Actor Sergei Koltakov: biography and creativity

Biography

Sergey Koltakov was born and raised in the Altai region. His parents had nothing to do with art and predicted some kind of male profession for their son. His father saw him as a military man.

However, Sergei’s childhood passion for acting led him to drama school. Having received a matriculation certificate, the young man went to Saratov to learn the basics of acting. After studying for a year within the walls of one of the oldest Russian theater schools, Koltakov took the documents and returned home. But he didn’t give up his dream of becoming an artist; he decided to try his luck in the capital.

Later, Sergei Koltakov admitted: “My fault is that I so hated the place of my life - Barnaul - I couldn’t breathe at all: factories and colonies. But there were theaters. This probably inspired me. As soon as the first thought arose in me: I need to run away from here, run, flow and preferably, for some reason, to Moscow. Indeed, I gave up everything after ten, left, lived for a month at the station, because I was so unoriented in space, and in time, and in life.”

The young man went to Moscow to visit his famous fellow countryman Vasily Shukshin. However, on the way, he lost a letter of recommendation written by his father, who knew the writer. But Vasily Makarovich, despite this, warmly received the young man and gave him patronage at VGIK. But Koltakov didn’t have to use his “connections” - his pride didn’t allow him, he didn’t want to break into art through connections. And Sergei, instead of VGIK, decided to submit documents to GITIS named after A.V. Lunacharsky. On his first try, he successfully passed the exams and was enrolled in the first year.

The new life of the Altai boy began: “Once I was listed at the institute as a fairly capable and authoritative beginning student. However, this didn’t bother me at all, because my energy demanded love. This is the realization of oneself as a free citizen - in all possible serious ways... It was love in all its manifestations, it was happiness, which I absolutely cannot regret in any way.”

In 1979, Sergei Koltakov received a diploma in acting education. The parents reconciled themselves with their son’s choice, and the grandmother said with a smile: “Seryozha became an artist - the work is great, you don’t have to do anything, they work well, and most importantly, they stay warm.”

Koltakov Sergei: biography, childhood and youth

He was born in 1955 (December 10) in Barnaul. His parents had nothing to do with cinema. Sergei's father wanted his son to become a military man in the future. And his mother was ready to accept any of his choices.

From an early age, Seryozha demonstrated a love for acting. He staged home performances with disguises and skits. It was quite funny to watch him from the outside.

After graduating from high school (in 1974), the guy went to Saratov. There he entered the theater school named after him the first time. I. Slonova. However, after the second year the guy took the documents.

Theater

After graduating from GITIS, Sergei Koltakov was hired at the theater. V. Mayakovsky, which he recalled: “They took Mayakovsky to the theater, and for the two seasons that I stayed with Goncharov, I never heard him raise his voice at me in all these years. Although everyone around said how he was yelling. This was the school - the school when Tatyana Doronina came out (on stage), when Sveta Misery came out, when Armen Dzhigarkhanyan came out, when Uncle Volodya Samoilov came out, Natasha Gundareva. When this Everything came out, it was such happiness that you were part of it.”

Later, the young artist was drafted into the armed forces, where he, like most young men of that time, gave back to his homeland. Upon returning from service, Sergei joined another acting group, where he worked for three seasons. The artist clarifies: “And then I returned from the army and immediately came to the Stanislavsky Theater to play almost all the main roles. I suddenly began to sing more, my range somehow expanded.”

Since 1989, the artist was for some time a member of the famous Moscow Art Theater troupe, on the stage of which he performed one of his most striking theatrical roles - Treplev in the play “The Seagull” by A. Chekhov.

In the mid-2000s, after a long break, the actor took part in the play of Oleg Menshikov’s Theater Partnership 814 “Dreams of Rodion Romanovich.” The production of the young director Pavel Safonov became, according to critics, an unexpected, innovative interpretation of Dostoevsky's novel.

Sergei Koltakov was given one of the leading roles in the play - Svidrigailov. His ensemble consisted of such famous actors as: Ilya Isaev, Viktor Sukhorukov, Vera Strokova, Timofey Tribuntsev and others.

Later, the actor worked with the same director in the enterprise play “Pygmalion” based on Bernard Shaw, where he played the role of Alfred Dolittle.

Conquest of Moscow

Sergei returned home to have a serious talk with his parents. He informed his father and mother about his desire to enter a Moscow university. As a result, the guy received a blessing. His father gave him a letter of recommendation to his fellow countryman, Vasily Shukshin. Our hero did not even suspect that he was a famous actor.

Upon arrival in the capital, Seryozha discovered the loss of a letter of recommendation and photographs, which were supposed to remind Shukshin of meeting his father. But the native of Barnaul did not despair. He managed to find Vasily Makarovich. The actor, popular in those years, met his fellow countryman as expected: he fed him delicious food, listened to him and put him to bed.

Shukshin sent Sergei to VGIK, handing him a note for one of the members of the selection committee, Boris Babochkin. But our hero failed to get into the university under the patronage of Vasily Makarovich. On that day, Babochkin was not on the commission. And Sergei himself realized that entering VGIK through connections was wrong.

Soon Koltakov became a student at another university - GITIS. He was enrolled in A. Popov’s course. In 1979, Sergei Mikhailovich was awarded the long-awaited diploma. Almost immediately he entered the theater. Mayakovsky. But Koltakov did not work there for long. In 1982, the actor moved to the Drama Theater. Stanislavsky. And that is not all. In 1989 he was included in the Moscow Art Theater troupe.

Cinema

The actor made his film debut while a student in Gleb Panfilov’s drama “Valentina,” based on A.V. Vampilov’s play “Last Summer in Chulimsk.”

The directors noticed the young man and began inviting him to play the leading roles in their films. In 1983, Koltakov played Anatoly Tredubenko, who wanders around prisons and colonies, in Inessa Tumanyan’s crime drama “Accomplices.” The duet for the aspiring artist was Leonid Filatov.

"In the Shooting Wilderness"

Two years later, the actor was invited to play the role of Red Army soldier Fyodor Krokhov in the film “In the Shooting Wilderness.”

The events described in the film take place in 1918 in Russia, weakened by the First World War. Civil war threatens to bring the young Soviet state to its knees. The strife-torn country is experiencing shortages of bread and basic necessities.

At this difficult moment, Red Army soldier Fyodor Krokhov arrives in a small village where the White Guards are about to raid. He is the food appropriation commissioner, and he is faced with an almost impossible task: to convince the peasants to hand over their surplus grain to the state.

The people resist the new order, but Fedor does not give up. He finds hidden peasant goods, and also, with the help of members of the village council, repels the attack of bandits who burst into the village. The conviction and fortitude of the Soviet superman, his faith in revolutionary ideals reveal to the peasants the meaning of the changes taking place in the country.

"Mirror for the Hero"

Next came another film by Vladimir Khotinenko with the participation of the actor - “Mirror for the Hero”, based on the story of the same name by S. Rybas. Here the director cast Koltakov in the role of linguist-psychologist Sergei Pshenichny.

The plot of the sci-fi drama takes place on the eve of Victory Day 1989. Sergei and Andrey (Ivan Bortnik) meet by chance on one of the streets of their native mining town and decide to continue a generally aimless walk together, not even realizing that they are both destined to experience adventures that you don’t see in every science fiction film.

The fact is that suddenly men find themselves in the past, forty years ago... The same city, the same streets - but completely different faces, a different life.

Friends become active participants in the events of the time in which they find themselves, and behave like real heroes. This time travel allows them to gain a new perspective and better understanding of their lives.

At the turn of the century there were breaks in the actor’s cinematic work, but there were also bright roles in such popular films as: the science fiction film by Victor Gres “New Adventures of the Yankees at the Court of King Arthur” (Hank Morgan), the adventure comedy by Georgy Yungvald-Khilkevich “Art live in Odessa" (Benya Krik), social drama by Viktor Prokhorov "Quench My Sorrows" (Boris), art-house film by Vadim Abdrashitov "Armavir" (Semin), action movie by Evgeny Serov "Podkidnoy" (Major Zhenin).

The artist also had a chance to star in one of the highest-rated TV series of the mid-2000s, “Deadly Force-6,” with Konstantin Khabensky, Mikhail Porechenkov, and Andrei Fedortsov. Sergei Koltakov played one of the main roles in the detective story – Krutikov, nicknamed “Motyl”.

Later, the actor took part in two film adaptations of Russian classics by Yuri Moroz: “The Brothers Karamazov” based on the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky (the main role is Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov) and “Pelagia and the White Bulldog” based on the bestseller by Boris Akunin (merchant).

"Summer of Wolves"

In Dmitry Iosifov’s military drama “Summer of Wolves,” the artist played potter Denis Pankratovich Semerenkov, the father of the main character Tosya (Yulia Peresild). This was the second film adaptation of V. Smirnov’s novel “The Troubled Month of Veresen” after the 1976 film of the same name.

The film shows a Ukrainian village liberated in 1944 from the Nazi occupiers. According to the plot, a young lieutenant (Alexey Bardukov), who arrived there after being wounded, is engaged in capturing bandits.

The film stars: Igor Sklyar, Maria Kulikova, Alexander Vorobyov, Mikhail Evlanov, Vera Kavalerova, Maria Zvonareva, Oleg Taktarov.

"Conductor"

In 2012, Pavel Lungin’s musical drama “The Conductor” was released, where the artist played the role of singer Nadezhdin.

Plot: Ordinary tours lead the musicians and the orchestra leader to unexpected revelations. On the eve of his departure, the despotic and harsh conductor learns of the death of his son, whom he had not seen for a long time and whose way of life he could not accept. This news does not make a single muscle on his stony face flinch.

However, the next three days in Jerusalem, where the orchestra performs the oratorio “St. Matthew Passion,” force him and other heroes to throw off their masks, rethink their lives and find the path to God.

The main role in the film is given to music. Its starting point was the oratorio “The St. Matthew Passion,” written by Metropolitan Hilarion, on the basis of which the painting was created.

The leading roles starred: Vladas Bagdonas, Karen Badalov, Daria Moroz, Inga Strelkova-Oboldina, Sergei Barkovsky, Anna Chipovskaya.

"Departing nature"

The actor’s interesting large-scale work took place in Dmitry Iosifov’s television film “The Outgoing Nature.” The director said about the film: “On the one hand, “outgoing nature” is a cinematic term that says: the season is passing, something is leaving that will be impossible to film later. On the other hand, this is the generation we are parting with, time. It is no coincidence that at the end of the film we gave a dedication to the generation of the 70s. This is the generation of my parents, the generation that made their own decisions and was responsible for them. Very often these are people of duty, people of honor.

This is a movie within a movie. People play themselves on the screen and at the same time we see what metamorphoses happen to them outside the screen.” Dmitry Iosifov noted that the equipment of those times was used for filming, and with great difficulty it was possible to find people who knew how to handle them. According to the director, the conflict between the two central characters, Zvonarev and Kuzmenko, is reminiscent of the relationship between Mozart and Salieri: “They cannot live without each other.”

The director invited Sergei Koltakov, whom he knew from an earlier work, to play the main role of Andrei Zvonarev: “Sergei Mikhailovich is, without exaggeration, a master. I don’t even know who has such a professional arsenal, such a range of acting tools: he can play both grotesque and drama without preparation. And the fact that he is rarely filmed is an omission of our cinematic system. We met on the set of Summer of Wolves. And after this collaboration, the question “who will be the main character?” didn’t stand.”

The film featured: Maria Shukshina, Alena Babenko, Igor Sklyar, Lika Nifontova, Anna Chipovskaya, Vladimir Vdovichenkov.

"Catherine. Takeoff"

In one of the largest television projects of recent years, the historical film “Catherine. Takeoff" by Dmitry Iosifov, the actor also took part. This time his hero is a well-known person in history, Nikita Panin, a diplomat, head of Russian foreign policy, and mentor to the heir to the throne, Paul. Count Panin's relationship with Catherine was never truly sincere. A great strategist and gambler, he participated in palace intrigues, often acting in his own interests.

The new film is a continuation of the fate of the great empress, begun in the film “Catherine”. The first picture was dedicated to her path to the throne and the transformation of the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst into the autocratic ruler of a huge state.

