Viktor Sukhorukov turns 75: the path from a textile factory to Viktor Bagrov and the Nika awards

The jubilee of an actor who found fame after forty

On November 10, 2026, actor Viktor Sukhorukov turns 75. Wide fame came to him late: in Alexei Balabanov's Brother, released in 1997, he played Viktor Bagrov, Danila's older brother, and he was already 45 years old. The material for the jubilee was prepared by Life.ru.

Childhood, army service and a factory before GITIS

Sukhorukov was born on November 10, 1951, in Orekhovo-Zuyevo, in the Moscow region. He dreamed of acting from childhood: at the age of 12 he auditioned at Mosfilm, but failed the screen test. In 1970 he finished school and joined the army, serving in the Astrakhan region, and after his service he worked for several years at the Orekhovo-Zuyevo textile factory. In 1974 he entered GITIS, joining the course taught by Vsevolod Ostalsky as the oldest student on it; among his classmates were Tatyana Dogileva and Yuri Stoyanov, with whom Sukhorukov shared a dormitory room. He graduated from the institute in 1978 and, at Pyotr Fomenko's invitation, moved to Leningrad, to the Akimov Comedy Theatre, where he immediately received the lead role in the play Good, Fine, Well. Later came seven years at the Lenin Komsomol Theatre (today's Baltic House) and a return to the Comedy Theatre from 1995 to 2001. The actor has not forgotten his home town: in 2006 he became an honorary citizen of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, and in 2016 a bronze sculpture, Viktor Sukhorukov Sitting on a Bench, appeared on Lenin Street.

A late start in cinema and work with Balabanov

His first screen appearance came even before the institute: in 1973 he played a Komsomol member in Rodion Nakhapetov's film With You and Without You. In the 1980s there were only bit parts — in Powder, The Presumption of Innocence and other films. He received his first major role in 1990 in Yuri Mamin's Sideburns, in which his character, like the actor himself, was named Viktor. It was then that Alexei Balabanov noticed the actor: he invited Sukhorukov to appear in his first feature film, Happy Days, based on Beckett, which was shown in 1992 in the Un Certain Regard programme of the Cannes Film Festival. In all, Sukhorukov appeared in six of Balabanov's films, including The Castle and Of Freaks and Men. The actor himself said that Balabanov had made him, while he had helped Balabanov.

Brother and Bagrov's borrowed voice

After Brother was released in 1997, Sukhorukov woke up famous: Viktor Bagrov's lines became catchphrases, and for years audiences saw him as the older brother from St Petersburg. A little-known fact that the actor himself revealed in an interview: in both films of the duology his character was dubbed by another actor — Alexei Poluyan, because Balabanov often re-dubbed his performers. For Brother 2 the director wanted Sukhorukov to dub his own lines, but the actor insisted on Poluyan, who had to be tracked down — he was living in a monastery. In gratitude, Sukhorukov gave him a thousand roubles and a hat. The actor still thinks about a possible Brother 3: he does not recognise someone else's film under that title, but he has an idea of his own — to show the brothers' reunion using archival footage of the late Sergei Bodrov, with a finale in St Petersburg; he compared the concept to Forrest Gump and had already proposed it to Balabanov.

Recognition and a new image after Brother

After Brother, the actor was for a long time offered only bandits and villains. The turning point came in 2003: Vitaly Melnikov entrusted him with the role of Emperor Paul I in Poor, Poor Paul, and in 2004 Sukhorukov received a Nika as best actor for this work. In 2006, in Pavel Lungin's The Island, he played Father Filaret, the monastery's superior, and received a Nika and a Golden Eagle for the supporting role; another Golden Eagle came for the role of the protagonist's father in The Sun of the Dead (Ovsyanki). The actor's range is wide: Nikita Khrushchev in Star of the Epoch, Heinrich Himmler in Konchalovsky's Paradise (the film was Russia's submission for the Oscar), Malyuta Skuratov in Godunov, policeman Voronov in Balabanov's Dead Man's Bluff, and the voice of the tsar in About Fedot the Archer. In 2002 he was named Honoured Artist of Russia, in 2008 People's Artist, and in 2011 he was awarded the Order of Friendship.

Theatre today

Sukhorukov calls theater his main calling. From 2011 to 2021 he served at the Mossovet Theater, where he played Porfiry Petrovich in 'R.R.R.' based on 'Crime and Punishment'. Since September 2022 he has been performing his autobiographical one-man show 'Happy Days' at the Yermolova Theater. In the summer of 2026, after a four-year break, the actor returned to the stage of the Vakhtangov Theater: the premiere of Anatoly Shuliev's play 'Splendor and Ashes' took place on June 2, where he plays the jeweler Pavel Kuteinikov, while his wife is played by Irina Kupchenko, whom Sukhorukov called his favorite actress.