INTERVIEW Stanić: Life without fear, Andrić without borders

There were so many things in life that we were afraid of, but we shouldn't have been. We should have lived, wrote the Nobel laureate Ivo Andric.

Actor Tihomir Stanic, who, not without reason, was almost reserved to play Andrić, never agreed to fear. But he did agree to life. And Andrić too.

In an interview for "Vijesti" he exclusively reveals what project he would like to do, what he would spend a million dollars on, what he inherited from his parents, why he likes to quote writers, whether he believes in miracles and what sentence describes the meaning of life.

He hopes to adapt Andrić's unfinished novel about Omer Pasha Latas into a film.

Andrić seems to have been destined for him. Both books and writers were destined for him from birth, because he was born in school (his father was a teacher, so they had an apartment in the school). It is not known whether Stanić went to school in the school library, or whether he learned his first letters there, but it is known that the library was his favorite room in school. It seems that this is also why, when he talks, he often uses quotes from famous writers.

"Because these people better defined something that a person himself feels. I've been quoting for years Roberta Chulia from an interview. When I was reading that interview, I thought that I thought the same thing, I just didn't know how to define it, and then it's easier for me to convey my feeling with a quote from someone who, with their wisdom, education, and talent, managed to define it."

Andrić not only succeeded, but he excelled at it. And Stanić excelled in interpreting Andrić's character, because he did not play a Nobel laureate, but made an effort to be Andrić through movements, facial expressions, posture, emotions, and not just physical resemblance.

"It's not about imitation. You need to get into the essential, true emotion of the person you're portraying. If you can do that, then you become that person."

And he succeeded. Although the first association that connects them is the series “Nobelovac”, which experienced regional popularity, Stanić left a strong mark on Andrić’s character long before that, whether he just appeared in a film or TV drama, or played major roles on the small and big screen and the boards that mean life: “Barking at the Stars”, “Žućko”, “Znakovi”, “Spring on the Last Lake”, “Conversations with Goja”, “Jelena, the Woman Who Doesn’t Exist”, “On the Drina Bridge”... Stanić and Andrić’s “friendship” has lasted for decades. It culminated in the series “Nobelovac”, but that’s not the end.

As he revealed to "Vijesti", in recent days he has been thinking intensely about Andrić's unfinished novel "Omer-paša Latas" and his desire to adapt it into a film. In the series "Nobelovac", Stanić says, they only began the connection between Andrić and Omer-paša, and now he would like to deepen it, but also to tell about the drama of the painter. Vjekoslav Karas who could not capture the pasha's image.

"That Mićo Latas, a Serb who becomes an Austro-Hungarian officer, and out of shame, because his father committed some embezzlement, flees to Turkey and becomes a great military leader, a executioner, a man who goes and suppresses rebellions throughout the Turkish Empire, he came and suppressed the rebellion in Bosnia in blood. And then Vjekoslav Karas, as Andrić says in that chapter, the so-called painter, comes to paint a portrait of Omer Pasha. And he cannot capture his image. And the Pasha in front of Bogdan Zimonjic says: 'It is not Omer Pasha standing before you, but Mićo Latas, cross yourself with this one' and crosses yourself. Well, that is a question of identity, not only of our region, but of Europe and civilization in general, when three religions, three cultures, three faiths are mixed in one person, and when that person comes to such a position of power that he can unquestionably decide on everyone's lives. And that drama of that painter who had great ambitions, but did not justify everything that the patrons invested in him, that meeting of a man who is not able to paint a portrait of that powerful man, that is something I would invest more than a million dollars in. I hope that I will manage to secure the rights to film that work in the Foundation".

It is known that Andrić donated the entire amount of his Nobel Prize to the construction of libraries in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to buy books. If Stanić received a million euros, he would invest the money in a film or series.

"Maybe I should do my story about Diana BudisavljevićMy intention is to make a trilogy, so in addition to the series about Andrić, I am preparing a series about Miloš Crnjanski io To Meša SelimovićWe are also preparing a series about To Pavle Savic. The question is what will be realized from that. I would invest money in such things. On the other hand, I received an interesting offer from a theater to do a farewell play in November, when I retire. I was thinking about what I would like to play, and I received an offer to play something I didn't even know existed, and I was so happy about it. It is much more beautiful when you don't achieve your own wishes and ambitions, than when you accept someone else's wish and ambition as your own and manage to achieve it," says Stanić, who was born on November 17, 1960 in Šeškovci, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

There you have it, another connection between him and Andrić - Bosnia and Herzegovina. And then Serbia.

Acting helps a person to more easily accept life as it is.

Actors have the opportunity to find different traits within themselves and to bring some of those traits to the forefront in various characters.

“Therein lies the secret of acting talent and that dose of the personal and true reaches the audience. As time goes by, what strikes me most is when someone tells me that I have acted well. If you can see those scales and how I act, then something is not right. I try to achieve what is ideal in this profession - that while the filming or the play is going on, I am the one I am playing with my whole being. In all these roles, you are just a tool and you as you are not important, but the character you are interpreting. As I say 'The Bridge on the Drina', I know that I am not Ivo Andrić who wrote those crystal clear, stylistically perfect, wise sentences, but that I am just like that copper wire or some kind of conductor who tries to convey that literary perfection with as little resistance as possible to the audience who are ready to listen to it. I have a few performances in specific situations that I remember and sometimes I think: 'God, I will never be able to do this again'. But, since I play it often, I think that more and more often. I know that there will come a moment when I really won't be able to play anymore, but while it lasts, it's nice for me and, I hope, for the audience as well."

And if it weren't beautiful, it wouldn't have lasted almost a quarter of a century. And it will continue to do so.

We tend, he says, to impose our own characteristics on others, and we forget, as he points out, that the uncle Jova Dragon wrote: "Honesty cannot be bought, because an honest person would not sell it even for all the treasures of the world. And a dishonest person would sell it, but it is not there." He believes that vanity limits a person and that we must often remember Andrić's sentence that the world is not as corrupt as corrupt people think.

"A person cannot recognize or understand what they do not have within themselves. I think vanity is a great sin, the source of many misfortunes and misfortunes. For example, people who enter politics and allow their personal vanity to limit their communication with people, because they believe they are bigger and more important than others, that is the cause of many tragedies," says the man who is an actor, director, producer, and screenwriter.

However, when asked who Tihomir Stanić is, he answers briefly: an actor, because he believes that everything is contained in that. He is aware that acting requires many sacrifices, but it also offers a lot. He gave up free weekends, hobbies, and even limited his passion for playing Sudoku to the extent possible, but he gained freedom, play, and the opportunity to bring many characters to life, to remind us of many historically significant figures, to get to know the world, different people, and also life destinies.

"Everything that happens to us, both in society and in our personal lives, has happened to other people. We are not alone in anything. Acting and theater and meeting these important writers, it helps you, as it probably helps the audience while watching the play, to recognize their own problems and something that bothers them, and to understand that many people, over many centuries, have gone through the same problems, the same dilemmas. It seems to me that this profession helps a person to more easily accept life as it is."

Did I sleep while others suffered?

One of Stanić's guiding thoughts is the sentence Duško Radović"He who believes in miracles creates miracles."

"I believe in that, and faith in any of its manifestations, whether institutionalized faith or faith in people, is necessary for a person. I believe in people and in my youth I learned that it is not my problem if someone deceives me. That it is my problem only if I deceive someone. I try not to have problems in life, not to deceive, not to let someone down, to do something I promised, even if it was frivolous, no matter what it costs, because then life is somehow more peaceful. People who are in eternal fear of being deceived, even if no one ever deceives them, live their lives in fear. Then that is not life. And the ideal we all strive for is freedom."

The most important question that each of us must ask ourselves, he believes, is a sentence from Beckett's Godot: "Did I sleep while others suffered?"

“Everything bad that happens is because of the lack of empathy and solidarity. And then, when it knocks on your door, you wonder what it is? Well, it's that you didn't react while others were threatened, persecuted, while others were wronged. There is the answer. This trait of sympathizing with others and helping each other is what makes us human. Without it, humanity would not exist. The fact that we are now talking and that we exist despite this enormous amount of accumulated destructive weapons, this enormous amount of evil, eternal wars that are fought for various reasons, and everything again comes down to profit, is proof that good is stronger and that the number of people who don't sleep is greater than these selfish people. Otherwise, the world would be destroyed.”

