Chulpan Khamatova

Chulpan Nailevna Khamatova (born 1 October 1975) is a Russian film, theater and TV actress of Volga Tatar origin. Her name, Chulpan, means "morning star" in Tatar.

Biography

Early life and theater career

Chulpan Nailevna Khamatova was born on 1 October 1975 in Kazan, Tatar ASSR, in what was then the Soviet Union. Her parents Marina Galimullovna Khamatova and Nail Khamatov are both engineers. Her younger brother Shamil Nailevich Khamatov is also an actor, as is his wife from 1 October 2010 Darya Aleksandrovna Belousova (b. Moscow, 13 January 1966).

As a child, she was engaged in figure skating and from the eighth grade studied at the mathematical school of the Kazan Federal University. She was accepted at the Kazan State Finance and Economics Institute but ended up changing her mind and entered the Kazan Theater School. Teachers Juno Kareva and Vadim Keshner, assessing the prospects of the beginning actress, advised and helped Chulpan continue her studies in Moscow, and she entered Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, the course of Alexei Borodin.

Chulpan Khamatova performed on the stages of several Moscow theaters: Russian Academic Youth Theater (Dunya Raskolnikova in Crime and Punishment and Anne Frank in Anne Frank's Diary), the Theater of the Moon, the Anton Chekhov Theater (Katya in Pose of the Immigrant), the Open Theater Julia Malakyants (Silvia).

In 1998 she was invited to the troupe of the Moscow Sovremennik Theatre. She debuted in the role of Patricia Holman (Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque). She also received roles in the plays Three Sisters (Irina), Mamapapasynsobaka (Andria), The Storm (Katerina), The Naked Pioneer (Masha Mukhina) and Anthony and Cleopatra (Cleopatra), as well as the role of Masha in the new version of the play Three Sisters. In 2008, Chulpan took part in the performance of the Theatre of Nations Stories of Shukshin (directed by Alvis Hermanis), where she played nine of 10 stories.

Film career

Khamatova has starred in a number of German language films as well as in numerous Russian feature films and TV serials.

In cinema, Khamatova started acting during the third year of GITIS - Vadim Abdrashitov invited her for the role of Katya in the film Time of a Dancer. Khamatova's breakthrough came with the crime drama Country of the Deaf by Valery Todorovsky where she played Rita. The picture was about deaf-mute people and Chulpan had to learn sign language for the role.

Other notable films with Khamatova's participation include Bakhtiyar Khudoynazarov's picture Luna Papa (1999), 72 Meters (2004) and The Fall of the Empire (2005) by Vladimir Khotinenko, Children of the Arbat (2004) by Andrei Eshpai and Garpastum (2005) by Aleksei German Jr.

She is best known internationally for starring in Good Bye Lenin! (2003), as Lara, the girlfriend of the main character and his mother's nurse.

She was on the six-person jury, which was headed by Catherine Deneuve, at the Venice Film Festival in 2006.

In 2007, together with professional ice dancer Roman Kostomarov, she took part and became the winner of the Channel One figure skating competition Ice Age.

Personal life

Khamatova was married to the Russian actor and composer Ivan Nikolayevich Volkov from 1995 to 2002. As of 2003, she dated ballet-dancer Aleksei Dubinin. On 1 October 2009, she married Russian actor and director Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Shein. She has three daughters: Arina Ivanovna Volkova (b. 4 April 2002), Asya Alekseievna Dubinina (b. 2003) and Iya Aleksandrovna Shein (b. 27 April 2010).

She is fluent in Russian, Tatar, German, Portuguese and English.

Politics

In 2012, Khamatova supported Putin during election campaign. Some Russian journalists, such as Svetlana Reiter and Ilya Zhegulev, cited the undisclosed sources saying that Khamatova and her charity foundation were put under pressure and she had to make a public statement. In 2019, Khamatova admitted that she would never support Putin if she could imagine that he would start the war in Donbass. On another occasion, she admitted that she's actually apolitical, but the effective charity in Russia is heavily dependant on the support from the state.

Philanthropy

Chulpan Khamatova is known for her social activities, she draws public attention to the problems of children with cancer. In 2005 Dina Korzun and Chulpan Khamatova organized concert "Give me life" at the stage of Sovremennik Theatre to help children with hematological diseases. In 2006 Chulpan became a co-founder of Podari Zhizn charity foundation which helps children suffering from oncological and hematological diseases. By the summer of 2009 the fund has collected and sent for treatment of these diseases more than 500 million rubles. On 7 February 2014 she was one of the eight people who carried the Olympic flag into the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi.