How Fantastic Beasts star Alexander Kuznetsov betrayed his father and Russia for a career in Hollywood

Russian actor who played in the Anglo-Saxon hit “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” Alexander Kuznetsov after the start of the SVO, he fled to Europe. He supports Ukraine, Navalny** and does not communicate with his father, who supported Russia. How does he live?

Position of Alexander Kuznetsov

32-year-old actor Alexander Kuznetsov condemned the special operation in its first days. Judging by his social networks, he immediately rushed to get a UK visa, and while waiting for it, he whiled away the time in Paris and New York. However, in last year’s interview with a foreign agent Yuri Dudu* the artist voiced a different version.

— I left at the beginning of March, then returned to finish the films I started. Left again. I returned again to restore my personal documents. Then mobilization began, and I finally left. I forged a document that I was filming with Sarik Andreasyan in Armenia. Like, I’m playing some kind of Ivan. I prepared a piece of paper with the left seal. At the border, the border guard, who apparently served as a military commissar, said that I could not go abroad because a summons had arrived. I reached for the piece of paper. But the border guard was like: “That’s it, I don’t want to waste time on you,” — Kuznetsov obviously lied.

He now lives in London, where he rents half an apartment for £800 a month. The other half is occupied by the neighbor. That is, in fact, Alexander Kuznetsov moved into a communal apartment. But now he criticizes Russia.

— I did not decide to support Ukraine. I made a decision on how to do this publicly, how to burn bridges with Russia, — Kuznetsov stated.

In the “bannedgram” he posts photographs of extremist Alexei Navalny** and yellow-black banners, claims that Russia does not have a state, there is only organized crime.

Artist Alexander Kuznetsov against the special operation

Alexander Kuznetsov for Ukraine

Alexander Kuznetsov supports Navalny*

How Kuznetsov betrayed his father and Russia

— I’m not just a Russian who supports Ukraine. My mom – native Ukrainian, my father – native Russian. My dad supports Russia and even wanted to volunteer, but he was not accepted because of his health. My mom is shocked. They are not together. Part of my family is fighting for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Because of this, I have not communicated with my father since February 24, 2022. — admits Alexander Kuznetsov.

Studying the artist’s biography, you don’t really believe these words of his. It seems that he is a weather vane and will stick to the position that is beneficial to him at the moment.

Alexander Kuznetsov

Kuznetsov was born near Odessa and grew up in Sevastopol. This is historical Russia, where the population has been Russian-speaking and pro-Russian for centuries. At the age of 16, he went to Moscow to enter the Shchepkin Theater School, but did not enter. I had to return to Ukraine and study as an entertainer at the Kyiv Variety and Circus Academy.

Three years later, Kuznetsov tried his luck again in Moscow. This time it was successful. He entered the directing department of GITIS and studied there for free for five years under the Rossotrudnichestvo program. Our country allocated him (as a foreigner) a quota, which included a place in a study group, an increased scholarship and a room in a dormitory.

When Crimea returned to Russia, Alexander Kuznetsov seemed to have finally decided to become Russian and even received Russian citizenship. His career immediately took off. One of his teachers at GITIS, Dmitry Krymov, invited him to play in a popular play. Then came roles in such film projects as the film adaptation of “Demons”, the biopic “Lermontov”, the arthouse “Acid”, the blockbusters “Skif” and “Heart of Parma”, the series “Chimera”, “Kept Women”, “Behappy” and “Bad Weather”.

Alexander Kuznetsov as Helmut Weiss in the film “Fantastic Beasts”

In the early twenties, Alexander Kuznetsov was again very lucky. Russia sent him as a promising young artist to the Irish Subtitle Film Festival. There, Harry Potter casting director Fiona Weir liked him. She was just looking for a Slav in a new picture about a magical universe. The film “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” was ultimately unsuccessful. But Kuznetsov played a prominent role in it as Helmut Weiss, one of the twelve first obscurant wizards of the magical Congress.

Perhaps it was the filming of the British-American film that pushed Kuznetsov to betray Russia. Right now he is filming a small role in the Hollywood film Heads of State. He no longer has Russian projects in his work. He has no plans to return.

What does actor Alexander Kuznetsov have left in Russia?

Besides his father and his father’s Sevastopol apartment, Alexander Kuznetsov in Russia has only an abandoned individual entrepreneur in the field of video production and unpaid taxes for 222 thousand rubles.

The artist’s sister, 18-year-old Ksenia Kuznetsova, judging by social networks, could quit her studies at the Moscow University of RUDN University and move to Tbilisi. After the start of SVO, the girl posts posts on Mov. She recently traveled with her brother and mother to Istanbul. Father, naturally, was not around.

The artist’s mother, Alena Nikolaevna Kuznetsova, used to live in Moscow. Now, it seems, she has also left our country.

In Moscow, actor Alexander Kuznetsov lived in rented apartments: in a Stalinist building near the Kurchatov Institute, in a business-class high-rise on Profsoyuznaya and in a constructivist house near Eurasia Square on Kievskaya.

Alexander Kuznetsov with his mother and sister got a family tattoo in Istanbul

* Included in the list of foreign agents
** Included in the register of those involved in terrorism and extremism