On March 15, mankind’s first real-life space movie “ challenges ” was released in China. The biggest highlight of the film is undoubtedly that with the strong support of the Russian Space Agency, director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Persild took a Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station during the filming. And complete thrilling plots such as "space surgery" on the station.
"Challenge" poster
This is not the first time that Russian director Klim Shipenko, born in the 1980s, has dabbled in space themes. In 2017, the film "Space Rescue " directed by him (which was introduced to the public in mainland China in 2018) was adapted from the Soviet era when two heroic astronauts piloted a Soyuz spacecraft and successfully rescued the malfunctioning "Salyut 7" space station. The real story of docking. The movie "The Challenge" focuses on contemporary Russia and tells the story of an ordinary woman, surgeon Yevgenia, who was urgently selected to go to the space station to perform lung surgery on an injured astronaut.
The female doctor in the film is played by Yulia Persilde. The Russian actress born in the 1980s was selected from more than 3,000 applicants after undergoing a series of physical and psychological tests during the audition stage. On October 5, 2021, she and the director entered space aboard the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft, and returned safely to Earth after completing 12 days of filming on the space station.
As one of the six women to set foot in space so far in Russian history (including the Soviet period), Yulia is the only actress among them and the second woman to work and live on the International Space Station. This feat of real-life shooting in space also makes her the first person to complete a feature film in space, ahead of Hollywood star Tom Cruise (the latter announced in 2020 that he plans to join hands with NASA and SpaceX to shoot movies on the International Space Station) Filmed by actors. According to the memory of cosmonaut Oleg, who played the injured person in "The Challenge", "Although Yulia was not a professional astronaut, her performance was calm and decent throughout the whole process."
Stills of "The Challenge"
In 1984, especially Lea Persild was born in Pskov, a small city in northwestern Russia. He has been starring in film and television dramas since he was 19 years old, and has appeared in more than 30 movies so far. The most familiar screen image of her to Chinese audiences was in 2015, when she starred in the war film " female sniper " that reflected the Soviet Union's patriotism period. With her vivid interpretation of the legendary Soviet hero Lyudmila Pavlichenko, she won the "Tiantan Award" for Best Actress at the 5th Beijing International Film Festival. After Yulia graduated from the Russian Academy of Dramatic Art in 2006 with a major in acting, she has been working at the Moscow State Theater and has appeared in many classic stage plays such as "Uncle Vanya" and "The Marriage of Figaro". Play a major role.
Yulia Persilde, who is already the mother of two daughters, revealed when she came to China to promote the movie "The Challenge" that it was starring in this movie that allowed her to meet her current husband, fellow actor Mi. Hay Trojnik. When attending a public event, she laughed and said that a woman as powerful as herself "can only find love in space." Recently, she accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from The Paper in Beijing.
Yulia Persild
[Conversation]
It’s more expensive to film weightlessness on Earth
The Paper: Can you first introduce the origin of starring in "The Challenge" and how you selected from more than 3,000 applicants? Stand out from the crowd?
Yulia: At the beginning of 2021, the movie "The Challenge" auditioned actresses who could shoot in space. I knew nothing about it in advance - in addition to being an actor, I also participated in the creation of a company aimed at helping people a few years ago. Foundation for the Rehabilitation of Brain Injured Children. Late one night, the chairman of the foundation and one of my best friends called me and said, "Yuliya, Yulia, watch TV, there is a movie selecting actors to go into space." I thought she was drunk at the time. (Laughs) Later, I found out that it was true. It was not a "reality show." It was really crazy.
I emailed my resume to the crew, and then there was a long wait. There was no news at all for a month or two.Until one day when I was traveling in Georgia, I received a notice asking me to come for a physical examination.
"The Challenge" stills
The Paper News: I heard that the reason why you were selected is because your inner ear is very healthy, even different from ordinary people. Can you give a detailed introduction to the physical examination process?
Yulia: The process of physical examination is very detailed and cumbersome. I can’t even remember the gastroscopy, MRI, etc., but the inner ear you mentioned is actually not accurate. Deep in our ears we have a small but very important balancing organ called the "vestibule." This organ converts information about the body's gravity and acceleration into electrical signals and sends them to the brain. On Earth, the brain is constantly receiving information about gravity to help maintain body balance. But in space, where gravity is very weak, the information from the vestibular organs changes, causing brain confusion and causing space halos.
So anyone who wants to be an astronaut needs to do a vestibular test - which I didn't know anything about. Looking back later, I never felt dizzy when playing on swings and merry-go-rounds as a child, but I enjoyed it very much. Indeed, my vestibular organs helped me a lot in this audition, making me more suitable for space than other actresses.