According to the plot of the continuation of the series, Catherine has been reigning for the sixth year. The fragile Princess Fike turned into the Great Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna. She is surrounded by intrigue and palace secrets. But she stubbornly leads the huge ship of the Russian state on her course - Catherine ascended the throne to become Great, and nothing will stop her on this path.

The only woman on the throne of Russia, whose glory has survived centuries. There have never been so many fairy tales and myths about anyone else, there have not been so many rumors - but what was she really like? Empress, Russian not by blood, but by her own will...

Series “Ekaterina. Takeoff” opens the most exciting page in the life of a loving woman and a great empress.

The era of Catherine was favorable to daring daredevils - a time of strong passions, extraordinary personalities, bright characters. For actors, participation in such a project is a rare gift of fate, a unique opportunity to play famous historical characters. To the creators of the film “Ekaterina. Takeoff" managed to select brilliant performers for all roles, from main to episodic.

The project was attended by such celebrities as: Marina Alexandrova, Vladimir Yaglych, Sergey Marin, Pavel Tabakov, Igor Sklyar, Mikhail Gorevoy, Leonid Kulagin, Alexandra Ursulyak, Alexander Oleshko, Vladimir Yumatov, Anton Denisenko, Artem Alekseev, Lyubava Greshnova, Yuri Nazarov .

Movies

Sergei Koltakov made his film debut immediately after graduating from GITIS. He starred in the melodrama “Valentina,” which was followed by a duet with Leonid Filatov in the crime story “Accomplices,” which brought fame to the actor. It should be noted that during this period, Koltakov’s filmography had virtually no episodic and unimportant characters.

During the Soviet period, Sergei Mikhailovich managed to work on more than a dozen bright paintings.

In 1987, the actor played the main role in the science fiction film “Mirror for the Hero.” The actor's character, after a quarrel with his father over the differing life values ​​of different generations, finds himself from the 1980s to 1949, and gets stuck in the same repeating day. This adventure helps the hero understand the views of his parents and older people, but ultimately leads to unforeseen consequences.

The next prominent role of Sergei Koltakov was again his role in a film about time travel. This time the actor played the role of the American pilot Morgan in the humorous film adaptation of Mark Twain’s novel “The New Adventures of a Yankee in the Court of King Arthur.” In the story, Hank Morgan accidentally gets lost in time on his own plane and lands in medieval England.

In 1989, the actor’s creative treasury was replenished with the ironic comedy “The Art of Living in Odessa” based on “Odessa Stories” by Isaac Babel. Sergei Koltakov played the main role of the raider Benny Krik. The main difference between the plot of the film and the literary source was the fate of the hero Koltakov. In the film, the raider did not become a revolutionary, but fled to immigration.

Also in 1989, the actor starred in the social drama “Quench My Sorrows.”

In 1991, the main role in the philosophical film “Armavir” was added to the actor’s creative biography. The film tells how, after the tragic death of the passenger ship "Armavir", the main character searches for his daughter, who was among the passengers, and who is not on the list of survivors or the list of drowned.

In the 90s, Koltakov, like many of his colleagues, played more in the theater. From that period, only one film can be singled out, but with an excellent script and excellent acting - the drama “Strostnoy Boulevard”. At the same time, the actor wrote the script, which was favorably received by critics, himself - the film became Koltakov’s debut as a screenwriter.

The film tells the story of a strange day in the life of a failed actor who works as a fireman and slowly becomes an alcoholic. The hero, played by Koltakov himself, meets a talking raven, and this event prompts the former actor to dress up as Pushkin and go to meet people with whom the hero was friends in the past.

The new century has again made Sergei very popular. The actor played leading roles in the action films "Flip" and "Deadly Force-6", in the military drama "Summer of Wolves" and the film adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's family saga "The Brothers Karamazov".

It is interesting that in 2008, for playing the role of NKVD officer, Colonel Boris Burtasov, in the film “Save Our Souls,” the actor received a special award from the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation - he got used to the character so well and managed to realistically convey the character of such a person. The last to be released was the melodrama “The Passing Nature,” and now the actor is working on the historical film “Catherine. Takeoff".

