Maria Mironova is one of the leading figures in modern Russian cinema. Even her first appearance was successful. She played the lead role in Pavel Lungin's film ‘The Wedding,' which was recently shown at the Cannes Festival. The film won the special prize for the Best Actor's Ensemble. For Maria Mironova, in her third film (the first was when she was a child, the second in the recent film ‘Russian Rebellion'), it is an upward spiral in the world of cinema. Maria is an artist from the famous Leninskii Komsomol theatre and is currently rehearsing her new role in a play. She is the daughter of the famous Soviet artist Andrei Mironov.

L: What was your first impression of Cannes?

MM: It was an unforgettable feeling. From the beginning of my stay I had the impression that the festival was ideally organized and that it was the ‘best of the best.' There was also a feeling that the whole thing was unreal.

LS: What sticks in your mind about Cannes?

MM: People's faces after watching our film. It was then I understood that everything had worked out well. And my little seven year old son left me a note saying, ‘Mum, I hope they always applaud you like that.' He's only seven, but already he understands how important an applause is to me. Another thing I'll remember is that Gregory Peck was present with his wife at the leaving dinner.

LS: How do you think people feel about Russians? What do they expect of us?

MM: First, they love Pavel Lungin in Cannes, especially the French. On the whole, the journalists behaved very favorably toward us. There were one or two problems under the surface, but they came mostly from the Russian journalists, funnily enough. I had to keep a distance from them as some knew I was from an elite family and well off, but playing a provincial girl from Lipki.

LS: So you played a girl who lives in Lipki, a small town near Tula. Then they went to Cannes. How do these two different towns go together in your mind?

MM: Lipki was hard work. We did the shooting there. When we got to Cannes it was more like a holiday. By the way, Cannes is also a small town, like Lipki. I liked the fact that after the film people came up to us and said how good it was and that Pavel Lungin hadn't put well known artists in his film and still the picture won the prize for the Best Actor's Ensemble. That is a professional opinion, from the heart, I think.

LS: Do you like travelling?

MM: Yes, very much, especially around Europe. My favorite places are there. I like Switzerland best of all. It's like heaven on earth to me. It's a very stable country. Maybe that's why I like it - because we Russians lack stability. My favorite type of relaxation is travelling. I often travel, especially by car. Recently I've wanted to go to Austria, to Salzburg, because of Mozart, who lived there. I associate my father with Mozart.

LS: Our readers do not know that being the child of a famous person in Russia is a big deal.

MM: Yes, it can be. Many people are jealous. Once when my dad came to my school, classes were cancelled. People had a special kind of love for actors in those days. I think that is one of our national characteristics - when we love someone, it is very deeply and genuinely. Americans can get carried away with Van Damme, but if he went to a school they would hardly cancel classes. Actually, if he came to a Russian school, they might interrupt teaching for a while: An artist has come, a real artist! And if you're the type of person who they stop classes for, people look at you differently, and not always positively. Russians have some stereotypes that are difficult to change. A famous person's daughter is a particular subject. Maybe the theme of ‘Fathers and Sons' is more important to us than for other nations.

LS: Were you asked about your feelings toward Putin in Cannes? How do you feel about him?

MM: Nobody asked me anything about politics, surprisingly. I think Putin has the right to be the moral leader of the country. He is respectable and I am glad that we have a respectable, honest and staunch person leading the country.

LS: Which film would you like to see next?

MM: Lars von Trier's last film, ‘Dancing in the Dark.' We only saw excerpts in Cannes and I liked them a lot. I hadn't seen his films before; I just watch American films as a rule. But having seen an outtake from von Trier's film in Cannes, I suddenly wanted to see his films. That's one of my lasting memories of Cannes.

LS: Which other big producers are you interested in?

MM: I like Franco Zefferelli and Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino breaks new ground and goes where nobody else has.

LS: What do you think we overvalue in life?

MM: In Russia, I think we overestimate appearances. Being a girl from an elite family, an actor's daughter, is something that sticks out. People latch onto this and straight away develop some kind of stereotype about who I am. It is a national characteristic. People say to me that I'm a girl with a model's looks, so why play a girl from the provinces? Do you know how beautiful the girls in Lipki are? It's as if famous actors' daughters are all made from one material and all the Lipki girls from another. That's the kind of thing we put too much importance on.

LS: Who is your hero from Russian women?

MM: I feel closest to Pushkin's Masha Mironova from Kapitanskaya Dochka. I love Pushkin.

LS: In the West, the best known Russian writers are Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Pushkin isn't so well known.

MM: Dostoyevsky is psychology — an international writer. Pushkin wrote about particular Russian things and he expressed them poetically, untranslatably, with irony and humor.

LS: What about modern writers? Are there any that can be compared with the classics?

MM: No, but there is Victor Pelevin, who I like. At the moment I'm rehearsing his heroine. It's Anka from ‘Chapayev i Pustota,' sold in English as ‘The Clay Machine Gun.' Of course he is an original and enigmatic character, but not everyone agrees that he is a first class Russian writer. Now one of the young directors is putting on his play, and I'm lucky enough to be playing a part in it.