The Paper: The movie shows your training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, including the scene where you experience weightlessness on an IL-76 transport plane. Can you give a detailed introduction?
Director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Persild took a group photo inside the space station
Yulia: I only met director Klim Shipenko for the first time in May 2021. Shipenko. Then we came to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center together. This process lasted three and a half months. During this period, the training subjects included centrifuge testing, shaking tables, zero-gravity flight, parachute training, etc. One of them is an aerospace multifunctional swivel chair. I can sit on it for 22 minutes at a time. It seems that I am really not afraid of dizziness (laughs).
You mentioned that experiencing weightlessness in a transport aircraft is a zero-gravity flight experience. The aircraft performs a parabolic flight in the air. Due to the budget of the movie, we only experienced it four times, and each time was only 23 seconds. It was completed in the extreme dive state of the aircraft. This The process is thrilling. The training scenes in the movie are the real scenes in our training.
Some people think that since this movie is about filming in a state of weightlessness, why fly to space and film it in a space station? It would be fine to shoot in the airplane (weightless) state, but that’s because they don’t understand the process involved. It is difficult and more expensive to shoot weightlessness on earth, but it is natural to shoot weightlessness in space.
The Paper: Astronauts have to withstand huge overloads during the ascent and descent of the spacecraft, and they must always stay awake and operate correctly. You just mentioned the centrifuge test. How many times have you done this test? How many g can the overload resistance be?
Yulia: I have done this test twice, and both times reached an overload of 8g. In the test, 1g is equivalent to your own weight. Most people will feel dizzy and nauseated when it reaches 5g. It can reach 8g. My weight at that time was 60 kilograms, which means that there was nearly 500 kilograms of weight on my body, which fully met the standards of an astronaut.
As far as my feelings in the cockpit of the centrifuge are concerned, when the overloaded gravity gradually increases, a sense of claustrophobia in the space will come over, which will make people feel scared. At this time, I feel that I can't breathe and can only use my abdomen. You will feel relaxed when you breathe. And during this process, the operator would also ask me some data questions to see if I was awake when answering. When we actually took off on the Soyuz rocket, the overload we received was about 4g. The force was applied from the chest downward near the diaphragm. I would take a deep breath unconsciously.
The cast of "The Challenge" took a group photo in the space station
The Paper: When you were taking off on a rocket in the film, I noticed a snow leopard plush doll hanging above your head. Is this your personal belongings?
Yulia: When taking off on a rocket, the astronauts are fixed to their seats and cannot move throughout the process. The hanging plush doll is a culture among Russian astronauts. It is a mascot, and it also has a practical function, that is, it serves as a "weightless instrument." When it floats, the astronauts know that the rocket has left the atmosphere. .
The snow leopard doll in the movie belongs to the leader of our group when we launched. He is a real astronaut. He has two identical dolls. One was taken with him when he launched, and the other was left to his daughter. , accompanying her daughter to sleep. My doll at that time was a blue bird, which was the logo of the Children's Charity Foundation, which I co-founded, which aims to help children with brain injuries recover. It is very difficult for those (sick) children to eat with a spoon in reality. When filming on the space station, we deliberately restored the process of astronauts eating with a spoon, just to encourage these children that no matter how difficult it is, everything is possible.
The Paper: , can you tell us about the day when you took the rocket into space?
Yulia: The launch date of is October 5, 2021. We arrived at the Baknur launch site in Kazakhstan for the first time on September 18, and the Soyuz rocket had not yet been hoisted and erected that day. Entering the launch site is a very serious matter, and you have to go through several security checks. The next day, we went to try out the astronaut cockpit of the rocket, put on spacesuits and chose our seats. This was different from flying on a plane every day. You had to sit very properly in the cockpit seat. On launch day, I remember there were a lot of people working there, and I was like, oh my god, let’s fly.
Why did you wear a skirt and then a spacesuit?
The Paper: In the plot of the space station in the movie, you had three Russian astronauts acting with you. Are they real astronauts?
Yulia and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov took a photo when they took off on the Soyuz spacecraft
Yulia: That’s right, there are a total of five Russians on the space station. In addition to me and the director, the astronaut Anton Shkaplerov, Oleg Novitsky (played as a wounded man in the movie), and Pyotr Dubrov all starred in the movie under their real names this time. Among them, Anton is the commander who accompanied us to the space station. On October 17, 2021, Oleg accompanied us on the return capsule and returned to Earth. On the space station, in addition to starring in movies, the three of them also have their own jobs to do. I sometimes take time to cook for everyone.
