"Vesna, above all, tries to be a good mother to her children. Vesna is an actress who endlessly looks forward to good plays and good actors. My energy is still, regardless of my age, quite inexhaustible and what characterizes me is the love and joy for the life I live," is how the famous actress describes herself. Vesna Čipčić who learned long ago that "acting is not the front page of the newspaper."
But it is love, passion, life. It is skill, energy, persistence, duration. It is Vesna. And she managed to weave into her life, in addition to acting, various arts, music, painting, literature, and to be her own in each of them.
"When I find something new in myself, I simply try to develop that love further. I had a talent for music, I had my own group - first 'Formula 1' in Kikinda, and then 'Sunce' in Novi Sad. At 'Belgrade Spring' we Ratko Kraljević We won first prize for the song 'Obraz uz obraz', so we sang at the Opatija Festival, and I don't know where else, and then the professor asked me Milenko Maricic stopped me and told me that I had to decide whether I was a singer or an actress. And then I gave up music. Since then I only sing when it's necessary in a play, like now in 'Charlie Chaplin - City Lights', directed by Nikita Milivojevića", the actress tells "Vijesti".
In time, she says, she realized that she didn't want to be a "television actress," but an actress, that she couldn't do without the boards that mean life, but also that a good role is a treat for actors, whether in film or theater.
"After graduating from the Academy, despite being a third-year scholarship holder, I somehow got into a lot of filming. I was offered various roles in TV series and films, and it just started spontaneously, until at one point I realized that if I continued like that, I wouldn't be able to act in theater, and I had primarily enrolled in the Academy for theater. And then I consciously stopped, which still makes me a little strange today, where did I get that maturity from then, because I was still very young and just starting out. I turned down all the roles that were related to TV series, dramas, and films, in order to dedicate myself to theater. And thank God I did that because I would probably have remained a television actress, which is considered less valuable than theater actors, although I don't think that's right. Thanks to that decision, I dedicated myself to serious theater, received nice awards for my work, and played wonderful roles." And yet, when I'm in a situation where I don't have any serious rehearsals in the theater, and I have time, and if I'm offered something nice to film, why not. After all, a good role is a good role, and when you're offered such a role, whether it's in a movie or in the theater, it's a treat for actors. To this day, when I happen to get a nice role, like in the movie 'Ajvar', for example, my heart dances and I give my best."
At the very beginning, the roles found her, and then she started looking for them. With age and experience, one gains the privilege of choosing roles. Now one of her main criteria is - who she plays with.
"We are often in a situation where we are chosen, but fighting for such a space where you can choose for yourself and say, 'I will do this, but this is not for me,' is normal. It has always been important to me who I play with, who my partners are, and today it is even more important to me. It happened to me that I even turned down big lead roles because I could not play with actors whose aesthetics were not compatible with my aesthetics. And I have never regretted doing it. I don't know where that intuition came from. Probably some experience I gained, because what I experienced in big Belgrade, I experienced all that previously in small Kikinda. That certainly helped me find my way in a big city, in a different environment."
The range of characters she has played is wide, and she always found it strange that for a long time the opinion prevailed that she was a comedian.
"No one can believe me when I say that apart from 'Women's Conversations', which we've been performing for 40 years, I haven't performed a new comedy in 20 years. I've always tried to find those new 'drawers' that have always been very provocative to me, and that's how I've somehow chosen roles, when I was in a situation where I could choose. I went into the unknown to conquer some new space."

And the space that "Women's Conversations" provided her, Svetlana Bojković i Milan Caci Mihailovic, they have mastered it so well that they have been ruling it sovereignly for four decades.
"What is so important is that Dusko Radovic "He wrote it so juicy, so clever, so funny, that I haven't read anything like it since then, 40 years ago, until today. It's so divine. And then we found each other as a team, so I don't know if we like it better when we travel together, when we hang out, until we go on stage, or when we go out and meet the audience. Still, I couldn't even imagine that it would last so long."
He believes that working with Branko Pleša left the greatest mark and that everything she learned from him was "indisputably valuable."
"He put me in a situation where I almost looked at the reading in front of me in a new way. I think Branko had a great influence on my development as an actress, and the plays I did with him probably made me continue to pursue acting in a real and serious way in my more mature years."
She admits that she avoided monodramas for a long time, probably because she had not come across a text that provoked her enough to tackle it. Until the monodrama "Oskar and Mama Roz", based on the bestseller Erik Emanuel Schmidt, and directed Nebojša BradićThen she changed her mind about monodrama, learned something new, and also met a different Vesna.
The actress is married to a colleague Aleksandar Alač had a daughter Anju and son Ivana VanjaThe children followed in their parents' footsteps, both graduating from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts – Anja is an actress and Ivan is a director. Vesna has shared the stage with her daughter since 2011, and is still waiting for a joint project with her son.
