Nearly 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, people from Slavic countries have become a reliable presence in Hollywood. Suddenly we’re a long way from Boris and Natasha’s “Must get Moose and Squirrel.”
Filmmakers have turned to Eastern European settings and themes in movies like “We Own the Night,” about the Russian Mafia in New York, David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises,” set in Eastern Europe, and the late Anthony Minghella’s mixing of the Brits and the Serbs in “Breaking and Entering.”
But most striking is the way Eastern European actors and directors have been flourishing lately in Hollywood. There’s Ukraine’s Olga Kurylenko, who stars as the latest Bond Girl opposite Daniel Craig in “Quantum of Solace.” Besides Kurylenko, Kiev-born Mila Kunis found success on the comedy series “That ’70s Show” and moved on to star in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Max Payne.” Mila Jovovich, also from Kiev, Ukraine, has made a name for herself in the “Resident Evil” franchise while Natalya Rudakova, who hails from Russia, was the female lead in “Transporter 3.” In 2003, Kiev’s Vadim Perelman seemingly came out of nowhere to write, direct and produce the critically acclaimed “The House of Sand and Fog,” which was nominated for three Oscars.
“There is a post USSR exoticism because it was closed to the West for so long,” says costume designer Hala Bahmet, a first generation Ukrainian from Chicago who worked with Perelman on a couple of features including “Sand and Fog.” “It’s like we have access to a new tribe and their names are sexy and exotic. Here was a mysterious place that we’ve had the Cold War with for so long and all of a sudden, lo and behold, it’s not just old ladies with babushkas.”
This “other world” quality not only enabled the borders to open and talent to cross over, it has affected subsequent generations born in the West, noted Rod Lurie, who cast Vera Farmiga — a New Jersey born child of Ukrainian immigrants — in his current film, “Nothing But the Truth.”
“The freer a society becomes, the freer its arts can flourish and be exported,” says Lurie, “So you see a wave of Eastern European actors, actresses and directors finally being able to sprout their wings. Once they do that, the Ukrainian communities or the Russian communities in the U.S. then feel inspired to sprout their wings. Which is what I think certainly happened with Vera.”
Hollywood has always turned to other nations for new faces, be they Brits, Aussies, Spaniards or others. Yet the Eastern Europeans stand out from crowd for various reasons.
“As far as film goes, you’re looking at a culture that has always revered its writers, its playwrights and its filmmakers in a way that Americans don’t,” points out Bahmet. “For example, the former president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, was a playwright. So here you had a man who’s a famous playwright and he comes president of the country. I think because of the Eastern European’s deep culture and history of living with art, the average person there has an unusual appreciation for film and theater as an art form. They have this enthusiasm and respect for it so they’re not going to be a diva in that environment because the art form is bigger than them.”
Lurie believes the ancestral history of these countries affects how actors from Eastern Europe come across on the screen. “The history of those countries, because it’s a particularly oppressive history, as a result there is some level of seriousness,” he says. “There is a sense of gravitas that comes with the territory. Take a look at Mila Kunis. When you see her performance in ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall,’ you see a beauty there, and also a sadness. There is something very, very, very deep about the performances of these people.”
Rudakova agrees, adding that Eastern European actors interpret a script differently than their American counterparts. “We’ve had a different life, we’ve had more dramatic experiences in our past,” she says. “We see things different so we understand the lines differently.”
For “Quantum of Solace” director Marc Forster, the combination of gravitas and natural good looks made Kurylenko the best choice to play the current Bond girl. “She was not only stunning, but she also had this restrained ability within herself — an emotional restraint which really helped the character and I thought was truthful.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh I need to find a Ukrainian or Russian actress to play this part; it was more about ‘Who is the best person to play this role?’ and Olga had all the elements we were looking for,” he continues. “I was looking to find the best Bond Girl possible and she happened to be Ukrainian.”