Galery

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Chris Radanov is an actor who is taking part in the Greek TV and theatre. He is from Rouse and he was supposed to work in the Kozlodouy nuclear reactor a technical supporter but he became a bodyguard and later on a manager in a dairy farm. Eight years ago he came to Athens and at the beginning he worked in Goody’s but after that he realized his dream. Right now he is one of the most sought after young actors in Greece…

Interview of Marina Nikolova

What do you believe is the reason for the success of “One out of ten”?

We were three actors in “One out of ten” – Enkeleg Fezolari from Albania, David Maltese from Georgia, and I from Bulgaria. The play is without a script and is sewed with pieces of different stories… One critic wrote that it was like small “shots of life.” David had a story of how they changed his name. they couldn’t remember his name so they called him Aleko and every year he used to bring candy for the Aleko name day. “I got used to being Aleko.” He used to work for five years in this factory where they called him Aleko.

The play had three seasons. In the beginning we were planning to play it for three months. I think people liked it because we are telling our stories, the stories are us. At the beginning Vangelis Theodoropoulos, who is the “Neos Kosmos” theatre’s owner, gave us the attic, which has 50 seats and a stage. It is very dark there and the audience felt the “dark” atmosphere from the second they entered. When we got on stage we introduced ourselves with our real names. I believe people were drawn towards the true.

We were rehearsing for seven months and at the end we filtered out the material, which we had gathered. We wanted the act to be quick, in order not to tire people. May be this is another reason for the success. By the end you are left with the feeling that you want more and it is all over.

You have built the play based on your own life – what did you find in common between the three of you?

We didn’t know each other before we started working on the play. The director Laertis Vasiliou brought us together. One of his conditions was all of us to be from the Eastern bloc countries, because we have the same memories. When I’m on TV I always play Russian. My face looks Russian. So, all of us had a very happy and free childhood and all of a sudden our wings were cut – everything changed, poverty came, our relatives were leaving abroad. Our memories of the communism are similar – we were living in a pretty lie. In they play we are talking about the identity and the contradictions inside of us. Greece has changed as well. The ordinary people have gotten used to foreigners and they accept us.

There was very emotional moment in the play, when three friends are passing the border and one fo them is killed by the border police. The other two, who managed to pass the border, write a letter to his mother as if it were him and they sent her money. This happened to the director’s uncle, who is Albanian. He passed the border at the beginning of the transition period – 1989-1990 when there was commotion everywhere. For ten years him and his friend were sending letter “I’m OK, I’m working, nothing interesting is happening, I hope the money will be enough.” Tragedy – the mother lives with the idea that her child is alive.

How long have you been in Greece and what intrigued you in this country on the first place?

I have been here for eight years. While I was in Bulgaria I graduated from a technical school for nuclear energetics but because I was playing sports I became a bodyguard. After that I started working in a dairy factory as a manager, owned by the same person. So I thought: this is how my life will go – in the morning I will open up the factory and at night I’ll protect my boss. Perfect. Someday someone will find me in a…

But I believe in destiny. I got into a car accident on Easter – one morning as I was going to open up the factory I pushed the accelerator…one of the front tires of my Lada blew up. I was in the hospital for a while and another boy took over the factory. My mother was living in Greece for ten years, so she offered me to come and live with her. When I came here I calmed down but on the other hand I had a hard time with the language. I started working in Goody’s without understanding even a word. I knew only “nai, malista” (yes, of course). So without talking to much, I did what they told me to…At one point after living in Athens for three years I told myself that I have changed the country anyway, so why not try and make my dream come true? I took the Ministry of Culture exams, passed them and then signed up in a theatrical school. From then on, it’s a question of luck and work. Another confession I can make is that last year I won the award for a male role of the Greek theatrical awards.

What are you working on right now?

The new play, which I will be in is the epos “Song for the death brother” directed by Sotiris Hadzakis. He has been interested in the Balkans ever since the Ottoman Empire, when Bulgarians, Greeks, Romanians, and Serbs have moved freely throughout the empire, which is why their cultures overlap. There are 17 people in the play and we come from everywhere. After the opening in Greece, we will go on a tour around the Balkans, including Sofia. In our new project there are two famous actresses from Albania and Romania – Margarita Dzepa and Maya Morgenshtern respectively. They are playing the mothers of the girl – according to Hadzakis’ concept, there will be three mothers, which will play in three different languages. What we know for sure is that around March 25^th we will have around 10 of those plays in Greece. After Easter we will leave for Belgrade, Tirana, Sofia and Bucharest.

The team is mixed again, just like the previous play I was in. The best thing about acting with people from different countries is that there is no racism. Because when you don’t get to know people, you have the feeling that your culture is better more important. I can admit that when I came to Greece I was a racist even though I was a foreigner. But when you start getting to know the other cultures, you find out the richness of those people as well as the value of your own culture. You take different things from the others and you don’t feel like a foreigner.

What are your plans for the future?

I make my plans only for a year ahead, because you never know. I am also rehearsing for a film, where I’m playing Russian again. A friend of mine always tells me that because I am a foreigner I will always play as a foreigner. Normal but it is not only about putting up an accent and getting to the essence of the foreigner. Once I was playing a Serb and I watched eight Serbian movies, in order to be able to see how they react and express themselves.

Besides the film I’m rehearsing for, Alexandros Harizanis offered me to direct a play, which he has written. The theme is about a policemen and a boy, both with Leftist views. The boy is working a pizza delivery boy, grubs along the policemen, who is on a motorcycle and both of them fall in a hole. It is called “In a trap.” Both of them are forced to spend six hours next to each other in this hole. The idea is that everyone who puts a uniform serves to it and the community recognized us by it. But what happens when the uniform is different?

What do you wish for in the future?

My dream is to be able to work in Bulgaria and in Greece, because by now we are like neighborhoods in Europe.