AGBU Yerevan  hosted a number of workshops with directors and actors within the framework of Golden Apricot international film festival. Iranian actor Homayoun Ershadi talked to the audience on July 14.  Ershadi, an architect working in Italy, was "discovered" as an actor by film director Abbas Kiarostami while sitting in his car in traffic in Tehran. The acclaimed director just approached him and suggested to play a role in his film, “Taste of Cherry”. The film will be screened on July 16 at 12:00 in Moscow cinema.

***

Abbas Kiarostami was in Yerevan in 2005 and it is very exciting for me to be here now. I was lucky enough to meet my master. But in the real life we usually do not wait for our luck to come, we go and fetch our fate ourselves. Even if I keep on talking about Kiarostami endlessly, that would not be enough.

***

Before starting the career of an actor I was an architect. While being an architect I handed my mind to my hands, and as an actor I started to express my mind by speaking.

***

At the beginning of my career I feared how I would manage to express my feelings. But Kiarostami gave me the self-confidence. I told him that I was not an actor and was afraid of failure. He calmed me down telling that if I failed it would have been no one`s fault but his. These words gave me strength to succeed.

***

Everything started from “Taste of Cherry”. Exactly this movie paved the way for me to appear in international cinematography. It was quite a difficult experience for me to get awards for the film. Maybe different awards make many actors think that they are famous. But my case was different. During the working process on the second film I felt as if I was a student, knowing nothing and devouring all new.

***

Kiarostami did not worked with professional actors. The non-professional actors of his films did not continue their career in the future. I can say that I am the only non-professional actor that continued his acting career after playing a role in Kiarostami`s film.

***

We were sitting in my car with Kiarostami, eating ice cream when I asked him about my character. He answered that my character was an architect from Italy. I was also an architect working in Italy. I wore my own clothes in the film, and that was my car I drove. During the dialogues there was Kiarostami standing in front of me, instead of the actor. I was not playing a role, I was just being myself.

***

There was not any script written. The working process started every morning at 05:00 am. We were sitting in my car, talking about the dialogues. Those were simple but philosophical dialogues. 

When an actor forgets his speech, the director shouts “Cut” and stops the shooting process. There is a scene in “Taste of Cherry”, I forgot my words while shooting. I was lost and worried, waiting for Kiarostami to shout “Cut”. But he never shouted. In the result exactly this scene became one of the best parts of the movie.

***

Kiarostami did not like to see his characters crying in the film. But there was a moment in the film, when I was so excited that I cried. The reason was that I had not seen my children for seven years. They lived in Canada and I was not allowed to leave the country. And I remembered them, the scene was so natural that was not cut.

***

People think that I am a very serious person and are surprised when they see me laughing or making jokes. 

Lena Gevorgyan

Photos by Mariam Loretsyan