"I will never forget that first time on stage. It was the play 'All About My Mother' by Almodovaru, and directed Djurdje Tesic. I played the mother. The moment I saw Anja across the street, I was literally shaking with excitement. And then it wasn't easy for me to play with her at all - until we established this new relationship, not mother-daughter, but a young and older colleague. She is quite firm and strong, so we disagreed and agreed, but in the end everything turned out well. I am also very proud of my son, Ivan Vanja, a young director who has started well. His graduation play has been performed at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre for the fourth year now, he did a good play in Sombor, 'People of Wax', based on the text by Mate Matišić. We are all somehow in the world of acting. My ex-husband is an actor too. It would be nice if Anja, Vanja and I had a joint project. I would gladly accept that."
And she happily answers what she is most proud of.
"Of my children. I am very proud. I think that is the most valuable thing I have done in my life, being the mother of two such serious people as Anja and Vanja. That is unparalleled, nor can it be compared to anything. All our careers, all this that we do professionally, it is all wonderful, but it all comes and goes. And this lasts and this is the most beautiful."
She loves to dance with a young ensemble because, as she says, she is always ready to learn from the young people, and they from her, so it is a mutual cooperation in which both parties give, but also receive. I guess that energy she has carries her and does not allow her to stop. Not even when she officially became a pensioner.
"My generation from the Gymnasium, from Kikinda, calls me and tells me that I am not a retiree, but an intern. As long as I can function well on stage, I will not go into real retirement."

When he gets tired and decides to recharge his batteries, he goes to Divčibare because, as he says with a smile, only when he "escapes" from Belgrade can he stop his engines and "shift from sixth gear to neutral."
Popularity has never bothered her, because it is something inherent in her profession. After all, as she said, isn't it wonderful when she experiences something nice when meeting an audience, when they smile back at her with a smile. She also believes that it is completely natural for actors to raise their voices, and she is "with all her heart and soul" with the students in Serbia.
"If we don't raise our voices, and the audience respects and appreciates us, listens to us, I don't think that's good."
He has been hanging out with clowns for over three decades.
Painters, she says, are serious artists, and the clowns she has been drawing for years are her intimate friends, a reflection of her inner world.
"I don't consider myself a painter. Before I gave birth to Anja, I wanted something cheerful above her crib. Since I couldn't find anything cheerful, I sat down, rolled up my sleeves and drew my first clown. I framed it and put it above her crib. However, it was so refreshing to me, I found some peace in it, that I continued to draw them whenever I had free time. Especially in Divčibare, I would draw my clowns, my cheerful friends, and enjoy it."
She had several exhibitions and showed audiences in the Netherlands, Hungary and Serbia her smiling friends who never cry.
A book about a father educator, an innovator in teaching
Vesna's father, Dimitrije Čipčić was a teacher, an exceptional pedagogue, an innovator in teaching who printed the magazines "Reč tvoga učitelja" and "Naša reč" for students, the forerunner of today's electronic diary, created a "magic shelf" in the classroom with which students learned to read faster and easier, founded six puppet theaters... Since 2019, the "Dimitrije Mita Čipčić - innovation in classroom teaching" award has been awarded, and Vesna is writing a book about her father because, as she said, she owes him a lasting memory.
"I felt the need to write a book about such a father, because I think it is something that should not be forgotten. He was very interesting, fanatically in love with his profession, he motivated children in the most incredible ways. 50 years ago he knew how to transfer a student from first to third grade, which was a big deal at the time. He wrote a primer, was very interesting, unusual, creative and I think it would be a shame if he were forgotten. He was given a street in Vrdnik, where he and his mother lived for a time, an award was established with his name and I think he deserved a book, so that some trace of him would remain."
Big applause for Nikšić
In December, she was a member of the jury that decided on the awards at the 20th International Actor's Festival in Nikšić. As in acting, it is important to her who she is on the jury with, that they are people who have "the same aesthetics and love the same kind of theater". In Nikšić, the jury members responded to her (Zijah Sokolović and Miloš Latinović) so that the decisions were unanimous, and the town at the foot of Trebjesa also responded to her.
“I feel very good in Nikšić. I like Nikšić as a city, a small, beautiful city. It has that calmness that is needed in life, and yet what the Nikšić Theater does, how it looks, how the audience is nurtured and dedicated, is something that I find very pleasant and enjoyable. The city has a human openness that I rarely encounter in Belgrade anymore. The warmth of the audience that approaches me, that greets me, is something that makes me very happy. I remember one situation when the film 'Three Tickets to Hollywood' was shown in Nikšić. There were many of us from all over. There was truly a constellation of actors in that film, with Božo Nikolić, who, unfortunately, is no longer there, as well as Željko Mijanović, a wonderful writer. I remember when we were greeting each other after the film - everyone who left in front of me said: 'I am from Nikšić, I am from Nikšić, I am from Nikšić...' When I left, I said to the audience: 'Excuse me, please, but I am not from Nikšić'. There was great applause and great laughter in the audience."
Bonus video:
