Finally: Adrian, can you talk more about speaking Russian? You do it so well!
Adrian: I taped all my lines along with help from a translator and played them over and over and over again. The issue for me was that I had a very short amount of time to learn the lines before shooting the first scene – the one where I met Jones for the first time. In fact, I was so good in that scene that Vladimir Yaglych, who played Varlam, said he didn’t understand a word I said to him. The other problem was that since I was only really dealing with my lines, I didn’t understand what the other actors were saying in the scene. For instance, if someone says, ”Good morning, How are you today,” you can remember a line that says, “I’m fine, how are you doing?” But if you don’t even understand the question, all you can do is wait until the other person finishes talking and hope they said the same thing you saw in the English version of the script. I just hope I didn’t damage the language too badly after that.
Camacho: I gotta hand it to Adrian, I honestly thought it was his second language.
“…gotta hand it to Adrian, I honestly thought it was his second language.”
Art, any parting words?
Camacho: One thing I wanted to say about William is that he was such an awesome support. During the few challenging times on set, he’d always be in a Zen-like mode, rarely losing his cool.
As a Director, this movie is probably one of the best films I’ve worked on in my career, with such an awesome cast and crew. I did not know how I would be accepted, but they took me in like family, and everyone from the Producers down to the background actors always did their best to make a great film. Maybe it was because of the historical nature of the film, or maybe because they really enjoyed the experience, but regardless, it made for one of the most memorable experiences in my life.
