\n<\/p>\n
On the face of it, the Russian actor Yura Borisov was an unlikely actor to land an Oscar nomination in 2025.<\/p>\n
Just a few years ago he played a guileless soldier in a Kremlin-sponsored movie<\/a> that celebrated a Soviet tank model. Later, he starred in a biopic of Mikhail Kalashnikov<\/a>, the man who invented the Russian automatic rifle.<\/p>\n But after Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he stopped playing in militaristic movies. Last year, Western audiences fell in love with him as a tight-lipped but sentimental mafia errand boy in \u201cAnora<\/a>,\u201d a Brooklyn-based indie dramedy about a stripper who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch.<\/p>\n At the Academy Awards on Sunday, Borisov is up for best supporting actor for the role.<\/p>\n The war in Ukraine cut many Russian artists off from the West, but Borisov has been among the few who managed to transcend the dividing lines. He has continued a career in Russia, without endorsing or condemning the war, while in the West, he has evaded being seen as a representative of state-sponsored Russian culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cBorisov hasn\u2019t picked a side,\u201d said Anton Dolin, a leading Russian film critic. \u201cMaybe he is just very smart, or maybe he thinks he is not smart enough,\u201d Dolin said by phone from Riga, Latvia, where he now lives in exile.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d Dolin added. \u201cHis behavior and strategy have been impeccable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Today, Borisov is one of Russia\u2019s biggest international stars. In Moscow, where some filmmakers have declared loudly that Hollywood was an irrelevant nest of decadence, the cinema crowd has been swept up in \u201cYuramania\u201d over his Oscar nomination. His public appearances have been followed closely by fans on social media, and he has become the subject of countless online memes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many Russians saw Borisov\u2019s nomination as proof that the country was breaking through what officials have described as \u201ca cultural wall\u201d erected around Russia by the nefarious West.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone talks about Yura,\u201d said Katya Mtsituridze, a film critic in Moscow and former chief editor of Variety Russia. \u201cAnd Shaun Baker is perceived almost as a Russian filmmaker,\u201d she added, referring to the director and screenwriter of \u201cAnora.\u201d \u201cThis is a film where Russians are good and sincere \u2014 they are true Chekhovian characters,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Over the past weeks, Borisov, who grew up in a humble family in a town outside Moscow, has been on the road campaigning for awards for \u201cAnora\u201d and attending glittering ceremonies. When he has made it back to Moscow, he has been promoting another patriotic film, in which he plays Aleksander Pushkin, Russia\u2019s celebrated poet.<\/p>\n This week, Borisov arrived in Los Angeles to prepare for the Oscars ceremony. After multiple requests through his agent, family and friends, a representative declined an interview request for this article, citing the actor\u2019s award season commitments.<\/p>\n While Borisov\u2019s performances can seem effortless, as if he simply plays himself, he actually labors over his craft. For the role of a crude Russian miner in the Finnish movie \u201cCompartment No. 6<\/a>,\u201d he thought about getting a tooth removed to look rougher, he said in an interview<\/a> with a Russian blogger. For another part, he added, he tried drugs to work out how an addict would behave. (He never wanted to play a drug addict again, he said.)<\/p>\n In three movies he made in 2021, Borisov played parts that could potentially alienate him from the Russian authorities.<\/p>\n He played a secret agent trying to redeem his sins in \u201cCaptain Volkonogov,<\/a>\u201d an anti-totalitarian film that was effectively banned in Russia. He was featured in \u201cPetrov\u2019s Flu<\/a>,\u201d a phantasmagorial movie by Kirill Serebrennikov<\/a>, the darling of Russia\u2019s anti-Kremlin intelligentsia in exile. And he appeared as a Russian mercenary in Syria in \u201cMama, I\u2019m Home<\/a>,\u201d a rare film to explore the Kremlin\u2019s shadow war for influence in the Middle East and its effects at home in Russia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHe is a rare artist who hasn\u2019t been blacklisted,\u201d said Dolin, the critic. But, since Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he added, Borisov \u201calso hasn\u2019t discredited himself by taking part in outright propaganda projects.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Borisov has transcended boundaries \u2014 just like \u201cAnora,\u201d which was a huge but unlikely success in Russia.<\/p>\n The movie had a wide theatrical release across the country, and was bought by Kinopoisk, Russia\u2019s leading streaming service. A spokeswoman for the platform said that more than 2.4 million subscribers had watched it, and it was Kinopoisk\u2019s most popular film in January.<\/p>\n Part of this has to do with a thirst for Western movies. Major Hollywood studios like Disney and Sony pulled out of the Russian market in 2022, but independent movies like \u201cAnora\u201d can still get released. And Russians rush to theaters to watch them.<\/p>\n Members of the pro-Western elite were so enthusiastic about the success of \u201cAnora\u201d that some Russian nationalists grew irritated. Yegor Kholmogorov, a firebrand pro-Kremlin commentator, said that the buzz around the movie showed that Russians were always looking for confirmation from the West.<\/p>\n In a scathing article<\/a> about the movie on a Russian nationalist website, he said that the furor confirmed that members of the Russian elite were \u201cwandering around, looking for a shot of praise\u201d from the West \u2014 \u201clike drug addicts looking for a fix.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The success of the movie, and Borisov\u2019s nomination, have also had a polarizing effect on anti-Kremlin forces.<\/p>\n