In Sean Baker’s Anora, henchman Igor steals up quietly on the film, revealing his hidden layers. Actor Yura Borisov talks about exploring the character’s soul.
It is magic hour on a cool mid-November evening in Beverly Hills, and Anora star Yura Borisov is seated at a table on a hotel patio, draped in a blanket, twinkling cocktail glass in hand. Disarmingly approachable and radiating an easy charm, he seems a universe away from Igor, the Brighton Beach henchman with a heart who the classically trained Russian actor imbues with a menacing intensity in Sean Baker’s madcap comedy and Cannes Palme d’Or winner.
Borisov is thoughtful, lighthearted and breaks bread, whereas Igor broods and breaks candy stores with a baseball bat and, one senses, is more than ready to break body parts if his masters bid it. However, both men share a soulful earnestness.
As the sun sets at the Four Seasons, Borisov squints and looks like he is trying to stare into the soul of his first ever dirty martini. “I drink wodka,” he states for the record, twice, before taking a sip and wincing. “It is so not tasty.”
Borisov, 32, has been on a whirlwind get-to-know-you tour for press and awards voters in Los Angeles and New York. Given the reaction to Anora and his status as a supporting actor contender — his nominations haul so far includes the Spirit Awards and Golden Globes, while the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named him joint winner with Kieran Culkin (for A Real Pain) — this will probably not be the first time he takes leave of his wife and two children in Moscow to fulfil the obligations associated with awards season.
A star in his native country thanks to lead roles in Russian period dramas such as Kalashnikov and 2021 Venice selection Captain Volkonogov Escaped, Borisov, after only one film in the US, is starting to get spotted. “People on the street want to take a photo,” he says, piercing blue eyes ablaze with bewildered amusement. “It’s very interesting.”
Borisov had no plan to become an actor. “Everything happened randomly,” he says. “When I was in kindergarten I wanted to be a cosmonaut, and after that I wanted to be an architect and after that a journalist. Finally, I understood I just wanted to do nothing, and live my life and travel a lot. I feel acting is not a job. I still feel I do nothing in my life.”
After formal acting, dancing and martial arts training at Moscow’s Mikhail Shchepkin Higher Theatre School, Borisov honed his craft on local films and got his international break in Compartment No. 6 as Ljoha, another layered character whose initially unpleasant exterior masks a gentle spirit. That film won the Cannes grand prix in 2021 and garnered a European Film Award acting nomination for Borisov.
Baker was on the Croisette that year with his own Competition entry Red Rocket, saw Juho Kuosmanen’s romantic drama, and reached out to Borisov in 2022. “I didn’t know him,” recalls the actor. “It was just someone calling me from America saying he wanted to do his next movie with me about a girl in Brooklyn with Russian guys. I asked if I could watch his movies. He sent me links. I watched them and after that we started work.”
Borisov says the filmmaker had no firm idea who Igor was, and they crafted the role together. After the titular sex worker Ani, played by Mikey Madison, falls for and gets married to Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) over the course of several giddy days, Ivan’s oligarch father and mother want the marriage annulled. They fly over from Russia, ordering their local factotum Toros (longtime Baker collaborator Karren Karagulian), Igor and another henchman to keep an eye on the lovebirds at Ivan’s mansion.
“I asked [who Igor was] and Sean never told me,” says Borisov. “He would always ask me what I thought Igor could do… It was a puzzle. We discussed layers. You couldn’t discuss it in words; you just felt it.”
Life stories
Asked what types of stories he likes to bring to life, Borisov replies: “It’s not important what kind of stories. It’s important to give expression to a soul. Igor is not me, he’s a different person, and he has a soul. It was born and it’s important. It’s important to meet new artists with whom I can give expression to a new soul.”
The centrepiece of Anora is a home invasion sequence when Igor and his cronies barge into the mansion where Ivan and Ani have spent several blissful days. When Ivan scarpers, Igor tries to keep an incandescent Ani under control. Soon he comes to respect Ani’s feistiness and the sentiment eventually blossoms into a deeper mutual feeling.
Production began in January 2023. Out of 37 days of filming, it took 10 to shoot the mansion sequence in Brooklyn, which runs to approximately 25 minutes and plays out in real time. Borisov and Madison (and Eydelshteyn, whom Borisov knew a little and recommended to Baker) spent time together before the shoot to bond, but the scene was on another level. The actors rehearsed, choreographed and improvised.
“We took it step-by-step. It was an intense experience for Mikey,” Borisov says of Madison, who became “like a sister” to him and earned his highest respect. “She never said she was tired or uncomfortable. She was ready for everything all the time.”
He says of Baker: “Sean is like a conductor of the family. He is humble. He gave us freedom in everything, but at the same time he controlled things very sensitively. The script would change when the energy changed and you didn’t know it would go that way.”
When Anora won the top prize in Cannes, Borisov was already home in Moscow with his family. Madison called him with the good news. “They sent me some pictures and a photo of Sean,” he recalls. “I’m very happy that I was away from all this stuff. I can’t say that I like moments when the universe is like a bomb in your life. I like it more quiet.”
The actor is of course delighted with the reception for Anora, which at press time had earned $26.3m worldwide, through financier FilmNation’s network of buyers including Neon in the US, which accounts for roughly half. But he is not getting ahead of himself. “I need to go forward. I want to do better. I like that people feel something from this film, but I have a long way to go.”
Borisov recently filmed Russian sci-fi Devyataya Planeta. And now that the US is sitting up and taking notice, the emerging international star who grew up watching Hollywood films has been fielding offers from Tinseltown.
“We’ll see. You never know what will happen in your life,” he says. “I’ve stepped into a new universe of independent American movies and the industry. It’s very interesting. A lot of interesting, talented people. And I’m so happy about this.”
And the dirty martini? “It’s interesting, it’s interesting. It’s cool.”
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