At the very beginning of the rampant nineties, viewers of the post-Soviet space found on their television screens a young, unfamiliar and very interesting actress. Irina Apeksimova was not like any of her female colleagues, it was difficult to call her a beauty, but it was impossible to forget, too, very original. She played roles in not very expressive melodramas and series, but she did it cool, creating some kind of special image, stylish and defiant.
Childhood
The biography of Irina Apeksimova began in the hero city of Volgograd, which was called Stalingrad just five years before her birth. This significant event happened - the birth of the future actress - in 1966, in a family of people directly related to art. Viktor Nikolaevich Apeksimov worked in the field of musical education, the mother of the future actress, Svetlana Yakovlevna, the former Odessa citizen, did the same. The older brother, Valery (he has a different surname, Light), became a jazz pianist, and then went to America, where he gained fame.
The very atmosphere in the family was permeated by the rays of creativity, and it is no wonder that Irina grew up as an extraordinary girl who tried to ignore the rules prevailing in society since childhood. Studying at Volgograd School No. 9, she was not inferior to boys in the quantity and quality of leprosy, she could easily take part in brawls, and she considered every chance she received an excellent mark a major failure.
Odessa and mother
At the age of thirteen, mom divorced her dad and, taking Irina with her, returned to her native Odessa. Then in this city there was a school with a theatrical bias, and the girl was sent to it.
Odessa dialect is generally sticky, and especially to those who have recently arrived in this southern city. The indigenous people either get used to it and, in general, “don't hear it point blank”, or have stable immunity to this accent. Odessism pinned to Irina, it seemed, tightly, and what is most bad - she herself did not notice this at all. It is this circumstance that explains the first failure when trying to enter the Moscow Art Studio School. But the creative biography of Irina Apeksimova was just beginning, she understood that hard work was ahead, and therefore she was internally ready for it. The Odessa operetta has always been condescending to the presence of a kind of reprimand, especially when you consider that many of its artists and even leaders themselves sin by it. Moreover, the work was to be done in the corps de ballet.
Hard work, especially when it is carried out on itself, gives results. The ability to control your own body is achieved by training up to a seventh bloody sweat. The next year there was another attempt, unfortunately, also unsuccessful, and for the same reason.
Volgograd and admission to the Moscow Art Theater School
The next year, Irina Apeksimova spent in her native Volgograd, trying to forget Odessa speech. On the Volga, a reprimand of his own, and also different from ideal, but the result of selfless efforts was the successful overcoming of difficulties. In the Volgograd Musical Comedy, it was possible to get rid of the wrong accent, and at the same time to get new skills in stage play.
Failure with admission depressed Irina, but the girl was especially upset by her disbelief in her vocation as her own father. Viktor Nikolaevich appealed to prudence, offered to look in the mirror and do something more practical or, at worst, reliable. However, a dream is a dream. By her own admission, Apeksimova, the desire to succeed in the acting field was largely an attempt to prove to her father her talent and will. Time has shown that both were enough.
Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov
The third attempt was successful. I was also lucky with fellow students, who became Yevgeny Mironov, Vladimir Mashkov, and also Valery Nikolaev, for whom Irina Apeksimova even married. It was also a success that the head of the educational process was Oleg Tabakov himself.
After graduating from college, she entered the troupe of the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov, in which she served until 2000. She happened to play the roles of Maria Mnishek in Boris Godunov, Sophia in Woe from Wit, Elena Alexandrovna in Uncle Van, Baroness Strahl in the play Masquerade and many others.
Movie work
Already the early films with Irina Apeksimova (since 1987) were interesting, the actress was lucky. Having played Ksyusha in the drama The Tower, directed by Trigubovich, she immediately made herself known and demonstrated the remarkable character of her talent. In the "Dissident" Zheregi success was reinforced. Then the series went: “Little things in life”, “Bourgeois’s birthday”. But there were real successes, such as “Mu-mu” (Irina Apeksimova played a foreigner, Frenchwoman Justine), “Chekhov and Company” (excellent adaptations of the great Russian writer’s stories), “Cage”, “Man’s Revelations”, shot according to the novel, written by Renata Litvinova.
Very high-quality multi-part films “The Death of an Empire”, “Northern Lights” and “Yesenin” allowed the actress's original talent to reveal, the benefit of her characters corresponded to the already developed stereotype of a strong-willed and purposeful woman of an adventurous type with some hint of bitchiness, reinforced by the features of her appearance and high-quality make-up.
The desire to get out of the usual image for everyone, to become someone else, except for the on-screen vamp woman, prompted the actress to do directing. The Ukrainian-Russian project Sleeping and Beauty was the first experience in this field.
Versatility of talent
Personal life of Irina Apeksimova stalled in 2000. The actress divorced her husband, Valery Nikolayev, with whom she lived for five years. Joint work in the "Bourgeois Birthday" became impossible, but because the character, whose role she played, the scriptwriters "killed". That did not shake Irina’s confidence in her talent at all, and it was during this period that her creative career took off.
The theater company "Bal-Ast", later renamed in honor of the owner, was another confirmation of the versatility of the personality of Apeksimova. Roman Viktyuk expressed a desire to work together with this creative team, they staged a few entreprise, including “Our Decameron XXI” (a play by Edward Radzinsky) and “Carmen”.
Suddenly, Irina Apeksimova also sang. This was started by the program “Two Stars”, and when it turned out that she did it too, things went. Records of yard songs were especially successful, the actress recognized some of them in Odessa. They sound fresh and fervent, they like young people, and older people are reminded of many things ....
Is Apeksimov married?
The fate of such an outstanding and multifaceted artist, of course, is of interest to the public. Many are curious to find out what kind of people Irina Apeksimova’s husbands are, how many there were, what is the current matrimonial status of the star. This is good or bad, but so far it is not necessary to talk about spouses in the plural. The family of the actress is her daughter Daria. Being a man self-sufficient and strong, Apeksimova is not in a hurry with new marriages, although there is no doubt that offers come from time to time. She is currently a “bachelor”. How long? Time will tell. She herself does not want to talk about it.