To be honest, I was really confused at first on the space station. The director and I stayed in space for 12 days, 288 hours, and there was an "accident" almost every ten seconds. To put it simply, on the ground, going to the toilet is a natural thing for us, and you don’t think about what else to pay attention to during this process. But on the space station, this is a purely "technical job". You have to operate a switch and fix your legs on the toilet. After using the toilet, you have to turn off the switches one by one. There can be no mistakes in this procedure, otherwise the toilet may be damaged. The result will be tragic, and the space capsule must return to Earth for repairs. The same thing also includes cooking. All food is freeze-dried and dehydrated. When heating, you must prevent hot water from splashing on your face and causing burns.
In addition, we are not here to travel, but to make a movie. On the ground, a crew usually has hundreds of people, but this time it was just the director and me. Krim Shipenko is also a photographer, sound engineer, lighting engineer and artist. In addition to being an actor, I am also responsible for costumes, makeup, props, and scene notes. I wear multiple hats. The camera entered the space station in advance. An astronaut learned to operate the camera in a few days by reading the instructions. Some of the live shots in the film were shot by them first.We shot on the space station for a total of 12 days. On the last day, the director and I shot some empty shots and reshot some shots. The 12 days of filming were very tight. We shot about 30 hours of footage, of which nearly 40 minutes were included in the film. Basically, we were shooting during the day and at night. Of course, there is no alternation of day and night in space.
Stills from "The Challenge"
The Paper News: came to the space station from the earth. Can you tell us about your feeling when you first saw the earth from the space station? At the end of the film, there is a shot of you in front of a large porthole with the beautiful Earth in the background. How was that shot?
Yulia: On the night of October 5, 2021, we arrived at the space station, unloaded the equipment we brought and took a rest. Early the next morning, I woke up from my sleep and said to myself, Yulia, yesterday you were an ordinary woman on earth, and today I woke up in space? ! Through the porthole, I saw the solar panels of the space station and the blue earth. I think the earth looks very innocent, like a baby without skin, which makes me feel motherly love. We all know that a lot is happening on Earth, so at that moment I felt both excited and conflicted.
The shot you mentioned was taken in a Russian science module that had just launched not long ago. There was a very large window. At the time of filming, this large window had not been affixed with anti-ultraviolet film. For a moment, the positions of the earth and the sun coincided. The brilliance of the sun gave the blue earth a golden edge. It was very spectacular and beautiful. The director wanted to keep this scene. In fact, the photo only lasted 30 seconds, and the half of my skin near the window was sunburned.
Stills from "The Challenge"
The Paper: In the movie, the scene where your character Yevgenia performs surgery on the wounded was actually shot on the space station?
Yulia: In the plot of , an astronaut injured his lungs while working outside the spacecraft and had to undergo surgery, so it was necessary to send a surgeon from the earth into space. Surgery in space is the highlight of the entire movie. Before this, (in reality) humans have never had a case of surgery in space. We also hope to use such a fictional plot to provide some reference for future technological advancement.
The surgical process and steps in the movie were designed by the best thoracic surgeons in Russia. They are exactly the same as real surgeries (on the ground). All movements and medical terms are the same as real ones. I also read a lot of books and videos on thoracic surgery before shooting. The director and I also observed two similar operations at the hospital, one of which was performed by Russia's best military doctor, and the operation lasted for six hours.
When I was preparing for this scene on the ground, my home was like a mental hospital (laughs). On one wall were real pictures of the space station, and on the other wall were bloody pictures of doctors performing operations. In order to realistically reproduce Yevgenia's suturing movements, the prop team also specially found a silicone bionic model for me. Whether I am eating in a restaurant or taking a taxi, I will practice how to act like a surgeon whenever I have free time. Suture the patient's skin. I would like to emphasize that the surgical aspects of the movie were all shot in space. The only thing is that according to the regulations of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, we cannot bring prop plasma into space. The bleeding during the operation and the weightless blood droplets floating in the scene were added through post-production special effects synthesis. There are only five such shots.
The Paper: You have beautiful hair. Why didn’t you tie your hair up during the space shooting? Will this cause any inconvenience? There is a view that it is the floating hair that enhances the reality of weightlessness in space.
Yulia: Thank you for your compliment. Usually when I'm on the ground, I almost never let my hair down, it's always tied up. But in space, the best "hairstyle" for women is to spread their hair. In the weightless state, the hair will float up and will not block the line of sight. At the same time, the director also believes that this presentation will give the audience a more immersive experience in entering space.
Stills from "The Challenge"
The Paper: In the film, after you rescue Oleg, there is a scene where you leave the spacewalk and walk in space. Was this scene shot in space? How do you wear a green skirt and then put on a space suit? I'm curious how this is achieved and what does it mean to you?
