Natalia Romanova
59 minutes ago
Sergei Zhigunov in the film “Midshipmen, forward!” The then young actor Sergei Zhigunov became incredibly popular after the release of the adventure film “Midshipmen, Forward!” The artist filmed despite the severe pain.
All kinds of spectacular scenes with swords are an absolute decoration of the picture, which the audience loved so much. During the rehearsal of one of these scenes, a terrible thing happened – the performer of the role of Alexander Belov, as they say, caught a sword in his face.
“It’s just a miracle I didn’t die. I managed to turn my head, and the sword passed at an angle. Otherwise, certain death,” the actor later shared with reporters. But the situation was still very serious. They were even going to stop filming.
“The sword pierced my right eyelid and cut my eyebrow. Of course, the pain was terrible, and I was immediately given medical assistance. I said that I would still act,” said Zhigunov.
Visual acuity began to rapidly decline. After that ill-fated day, the artist no longer drives. Sighs:
“The right eye sees very poorly. Eye pain no longer bothers me, I raised the question of restoring vision, but the doctors replied that medicine has not yet reached that level and at the moment optic nerve atrophy – and this is exactly the diagnosis I have – cannot be treated.”
Sergei Zhigunov in the film “Midshipmen, forward!”
It’s good that Sergei didn’t perform the horse tricks himself. A professional stuntman did it for him, and he was on the verge of death. He was strangled during the fall by the strings of his raincoat. Fortunately, everything worked out fine. They decided to include the nuance with the injured neck in the storyline.
By the way, says Alexander Belov in the film “Midshipmen, forward!” in the voice not of Zhigunov, but of Oleg Menshikov, whom director Svetlana Druzhinina first wanted to film in this role.
She admitted: “At the last moment we had to change the acting ensemble. Later, as a sign of respect, I invited Oleg to voice the role. As a result, it so happened that Zhigunov does not speak in his own voice anywhere. His role in “Vivat, midshipmen!” voiced by Alexander Domogarov.”
Photo source: still from the film
