When the ne’er-do-well scion of a Russian oligarch sows his wild oats a little too enthusiastically with New York stripper Ani, some serious people are summoned. Cue the fixers, including the bald, quiet muscle Igor, in Sean Baker’s “Anora.” Except the mouthy, fiery Ani (Mikey Madison) isn’t having it, and Igor (Yura Borisov) isn’t your typical thug.
Igor, it turns out, is an accidental enforcer — not a professional leg-breaker, just a lonely immigrant there out of obligation to a friend: “Really more like a work friend,” Borisov says. “He doesn’t have friends in America. It’s not about money. It’s kind of, ‘We know each other and me going with you is some small help, some safety for you.’ ”
Nevertheless, Igor is good physically and smart — maybe too observant. That tracks on meeting Borisov. The 31-year-old Russian will be a new face to American audiences, but he’s a star at home. He has won awards there and appeared in eight films in 2021 alone. Sitting down in a restaurant to chat with the help of a translator, he looks pretty much as he does in “Anora”: casually dressed, bald, intense eyes, friendly, comes across as thoughtful.
“It’s an honor code,” he says. “It’s a conflict of one part of this code and another part because [Ani’s] a girl, she needs help. I have to. And it’s friends. They have troubles and I have to help them too. And it’s not combining.”
Writer-director Baker says he saw Borisov in the film “Compartment No. 6,” in which his character’s softer side was slowly revealed, as Baker intended for Igor in “Anora”: “I knew Juho [Kuosmanen], the director, so I asked him about working with Yura and he said, ‘He is just an incredible actor and brought so much.’ ”
In “Anora,” Borisov conveys much nonverbally. We see Igor seeing Ani, and watching how the others mistreat her. Borisov artfully underplays the progression: He’s taken aback by her feral resistance, amused by her spirit, then really sees her.
“I didn’t want to show our hand,” says Baker. “I know the audience might predict there might be a gravitational pull toward him. … He could have played it big, but he was very subtle about when he was looking at her, how he would look at her.”
Igor also is surprisingly difficult to move to anger. Ani has a sharp tongue and is quick to insult him. His usual response? Laughing appreciation.
“It was a very relaxed moment, it was evening, and when mise-en-scène is like that, you play like that, you absolutely relax,” Borisov says of shooting a key scene in which she roasts him repeatedly. “She’d say something, I’d answer something; it was not from the script, but it was kind of funny. It was magic, I can say. That was reality. It’s impossible to write something like this. It’s the genius of Sean; he could see the energy. He’s like a fisherman of moments. Not only moments but of meanings of life.”
Madison sees a little genius in Borisov as well. “I’m in awe of his craft and level of dedication,” she says via email. “He’s simultaneously one of a kind and also someone who I feel would be able to play any character imaginable. … All I had to do was look into his eyes and I was transported into the scene.
“I twisted my ankle and broke off my pinkie nail, and he was the one who wrapped my ankle, got me medicine and glued on my nail with medical glue every morning and night. He carried the little bottle around in his sweatpants pocket.”
“Anora’s” final scene is one of the most moving cinematic endings this year, and it relies entirely on the actors’ connection.
“It was a very important and strong and difficult scene for Mikey’s character, and it’s crazy important for Sean, the final moment, to find this energy,” Borisov says. “It was a big stress for everybody. I just want to help them, help Mikey and help Sean.”
Madison says, “I was very nervous, but Yura was there for me, helping me to achieve the level of emotionality I needed to get to and hugging me in between takes. It was an extremely vulnerable scene for me to shoot, and I’m so grateful that it was with as thoughtful a person as Yura is.”
The intimate scene had to be shot and reshot at three different times during production due to technical issues — for instance, the fake snow got caught in the car’s windshield wipers, making a horrifying sound Borisov happily re-creates for the interview.
This year, apart from “Anora,” Borisov voiced the beloved character of Behemoth (the giant demonic cat) in an adaptation of the classic novel “The Master and Margarita” and has “The Poet,” in which he stars as Russian icon Alexander Pushkin, set for release next year.
“It’s important, of course, your career and new opportunities,” he says of all the work he’s doing. “But for me, more important is that I discover new people and I find friends. Mikey is my friend now. I’m so happy that I have her in my life.”
