'The main Russian' in Hollywood: how a Ukrainian became a sought-after actor in the USA

The series "Friends", the films "Double", "Mission Impossible" and more. In such famous films he starred Ukrainian Ilya Volokh. He was able to achieve what the thousands of young actors who come to Hollywood every year dream of. The publication told about the life of the actor "Voice of America".

“A lot depends on how you look. They are looking for a certain type, and you fall into it. How are stars born? It’s hard to say, it’s a combination of everything: talent and luck. Sometimes you just need to be in the right place at the right time,” says Ilya Volokh.

Ilya was born in Kiev (Ukraine), studied to be an actor at the Moscow Art Theater in Moscow. At the age of 25, he married an American and moved to Los Angeles in 1990.

Without knowing the language, but knowing the acting craft, Ilya began to adapt to the new, as he says, “colored” reality.

“Of course, I couldn’t get a job in my profession right away, and I had to look for something just for the money. Then our marriage broke up, and I began to live alone. At some point I was overcome with panic. But gradually life returned to more or less normal. During the first three years, I changed many jobs: cutting sandwiches in a cafe, caring for the sick, even working in a cemetery. At the same time, my comrades who remained in Russia also had a hard time. The 1990s came, and in order to feed his family, the Moscow Art Theater actor had to sell sneakers on the market,” notes the actor, writes "Film Search".

When I learned the language, I did what all Hollywood actors begin their careers with - found an agent.

On the subject: Seven Hollywood Stars with Ukrainian Roots

“The agent took me and started sending me for auditions. I didn’t get one role, I got another, and so on every other time. After a while, I regularly started going to auditions; the casting directors already knew me,” says Ilya. — They started taking me on roles more often. But there must be consistency. You have to take and go to auditions, regardless of the result.”

His first film was the 1994 comedy Hail, Caesar. Ilya immediately fell into the category of Eastern European actors who receive roles typical of Hollywood films - gopniks, crime bosses or immigrants from the USSR.

“They don’t care what potential an actor has, that you can, for example, play a romantic role. In Hollywood they think more in clichés,” shares the actor.

It was difficult for Ilya to get out of the typical image through accent and Hollywood stereotypes. But, according to him, there was less competition. After all, the role did not have to compete with the Americans. He also tried to apply the Stanislavsky system. Subsequently, he built a reputation, and roles in large commercial projects fell one after another.

“In the sixth season of Friends, I play the principled owner of a star laundromat. Naturally, a native of Russia. He has portraits of his most famous clients hanging on his wall, but he refuses to hang a portrait of Joey for the reason that he plays in a TV series where the Russians, his compatriots, are portrayed as negative characters. Joey retorts that there are also good films with bad Russians, for example, “The Presidential Plane” (and this is the film where I played one of the main roles). My character calmly tells him that he hasn’t seen this film and won’t hang up the portrait. This is, of course, not a conscious joke. The script for the episode had already been written when I got that role,” recalls the actor.

“The well-being of an actor in Hollywood directly depends on membership in the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). It's difficult to get there. It’s such a vicious circle: to get into the guild, you need to act, and to act, you need to be a member of the guild. For many, this journey can take years. The easiest way to get there is through advertising, but that's if you're lucky. You can also work as an extra, although this is quite a long process: you need to receive three vouchers for filming in three projects filmed according to the rules of the guild. Fortunately, I was able to do this right away. The director and producers of the film Hail, Caesar wanted me specifically, and therefore convinced the guild to quickly accept the newcomer,” notes the actor. — What does membership in the guild give? First of all, this means that your fee cannot be lower than the established minimum. In addition, you are entitled to royalties from any commercial use of the film or series in which you starred.”

“I'm one of the 3% here in Hollywood that can make a living from this. I can work for a total of a month per year, but the payment and copyright system is what generates income. You get money from a film that came out 25 years ago,” says Ilya.

The most successful film in this sense can be considered "Airplane of the President": deductions exceeded the fee three to four times. From the TV series, this is probably "Friends".

Ilya also worked with cult directors, and each of them, according to him, has its own peculiarity.

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“Oliver Stone, with whom I worked in the film The Turning, spoke to the actors himself. I must say, his mood changes quickly. Now he praises you, and after a double he swears at you. Steven Spielberg, on the other hand, is a man of few words. "Go there. Stand there,” is the most you can hear from him. During the break, I talked to him more, and he turned out to be a surprisingly gentle and intelligent person. Directors can also differ in their meticulousness: some do fewer takes, some do more. There are perfectionists like Fincher, who can shoot the same scene 30 times,” said the actor.

In 2021, Ilya can confidently say that an era of change has begun in Hollywood. Due to the pandemic, the American film industry is less concentrated in Los Angeles. Actors can submit self-recordings from anywhere in the world.

Also, casting directors pay less attention to accents. So, only this year, for the first time in 26 years of work in Hollywood, Ilya will play the main role in the film - not a criminal authority, but just a father.

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