Although his father often said that they should learn from his mistakes, he believes that this is impossible, because only personal experience can make a person aware.

"Of course, there is also what is called the collective experience of the nation, a centuries-old set of customs, moral norms, which are even genetically transmitted. One of the wisest sayings in our language is: Do good and hope for good. No one says that if you do good, good will come back to you. No one claims that, but it gives you hope, and the only thing that keeps us going is hope. In Serbia, people have fallen into a kind of hopelessness in recent years that anything can be changed. And then children, students, came along, who awakened hope in people. And that is why people cry, rejoice and react emotionally, because hope has returned to them as the meaning of existence."

He says he has become aware enough to know that only what happens in the future matters, because only those actions can be influenced. The past is something that is finished forever and can never be changed.

"The interpretation of these actions may change, but the facts cannot be changed. Each of us can influence our own future. I think that children should be listened to. Ever since I started talking honestly with children and listening to them, everything in my life has been better. I didn't fundamentally give up many vices until I sat eye to eye with children who had an attitude towards them. If I was previously inclined to forgive myself and say that it's no big deal, because all people have vices, when I realized that I am not all people to my children and that I have a different kind of obligation to them and their opinions, then everything was easy for me. Then I easily gave up some of my small pleasures. Children make the world and us better. And they don't have to be our biological children. What Crnjanski says: 'It will be enough if, one winter, from a garden of a beggar, a frozen, someone else's, child runs out and hugs me'. What more could you want from life?"

A man of his word, a free, adventurous spirit

The fate of his father, a teacher, served as the inspiration for the film “The Forger.” A law was passed that people could not do the simplest manual jobs unless they had completed elementary school, and then his father, believing he was doing a good deed for the peasants, issued false certificates.

"I once asked him how many of these testimonies he had issued, and he then asked me how many fighters the First Proletarian Brigade had. I found in the book that it said 1.700-1.800 fighters and he told me that he had issued that many testimonies. He was imprisoned twice for that and it destroyed him. It left terrible consequences for the entire family. If each of us looked, we would see that we all have someone in that family history who had to pay the price for us to move on to a better and more adequate form of existence. There are countless questions that none of us know the answer to, and that is why we do all of this that we do. What does it say pasternak: 'Life is not as much as crossing a field'. We cannot define anyone's life until its very end. We do not know what a person is capable of doing in the last years, the moments of his existence”.

He says he stopped analyzing himself a long time ago because he doesn't want his life to be spent in that way and for that analysis to prevent him from doing anything concrete. Actions are what define a person.

Whenever he comes to Nikšić, he makes sure to stop by Župa, because his mother is a native of Dragnić, from the Župa village of Morakovo. That was the case this time, when this interview was written. When asked what he inherited from his parents, he readily answers:

"I was once a member of the jury at a festival in Niš. Then, for example, on Wednesday, we decided on the awards that we would announce on Saturday. I spoke to my mother on the phone and she asked me who we had given the awards to. I said I couldn't tell her, because we promised not to tell anyone. When she said that she was in the village and that there was no one to tell, I replied: 'No, mom. I promised not to tell anyone'. And she said: 'I love you, son, for being of your word'. And I remembered that, even though it was a long time ago - to be of your word, to respect something I said. My mother was a woman of her word and, well, maybe she passed it on to me genetically or later through experience, because I try to be that way. I don't claim to be, but I try to be a man of my word. And from my father I inherited a kind of freedom of spirit, risk-taking and a willingness not to act according to patterns and clichés, but to try something new. He often acted like an immature boy, ready for all sorts of crazy things and games. That is necessary for this profession. It is nice when a man has a profession, or a calling, in which he can turn this trait into an advantage. In other professions, he cannot. God forbid that an officer or a doctor behaves in the way that actors can behave in both private and social life. He would lose his reputation, and the actor would gain his reputation.

Director Roberto Čuli claims that the actor is at the center of everything, not just theater. When you meet Stanić, you realize that he is absolutely right.