Childhood and adolescence
The future actor Kotenev Anatoly was born in sunny Sukhumi, in September one thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight.
His dad was a machinist, and his mother was a kindergarten teacher. When the baby was one year old, the family moved to Nevinnomyssk. At an early school age, Anatoly dreamed of becoming a sailor. A little later, he began to attend an aircraft modeling circle and truly fell in love with this activity. The guy forgot his dream of the sea and took up hang gliding seriously. In the seventh grade, Anatoly Kotenev became interested again. This time it was a theater. The actor first appeared on stage at the Nevinnomyssk Palace of Culture. After graduating from school, the young man initially, at the insistence of his parents, received a “serious profession” - a turner-borer. After some time, he entered the theater school. It was in the city of Sverdlovsk. A year later he was drafted into the army.
Biography
Anatoly Vladimirovich was born in Sukhumi in 1958. Soon the Kotenev family moved to the city of Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol Territory, where the future actor spent his childhood. Since childhood, Tolya dreamed of courageous professions: at first he certainly wanted to become a sailor and conquer the water element, then he dreamed of becoming a pilot.
As a teenager, his interests changed dramatically, and he began taking classes at a theater studio at the local Palace of Culture. Very soon Anatoly began to be trusted with small roles, and this was real happiness.
However, after school, parents insisted that a man should have a masculine profession, and Kotenev received an education as a lathe-borer and worked at a factory for some time. However, the thought of the stage did not leave him, and soon he was already a student at the Sverdlovsk Theater School. Then there was the army, where he was taken immediately after his first year. And then Anatoly decided that he needed to learn from real professionals and went to Moscow, where he entered the Moscow Art Theater School.
Work in the nineties
While still studying at the university, Anatoly Kotenev first starred in the film “The Unknown Soldier” by G. Aronov. And after graduation, he was immediately approved for the main role in the film “Sailor Zheleznyak” by V. Dudin. It would seem that the aspiring actor had brilliant prospects, but Anatoly Kotenev, whose photo you see in this article, did not have the opportunity to stay in the capital. Therefore, he gladly accepted the invitation of Boris Lutsenko, the head of the Minsk Theater of Film Actors. Inspired and full of hope, the actor went to Belarus.
Contrary to expectations, during his long career at the famous Belarusfilm film studio, the actor received only two main roles. Only in nineteen eighty-six Kotenev played his first significant role in the film “The Secret Fairway”. Then there were several more minor works, after which came a wide black streak.
A crisis began in the country, cinema became of no use to anyone, it was necessary to survive somehow. The actor took up chasing, drawing, and carving. A little later, I met jewelers in Minsk, bought the necessary tools and began making rings.
Anatoly Kotenev, whose biography was connected with cinema by invisible threads, simply survived during that period. Unfortunately, in those troubled times, a huge number of talented actors found themselves in this situation.
From "The Unknown Soldier" to "The Time of the First"
Anatoly Kotenev began acting in films from his student days. The debut came in the film “The Unknown Soldier”. The actor got his first leading role in 1984, when he was invited to the film “Sailor Zheleznyak”.
The film about one of the heroes of the Civil War turned out to be quite good and received high ratings. But another military-themed project brought Kotenev to the top of his popularity - “Secret Fairway” . Film experts and viewers were captivated by the actor’s physical fitness and army bearing; it seemed that the leading role was not an actor, but a career officer.
After the release of these films, Kotenev was assigned the role of actor-hero . Directors subsequently offered him to play characters of the same type, among which the actor’s images in “Special Forces Squad” and “Goal at the Spassky Gate” can be considered the most successful.
Kotenev went beyond his established role in the films “The Revelation of John the First Printer” and “Deja Vu” . In the first of these paintings, he embodied himself in Ivan Fedorov, and in the second he appeared before the audience in the image of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.
The 90s of the last century were difficult for the actor, as for most of his colleagues. There were no interesting proposals from either Belarusian or Russian film studios. The only more or less successful project was the film “Between Life and Death”, filmed in Minsk .
In order to somehow earn a living, Kotenev remembered his working profession (that’s when his father’s demand came in handy) and started making jewelry. Things went pretty well.
However, the artist's soul demanded filming . Having packed his things, Anatoly Vladimirovich left for Moscow - there were much more opportunities to realize himself. The separation from family was compensated by participation in such interesting films as “Breakthrough”, “Bless the Woman”, “07 Changes Course”, “Apocalypse Code”.
When the situation in cinema changed for the better, the textured actor did not get lost even in TV series. According to the already established tradition, Kotenev was offered to play exclusively positive characters. The “serial” list of the actor’s works consists of:
- "Ondines"
- "Witchcraft love"
- "Institute of Noble Maidens"
- "Doomed to become a star"
- "Volkov's Hours-3"
- "Lawyer"
- "Forester"
- "Family's best friend"
- "Female Doctor 2"
- "Voronin",
- "The Shores of My Dreams"
- "Daughters' time."
2017 presented the actor in the image of General Nikolai Kamanin in the retro drama “The Time of the First,” dedicated to Alexei Leonov, who was the first person to go into outer space. The main roles in the film went to Konstantin Khabensky and Evgeny Mironov, but Kotenev was not lost against their background.
In the same year, the actor played businessman Yuri Ignatiev in the series “My Best Enemy”, mayor Ilya Pavlenko in the film project “Extenuating Circumstances”; Boris in "Happiness from Pieces". Two more films with the participation of Anatoly Kotenev are in the production stage - “Sorge” and “Nephew-2”.
New opportunities
In the middle of two thousand and two, the actor was invited to star in the film “Between Life and Death” at the Belarusfilm film studio. The name of this film seemed significant to the actor, and he decided to go to Moscow. He believed that in the capital he would have more opportunities to work in his profession. Since then, his home has been in Minsk, and his main work has been in the capital. Less than a month after his arrival, Kotenev already managed to star in the series “The Best City on Earth.”
Anatoly Kotenev, whose filmography began to be replenished with work in TV series, admitted that this was not at all what he dreamed of, but he had no choice.
Anatoly Kotenev
Anatoly Vladimirovich Kotenev was born on September 25, 1958 in the city of Sukhumi in the family of a driver and a kindergarten teacher. A year after his birth, the family moved to the city of Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol Territory. While studying at school, the boy wanted to become a sailor, then he went to study in an aircraft modeling club (there was no ship modeling at school), and became so “addicted” to this business that he stopped dreaming about the sea, and became interested in hang gliders and the sky.
In the seventh grade, Anatoly “fell ill” with the theater. The first performances of the future actor took place at the Miniature and Variety Theater at the Palace of Culture in the city of Nevinnomyssk. However, after graduating from school, Kotenev first learned to become a lathe-borer, and only after that he entered the Sverdlovsk Theater School. After studying there for a year, the young man was drafted into the army.
After serving, Anatoly never returned to school, setting off to conquer the capital. Moscow did not greet the applicant kindly: In Shchukinsky they immediately told him: “So, have you already studied? Goodbye, we don’t retrain.” Things didn't work out at VGIK either. And so, after two unsuccessful attempts, Kotenev came to the Moscow Art Theater School, passed an audition and was enrolled in I.M.’s course. Tarkhanov, who graduated in 1984. 80s – 90s
While still a student, Anatoly Kotenev made his debut in the television film “The Unknown Soldier” by Grigory Aronov. And immediately after graduating from the Moscow Art Theater School, he was approved for the main role in the biographical film directed by Vitaly Dudin “Sailor Zheleznyak” (about the hero of the civil war Anatoly Zheleznyakov). The film was released in 1985.
Despite his first successes, the actor did not have the opportunity to stay in Moscow, and he accepted the invitation of Boris Ivanovich Lutsenko, who at that time headed the Minsk Theater-Studio of Film Actors. Full of bright hopes for the main roles, he came to Belarus, but during his long career at Belarusfilm he received only two of them. As Kotenev recalls: “They usually said this: “Yes, he is our full-time actor, this is not interesting. He is nearby, but real stars are always far away...”
In 1986, Anatoly played his first starring role - Captain Boris Shubin in the military-patriotic film "The Secret Fairway" based on the novel of the same name by Leonid Platov. This fascinating film told the story of a torpedo launcher at the end of the war encountering a mysterious German submarine without identification numbers and revealing the secrets of the Third Reich...
