Yulia Samoilenko

I went to a regular school until the 9th grade. Then I applied to the school run by the Shchepkin Theatre Institute — and I was accepted. By then I knew I would be applying to one of Moscow's theatre institutes. I had no idea what an actor's life was about. I thought the only difficult thing to do was to get accepted. At the end of 10th grade we all took an exam in acting. I got a B- and I was told that I would be well advised to think long and hard about what I wanted to do with my life. That is when I decided that I would enter the theatre institute no matter what it took.

That summer I entered the exams of all the institutes in Moscow. I had no idea that there was an actors group in the directing department at GITIS. When I failed the exams in the second round some good people told me to go up the stairs to the third floor.

As a result of all my sufferings, I was admitted to the Shchukin Institute, the Cinema Institute, the Moscow Art Theatre school and GITIS in the directing department. That's when it occurred to me that, in any case, I'd have to be working with directors my whole life long, so it wouldn't be such a bad idea to study a little about that myself. Moreover, Oleg Kudryashov was planning to conduct an experimental musical-dramatic course and I figured that I'd learn to sing and dance here, too.

So I chose GITIS. I began to study. And I ceased to be so sure of myself and to understand what I always had thought I understood.