in horse riding at the school of the Olympic reserve. In youthAt the age of 12, the girl learned Latin, believing that it should be part of the education of every literate person. The actress recalls the time of the first filming in her life as a fairy tale. The film was made in Odessa, in the evenings young artists ran to the pier, swam, caught mussels and roasted them on a fire. Of course, the guys worked hard and learned a lot, but there were also a lot of hooligan antics. Inga Ilm now recalls with a smile how, having stolen a smoke bomb from the pyrotechnicians, the mischievous people started a fire, and how, smeared with “cinematic” blood taken from make-up artists, they lay down in crowded places and frightened passers-by. Once the guys did a trick by tightly closing themselves in the T-34 tank. They got out of there only thanks to the quick wits of the boys.

The popularity of the young actors was crazy, but it also had a downside. It is difficult for a child's psyche to endure when they recognize you everywhere, point fingers at you and envy you. In addition, for two years, while she was an excellent student on the screen, Inga turned into a loser in her real school.

Acting career and personal life

Further biography of Inga Ilm has been determined. After graduating from high school, the girl entered the Moscow Art Theater School. In one of the interviews, the actress admitted that she achieved success exclusively with her “head”: instead of 1-2 shows, she did 16 shows, thinking about how this or that option could turn out. The debut of the student was the role of Nina in the performance of the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov's "Masquerade". During her studies, Inga acted in films a lot. The public remembered the unpredictable images in the films “You Are”, “Eyes”, “The Seagull”, “A Host of White Princesses”, “Ladder of Light”. Last ofnamed films made a new turn in the fate of Inga. The film was directed by Irish director Gerald Michael Brian McCartney. He was fascinated by the fragile black-eyed actress. After filming the film, they got married. The young mother, according to fashionable methods, gave birth to her son Jason at home, in the water.

American Impressions

At the end of 1993, the young actress Inga Ilm went to America to study English and master theatrical skills at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute. By the way, the famous Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie graduated from this acting school. If at the time of her studies at the Moscow Art Theater School, Inge sometimes had to play cards for money in order to feed herself, now in New York she had to work as a parking attendant and an administrator.

Theatre

The American way of life, where everything is planned to the smallest detail for many years to come, soon bored the actress. A year later, she returned to her homeland. The head of the course, with whom the girl studied at the school of the Moscow Art Theater Studio, the chief director of the theater. Pushkin, Yuri Eremin, took his graduate to the theater he headed. Here she played Princess Mary in the play "Call Pechorin …" based on the play by Nina Sadur, Hermia in the production of Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Masha in the play based on Pushkin's story "Dubrovsky".

Together with classmate Yevgeny Pisarev, they put on a magnificent performance based on the works of Salinger, where Inga played 4 roles in different short stories. In 2001, the actress left the stage.

TV era

Inga has been working as a TV presenter since 1996, leading the Hot Ten rating on RTR, and working on the federal TVC channel. With Dmitry Maryanov, she came up with and hosted a program about the theater “I don’t believe!”, For which she wrote scripts and acted as a journalist and director. Then Inga was the host on the Moscow independent channel VKT. At the peak of her television career, the actress decided on a nude photo shoot. Candid photos of Inga Ilm appeared in Playboy and in Om magazine. The "nudity" of the popularly beloved excellent student Masha Startseva was not forgiven. Inga was condemned and fired. The actress returned to the TV studio in 2006 as the host of the quiz "Big brainbreakers" on the REN-TV channel.

Literature and journalism

The next step in the biography of Inga Ilm was the publishing business. In 2003, together with her husband, she opened the FBI-press publishing house. In 2008, a young woman published her book about Charles Cameron, a Scottish architect who worked at the court of Catherine II. A year later, the actress became the creator and coordinator of the independent literary award "Neformat" for aspiring authors.

Art & Science

In 2010, Inga Valerievna Ilm took up scientific work, taking part in a conference dedicated to provincial noble estates. The start for this was studying at the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, specializing in the artistic culture of Russia in the first half of the eighteenth century.

When Inga Ilm is asked again and again about Masha Startseva fromdistant 80s, she sighs: the image of this girl is her “rock”. But for millions of fans of the actress, it is obvious: she turned out to be even more gifted, interesting and charming than her on-screen heroine from childhood.