Yulia: This is an artistic scene. I am very grateful to the director for his design - China also has its own space station and astronauts. You should know how difficult it is to contact them on a daily basis. On the space station, for operational safety reasons, the director and I were not allowed to wear astronauts’ spacesuits. We once applied to the astronauts to leave the space capsule, but they couldn't make the decision. The decision had to be made by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Considering the tightness of the space station, astronauts' extravehicular activities are dangerous, and this is a very professional operation. My exit shots in the movie were combined with special effects. The director believes that a woman will wear a skirt everywhere, and space is no exception. This scene can be understood as our tribute to women on earth in heaven.
"The Challenge" stills
"It's an echo, it's a long-term response to each other"
The Paper News: Chinese audiences are no stranger to you. In 2015, "Female Sniper" won you the Tiantan Award at the 5th Beijing International Film Festival. "Best Actress Award". You have played many female hero roles in the past. What I want to know is, in addition to your physical advantages, a strong heart is also a major reason why you can win in the "Challenge" audition.
Yulia: In 2006, after I graduated from the Russian Theater Academy (one of the most famous theater schools in Russia, founded in 1878, formerly known as the Moscow Art Institute), I entered the Bolshoi Theater as an actor. It can be said that the theater stage is This is where my career as an actor started. The communication with the audience on stage is direct, which is very good at honing my acting skills. What I want to tell my Chinese friends is that there is a director from China in our theater, and there is now a lot of cultural and artistic cooperation between our two countries. I particularly like ancient Greek dramas, where plots often push human emotions to their extremes. In fact, the first play I starred in, "The Trojan Women," was adapted from Greek mythology.
"Female Sniper" poster
In Russian history, stories like this mostly appeared during the Soviet Patriotic War, so when I received the movie script of "Female Sniper", it was about the heroine of World War II The story of Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, I took the role without hesitation. The filming process was very difficult and even dangerous. In several scenes, I had to be covered directly with the soil thrown up by the explosion. At that moment, I felt that I could no longer breathe.
Speaking of my character, it is related to my life experience. I was born in Pskov, a small city in northwest Russia. It is also a heroic city. There are many monuments in the city telling the stories of heroes. My family is not rich, so I have wanted to change my destiny through my own efforts since I was a child. I am very good at communicating with people. I can talk to university professors and traffickers. My colorful life experiences are necessary to be a good actor, and they also make me a tough woman.
The Paper: In the movie, a Russian song sung by you appears repeatedly. Can you introduce the name and origin of this song?
Yulia: The name of this song is "Echoes of Love", which is an episode from the Soviet movie "Destiny" in the 1970s. The singer was Anna Hermann, a famous Soviet lyric soprano in the 1960s and 1970s. She passed away in 1982 and is one of my favorite Soviet singers. The other one is Alla Pugacheva, a famous Russian pop music singer. She is still alive and is over 70 years old. When I was studying in college, I formed my own band, and I loved singing their songs during domestic tours.
The reason why "Echoes of Love" appeared in the movie "The Challenge" is because after I arrived at the space station, I couldn't help but sing this song when I woke up the next day. Maybe the lyrics were based on my mood at the time. It matches.
"The breeze gently shakes the shadows of the trees, and I can hear your call clearly from thousands of miles away. It is an echo, it is an echo, it is a long-term response to each other. It is an echo, it is an echo, it is a long-term response to each other. No matter where the world is, You and I are inseparable..." Later, the director noticed this detail. In the scene in the film when we take the return capsule into the atmosphere and land on the ground, the background music is also this song, sung by me.
The Paper: Speaking of Soviet and Russian movies, which one is your favorite?
Yulia: My favorite movie is "The Wild Goose Flying South" (1957), which is the pinnacle of the Soviet black and white film era. Unlike many movies that reflect the Great Patriotic War, it is more like a poem. It depicts the psychology of women during the war very delicately, and the lens language of the movie is also very charming, fully demonstrating the charm of film art.
The Paper: After you returned to Earth from the space station, you wrote a book about your experience, "This is Space, Baby!" ”, is there a story behind the title of the book?
《This is space, baby! 》Book Shadow
Yulia: Yes, I want to record this extraordinary experience and share it with more people. The sentence in the title of the book was something I heard with my own ears on the space station. There was an emergency on the space station at that time. I'm sorry that I can't go into details about what happened now, but you can imagine how nervous the director and I were. At this time, an astronaut smiled at us and said, "This is space, baby!" In fact, he was comforting us, because this kind of situation is too common in space.