After this, the actor managed to star in several more films, such as: “Goal at the Spassky Gate” (Vsevolod Losev), “Revelation of John the First Printer” (Abbot Vasily), “The Man from the Dump” (Gerasim Diaghilev), “Déjà Vu” (Vladimir Mayakovsky). And then 1992 came. The country was mired in crisis, cinema turned out to be of no use to anyone, everything was falling apart. There were few roles, it was necessary to survive somehow, and the actor began to engage in embossing, carving, reached glyptics (stone carving), and painted. Later, Anatoly met jewelers in Minsk, purchased tools and began making rings and earrings. There was enough for bread, but no more. New century, new opportunities
In 2002, Anatoly Kotenev starred in the film “Between Life and Death” at Belarusfilm. The actor took the title of the film as a guide to action. He realized that the studio would not soon start making real movies, so he bought a train ticket and told his wife that he would not return from Moscow until he earned money. Since then, his home has been in Minsk, and his work has been in Moscow. About a month later I starred in the series “The Best City on Earth,” and then went on to one series after another. Of course, as the actor admits, TV series are not what he dreamed of, but what to do...
In general, Anatoly decided to act in TV series thanks to his mother, who once told the actor: “You’re just jealous of them. We know them, we love them. And you rarely act.” To which he replied: “okay, there will be an opportunity, I’ll film especially for you.” And when the invitation came to star in Ondine, the actor immediately accepted it. In the series, Kotenev played the role of a successful businessman Andrei Taranov, who came with his family on vacation to a small seaside town and met a young girl, who later turned out to be the daughter of a woman whom he loved, but could not keep twenty years ago... The series was a huge success, especially among women. As the actor himself says: “I know that in Yalta, when they shouted: “Ondine is beginning!”, women stopped planting potatoes and went to watch.” This was followed by a whole series of TV series, the most famous of which are: “Ondine-2”, “Doomed to Become a Star”, “Thank You for Everything”, “Three on Top”.
In 2007, the series “Witchcraft Love” was released, in which Anatoly moved away from his usual role as the father of the main characters and FSB officers and appeared in a new image of a hero-lover who did not miss a single skirt. However, Anatoly tried to “humanize” this hero too. This is not the first experience of negative characters played by Anatoly. In 2001, the German film “Escape from the Gulag” (original title “As Long as the Legs Can Carry”) was released, telling the story of a German prisoner of war after the war sentenced to 25 years of correctional labor in Kolyma. After working for four years, he escaped from the camp and wandered through Siberia and Central Asia for three years until he returned home. In it, Anatoly played the main negative character Kamenev.
In 2009, the actor starred in the military serial film “1941,” which tells about the relationships between people in a small border village in the early days of the war. Personal life
In 1989, Anatoly Kotenev married a student at the Minsk Theater Institute, Svetlana Borovskaya (1969) (now she is the presenter of the First National TV Channel of Belarus). As the actor himself says, the secret of their happy family life is frequent business trips, they do not have time to get tired of each other. He has two sons: Vladimir (08/19/1989), named after his father Anatoly, a student at the Faculty of Philosophy of BSU, and Klim (03/11/1998).
In 2005, Anatoly Kotenev’s long-time dream finally came true: he and his wife bought a plot of land on which they built a house according to their own design, where Anatoly loves to visit, go fishing, paint pictures, and do bone carving.
Roles in TV series
The actor began acting in TV series largely thanks to one conversation with his mother.
She told her son that the actors of the series are loved and popular among viewers, and their colleagues, who are rarely filmed, are simply jealous of them. When he was offered to play in the telenovela Ondine, he agreed without hesitation. He got the role of a wealthy businessman Tarakanov, who came to a seaside town on vacation. The series was very popular. The women closely followed the development of the plot. After this film, a whole series of TV series awaited the actor. All of them were popular with television viewers: “Doomed to Be a Star”, “Ondine-2”, “Three on Top”, “Thank You for Everything”.