Screenwriter

Even in the last century, the actor was fascinated by writing, he began to write scripts, plays, fairy tales, and prose. In 1999, director Vladimir Khotinenko, based on Koltakov’s script, shot the drama “Strostnoy Boulevard”.

The plot of the film unfolds in an unusual way: One fine morning, the stoker of an ancient stoker in Moscow, Andrei Solovyov, woke up from a hangover and found a hefty black raven on his window, which turned out to be a talking and... drinking bird. In a word, a company was formed, and therefore they drank vodka and ate some bread: in Russian this is called - they got hung over, i.e. improved health. After which the raven tried to take a nap on a stack of books and knocked it over.

And here, among the books with the names of Russian geniuses of poetry and prose on the covers, Andrei discovered an old notebook with addresses and telephone numbers. And this little book brought Andrei Solovyov back to his past life, 10-15 years ago, in which he was not a stoker, but a famous theater and film actor who won the hearts of the public and numerous women.

The main role in the film was played by Sergei Koltakov, and with him in the frame were: Nina Usatova, Vladimir Ilyin, Sergei Garmash, Sergei Vinogradov, Sergei Parshin.

Personal life

The actor does not advertise his personal life; almost nothing is known about it. In one of the interviews, Sergei said that he was married several times, and from his first early marriage he has a daughter. He also admitted that he truly believes only in friendship. He considers his old friend, actor Nikolai Stotsky, to be the closest, time-tested:

“In general, I really believe in friendship. I have experienced many loves, I was only officially married three times, and there were civil marriages. And it all went somewhere, everyone went somewhere, although I can’t spit on any of my loves, on any of these women. And I will never say any bad word, because each one brought some kind of happiness, some kind of joy into life. But this is my destiny, this is my life.

But for some reason everyone left, and what remained was this friendly beginning between me and Kolyanych. My daughter adores him to death and says all the time: “Dad, I’ll marry Nikolasha...” Love can be unrequited: you love, she doesn’t love you. But friendship is never unrequited.”

Interview

About theater, art and favorite directors

“Theater is an amazing thing. In the cinema, something you didn’t do well, didn’t do, didn’t happen, and you fixed it and so went, as they say, with this crap into eternity. And here you can try something every time, you can invent something...

To discover something in life and understand that it is your own property. It’s like a role that you struggle with or do without struggling. And you understand that she lives in you and becomes absolutely carnal, takes you away, and you return on some other level. If the company is still good, if you don’t see dimes in the eyes, you see, there is some kind of flutter of soul there! This, of course, is some kind of impudence, but still it’s something from God: wow, how I swung!”

“Art is the relativity of life in the relative world of life itself.”

“I starred with very good directors - starting with Gleb Panfilov, whom I absolutely adored and idolized, I starred with Abdrashitov.”

About popularity

“When I was filming, for some reason I became very famous, popular, it annoyed me so much. Everyone says, don’t trust an artist who doesn’t need it (fame)... I don’t need it at all. That’s why I lived to see gray hair and don’t have it, thank God. And happy, by the way.”

“I understand that only those who are stubborn and focused on one thing achieve real heights. But I never took what I do seriously. And that’s why I’m somehow probably not included in this phantasmagoria of theater and film makers.”

About the actor

Colleagues unanimously say about the actor that he is an outstanding artist, capable of combining the seemingly incongruous.

Julia Rutberg: “This is such a gift from God to me - for example, that we met in the same performance. Because he is such a huge personality, so 19th century, in terms of education and some of his passions. How wonderfully musical he is in general. How he reads Brodsky. And in terms of what kind of partner and artist he is, I can say, fully aware of it: he is a genius. Seryozha is an absolutely brilliant artist. And at the level that exists today, he is, I don’t know, in the top two or three.”

About Me

“It’s not my fault that I was born. I never loved my face, just from birth, from childhood. I didn’t like my face, my voice, I hated everything about myself. When I saw myself in a movie for the first time, I felt bad, although I was very young, I felt bad.”

“I am generally an uneven person. Perhaps, unlike many, I boil faster, and therefore, of course, I want radicalism. For me, freedom is the definition of everything and an all-determining thing from birth. I don’t tolerate the slightest command over myself, I don’t understand this at all.”

“In general, I have another outlet in life - this is a diary.”

“Sometimes you reflect and think: but the meaning of life is a rather ephemeral thing.”

“Everyone has their own task that they must implement. Everything will be eliminated, everything will go away, it doesn’t happen like that. This is an amazing thing, especially associated with people of my type - I cannot have too much in my life, neither among people, nor relationships. Well, let it all be, and then we’ll be left with nature and me, and the diary, and poetry, and music, and philosophy... Leave this life for yourself in a storyboard.”

Based on materials from Wikipedia, websites: kino-teatr.ru, rusactors.ru, expert.ru, 24smi.org, tele.ru, vokrug.tv, dteatr.ru, lichnaya-zhizn.ru.

Filmography: Actor

• Silver Skates (2020)
• Catherine. Imposters (2019), TV series
• THREAT: Trepalov and Wallet (2017)
• Fishing (2017), TV series
• Catherine. Takeoff (2017), TV series
• Drunk Firm (2016), mini-series
• Departing Nature (2014), TV series
• There will be no winter (2014)
• Doctor Death (2013), mini-series
• Romance with cocaine (2012)
• The Far Side of the Moon (2012), TV series
• Exception to the Rule (2012)
• Conductor (2012)
• PiraMMMida (2011)
• Summer of Wolves (2011), mini-series
• Pelagia and the White Bulldog (2009), TV series
• Kakraki (2009)
• The Brothers Karamazov (2009), TV series
• Hipsters (2008)
• Save Our Souls (2008), TV series
• New Earth (2008)
• Leningrad (2007), mini-series
• Lethal force-6 (2005), TV series
• Throwback (2005), mini-series
• Mom, don't worry! – 2 (2005)
• Children of Arbat (2004)
• Black Room (2000), TV series
• Strastnoy Boulevard (1999)
• Hello from Charlie the Trumpeter (1998)
• Mom, don't worry! (1998)
• Summer People (1995)
• French and Russian love (1994)
• Armavir (1991)
• Soothe my sorrows (1989)
• The Art of Living in Odessa (1989)
• New Yankee Adventures in King Arthur's Court (1988)
• Mirror for the Hero (1987)
• The Life of Klim Samgin (1986), TV series
• Panther Triple Jump (1986)
• Two on the Island of Tears (1986)
• In the Shooting Wilderness (1986)
• Accomplices (1983)
• Valentina (1980)

Sergey Koltakov now

Today, Sergei Koltakov continues to actively act in film, and often receives leading roles.

For example, in 2020, the actor played the main role of the Grand Duke in the parable film “A Bag with No Bottom.” The film was directed by Rustam Khamdamov, and the plot was based on the famous story of the Japanese classic “In the Thicket” by the Japanese classic Ryunosuke Akutagawa. By the way, the film adaptation of the same work is the famous “Rashomon” by Akira Kurosawa.

The plot of the Japanese novel is based on Russian fairy-tale archetypes. Thus, the framing plot shows a conversation between the Grand Duke, whose role was played by Koltakov, and the old reader, who undertook to tell a fairy tale in which there will be no more than two murders. At the same time, the prince and the reader argue with each other about the plot of the main fairy tale and even remember others.

The inserted part of the film - that very fairy tale - also repeats the plot of the short story "In the Thicket", however, instead of a samurai and his wife in "A Bag Without a Bottom" the prince and princess appear. Plot-wise, the fairy tale also consists of three stories about the death of the prince, showing this moment from different points of view.

Actor Sergei Koltakov

2018 promises to be even more fruitful for the actor in new roles. In the film “Svetlana,” dedicated to the biography and life drama of the “Kremlin princess,” the daughter of the leader of the peoples Svetlana Alliluyeva, the actor will play the role of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin himself.

Also in 2020, the actor will appear in the drama “Ministry”, which tells about the difficult and nervous life of two deputy ministers, in the crime film “THREAT: Trepalov and Wallet” about the confrontation between investigators and robbers who felt complete impunity in post-revolutionary Russia. The artist will also play in the season of the detective series about the life and adventures of Major Cherkasov, which was called “Satan” (the seasons of this series do not have a common title and are released as separate films).