Zhanna Vorobiova actress about page


   I definitely start feeling and identifying  myself as an artist before I was born when my Mom was pregnant. Mother - a young student of the University of Culture - was preparing for exams being in her latest pregnant period. So I had to listen to a classic music and read literature for an enormous hours and even participated in the discussions (I know for sure I was participating because my Mother told me that I was knocking and pushing her inside expressing my opinion)

After my birth (February 11, by the way) everybody could see that my beauty came from my Mom, my musicality - from my Father (well… all other benefits like smartness, intelligence, sense of humor I got from both parents). Starting from 3-year-old age I could not imagine myself without being on stage (I even have an evidences: stories of the witnesses, pictures and the tape with my voice where I am telling in a manner of the prima-star that "the artist should not be shy" meaning, of course, that the artist is me).

My Mom was directing in a children's dancing studio. We were traveling a lot with a concerts and various competitions in that studio. My father was a musician in a famous Vladimir Nazarov's band and he was also traveling a lot in USSR and abroad (which were almost a miracle at Soviet times). I was singing and dancing in my Mom's studio and when I was 5, I entered musical school and learned to play piano. When I turned to be a teenager I became a student of a Slavic-Anglo-American School "Marina" where I've got my English (I had no choice but to start speaking English - half of the lessons were taught by the native speakers). I also started to learn German in that school and I started traveling abroad (that was a  wonderful  time - we had a student exchanges with students from Belgium, USA and South Africa) 

But what was most important in that school is that we had a THEATER STUDIO where I was playing for 3 years while I were in a high school. That was the time when my actor's disease became inveterate. We were acting in a various plays, we even participated together with the California Children's Theater in a musical "Grease" in Moscow and in California.  

   I remember very clearly this crazy feeling, those first blind steps in the Profession where you are desperately attracted to acting.  
I could be ill, sit home with a high temperature but I would never miss a rehearsal in our studio (to the horror of my parents). I could not behave any other way - I was having main parts in all our plays. Among others I played Hermia in Midsummer Night Dream by Shakespeare and Laura in Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Fortunately my self-identification was not subjective as many people thought I would enter theater faculty and even strongly recommended to do so. However my parents got very much concerned about my future professional life as they were the artists themselves and they knew as nobody else how hard and unstable is this Profession. Without putting much pressure on me they convinced me to get a stable profession first and then, if I still would be dedicating myself to the art,  go after my Dream.

   I listened to my parents. I entered Law Academy  (being one of the Big 3 in Russia) I was studying law and working at the same time. I made a good career working as an In-house attorney for the multinational consulting corporation. And I also entered actor's faculty as soon as I've got my lawyer's diploma.  
   This was a very thoughtful and conscious decision because I realized that this is my life destination (sorry for being pathetic). I came to the acting school "AkteM" leaded by Andrei Droznin and Elena Kolesnikova. Andrei Droznin was also a master in the acting course at Academy of Euhrythmy Art so I can duly say that I was studying in both. We had a wonderful professors and teachers in our course: Andrei Droznin and Elena Kolesnikova (acting, directing classes and improvisation), Andrei Borisovich Droznin (professor of the Drama university of Schukin and professor of the Harvard university)  who is our Godfather, supervisor and our master in stage movement, fight and fencing, Vladimir Ananyev - leading actor in a plactical drama theater of Gedrus Matskyavichus and a professor in a  State Culture Institute (stage movement),  Roman Saigin - musician and composer (vocal lessons), Natalia Kovaleva - actress in a famous Russian Taganka theater and a teacher in a Drama university of Schukin  (voice and speech lessons), Andrei Yakubovsky - professor of the Theater Art Academy (history of theater), Natalia Ostroumova -  a teacher in the Theater Art Academy (philosophy of make-up). 
   I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU again to these people for sharing their knowledge and experience with me, for giving me The Profession. 

   One day in our theater came a famous actor  - Alex Kuznetsov (I said "theater" because "AkteM" is also a theater now formed by the Andrei Droznin's graduates. We are young, energetic, enthusiastic and open to the experiments actors and we already survived for couple of years among hundreds of our competitor theaters). Alex came to do a number of workshops in our theater (he has a unique experience based on his work as a theater and movie actor in both Russia and USA).  Alex opened a new page in my biography. He showed me what does it fell like to be an Artist, widened my consciousness teaching me in theory and practice what opportunities are lying in our Profession, HOW you can see your part and your character, what a great capacities are inside of every human being. I consider Alex as my Friend and my Master.

Thanks to Alex another person came into my life and left unforgettable sign in my soul. I will remember conversations about profession and life with this person till the end of my days. His blessing to the Profession means a lot to me. This person is Malcolm McDowell. Great, energetic, charismatic, breaking the rules, free, talented and open. 
I truly hope that one day I will have a chance to meet him again. 

In "AkteM" I played Anna in "Marquesse De Sad" by Missima; Luisa in "8 women" by Rober Toma; 2 monopieces - one is "King Nikita and his 40 daughters" by Alexander Pushkin and another one was academic monopiece "Psichosis 4.48" by Sarah Kein. In "AkteM" one of my dear characters  - Mummy - was born.
I was making my first steps in movies at the same time I was studying and acting in the theater. 
   My first movie was a "Love adventures" based on Mopassan's novels, directed by Valery Zelensky and produced by CTB company. I was lucky to be a part of a wonderful team. 
I played a seductive funny stupid young maid.
I was also lucky to see how the great famous actors are working on a film set. Natalia Belokhvostikova, Armen Djigarkhanyan and other very talented actors were shooting in the film of a very famous Russian director Vladimir Naumov "Madonna on a road". I was playing one of the Bosch's wives in that movie. 

I have got an experience with the TV films playing in the episodes of "Theater detective" and "Mukhtar's return". I was also shooting in the social commercial directed by Yuri Grimov and participating in the TV show making the caricature of the emcee of that show.

I believe that my main creative biography events are in the future but I am really happy to be an actress. 
I am eager to play and to play many characters: dramatic and comedian, beauties and weird characters, fairytales and thrillers. I want to explore all genres, move forward and widen the range of the characters that I could play. I want to be in this Profession. Even more I dream to become someone in this Profession. I can say that I am a very happy person. 

2006