In the series “Witchcraft Love,” Anatoly Kotenev appeared before his fans in a new, not typical image of a hero-lover, a kind of macho man who does not let a single woman pass him by. True, the actor tried to add a little humanity to this hero too. Anatoly Kotenev, whose biography changed after arriving in the capital, began to play various roles. He parted with his usual role as fathers of movie heroes, military men or FSB officers. They began to offer him serious character roles, and sometimes even negative ones (“Escape from the Gulag”).
MOVIE
While still in his last year at the institute, Anatoly Kotenev made his debut in the film “The Unknown Soldier”. Then he got the main role in the biographical film about the hero of the civil war “Sailor Zheleznyak”. After some time, Kotenev was invited to audition for the film “The Secret Fairway”, and there he surprised everyone with his bearing and received the role of captain Boris Shubin.
Later, the artist revealed a little secret: “We shot the film in an unprecedentedly short time frame for those times: 4 episodes in 7 months. Therefore, for the most part, one of my understudies swam underwater, the other jumped with a parachute, and at that time I was running in the catacombs, where the German stuntman Petya Sherekin and I showered each other with punches and kicks.”
Gradually, the actor acquired the image of a sort of Soviet superman, a real hero who would not disappear anywhere. He played in such films as “Special Forces”, “Goal at the Spassky Gate” and some others. Against this background, the small but very bright role of Vladimir Mayakovsky in the adventurous comedy “Deja Vu” and his work in the film “The Revelation of John the First Printer” and the fate of Ivan Fedorov stand out noticeably.
With the advent of the 1990s, Kotenev’s roles became noticeably smaller. The whole country was going through difficult times, and there was no work at the film studio. A new stage in the artist’s life began in 2002. He then starred at Belarusfilm in the film “Between Life and Death” together with Evgeny Sidikhin. “I took the title of the film as a guide to action, because I realized that Belarusfilm would not soon start making real movies,” recalls Kotenev. — Staying in Minsk meant burying the actor within. I bought a ticket overnight and told my wife that until I earn money, I won’t return from Moscow.”
Since then, Anatoly Kotenev has lived in two countries: his home is in Minsk, but he spends most of his time filming in Moscow.
Over the years, such films with his participation as “Bless the Woman”, “Breakthrough”, “Apocalypse Code”, “07 Changes Course” have been released. In 2009, a multi-part drama about the first period of the Great Patriotic War “1941” was released.
Directors still often see Kotenev as military men and superheroes. And since Anatoly decided to act in TV series, he has become a generally recognized favorite of women.
“Kiss” (2013), melodrama
A pretty and cheerful girl, Natasha, having graduated from school, leaves her native village for distant Moscow. Her goal is to make people beautiful. She is a well-known cosmetologist and hairdresser in her village, but wants to learn this business and become a professional. Her dream is to become a cosmetologist-dermatologist in the most prestigious clinics in Moscow, and even better, a world-class star. Oddly enough, a girl without money, housing or friends finds a job and meets her first love. She falls in love with intern Ivan Voroshilov, who seduces her. Soon he leaves for work abroad for a year. Natasha suffers, and only the news of pregnancy brings her back to life...
"Heat" (2014), detective
The main character of the film cannot remember anything about his past life. Keys and notes found in his pockets led him to an apartment that did not add clarity. The only thing that became obvious to him was that he was not an entirely simple person. He made this conclusion after finding huge sums of money and passports in different names in the apartment. At the same time, the FSB is investigating the case of seven missing young people. All of them are orphans, and this worries the investigation. Evgeniy fully fits these parameters, and he is being monitored...
“Ivan and Tolyan” (2014), comedy detective story, in production
A film about two losers who dream of saving the world and solving high-profile crimes. They consider themselves fighters for justice. Tolyan dreams of taking revenge on the killers of his parents, and Ivan wants to prove to his ex-wife that he is no worse than the businessman to whom she left. Friends open a detective agency. However, the crime of the century does not come to the attention of detectives; they have to make do with small, uninteresting orders. The situation changes when a charming assistant comes to them, but in fact an experienced thief Mila. She managed to steal an old postage stamp worth more than five million dollars from the leader of a gangster group. Unlucky employers become accomplices in the crime and are now forced to hide from the mafia...
Today Anatoly Kotenev is filming a lot, he is full of creative plans, waiting for new interesting roles.
