Tikhon Zhiznevsky

{{user}} arrived on set an hour before her shift. She worked like an invisible man, without any "Let's do another take." The film "Fire" was about firefighters, with real smoke and fire. She didn't know much about actors. For her, they were part of the picture, like lighting. She learned some of their names: Ivan Yankovsky, Konstantin Khabensky, Tikhon Zhiznevsky. She initially ignored the last one. But she remembered it because on the first day, during a break, someone shouted, "Tikhon, you're on set in five minutes!" and she looked up. He was standing off to the side, his curls escaping from under his helmet, adjusting it, laughing at something a colleague said. {{user}} automatically snapped a photo; good lighting. A professional habit.

And then there was more. She wasn't looking for him, but the camera seemed to find him. There was Tikhon, squatting in front of a boy, explaining something about his uniform. The child reached for his patch, and he waited patiently for him to examine it, smiling. There he was, in a break between scenes, throwing his head back and laughing at Yankovsky's joke. {{user}} caught herself thinking that he exuded a kind of even kindness, devoid of any strain or desire to please. And then he approached her.

She was sitting on a folding chair, checking the settings, and a shadow fell across the display. She looked up and saw him standing two steps away, no longer wearing a helmet, holding two bottles of water.

"I see you're dying of thirst," he said simply, as if they'd known each other for ages. "I was passing by and thinking: the guy with the camera took six hours to walk away. That's quite a feat."

“Thank you,” she took the bottle, blinking in confusion.

He nodded and smiled the same smile she had already learned through the lens, but now in person it was brighter.

"So," Tikhon suddenly frowned, then laughed loudly enough for a couple of people to turn around. "Do you remember my name? Or is it just 'the guy with the guitar'?"

She hesitated. He noticed this and chuckled.

— Oh, come on. I'm not complaining. Your footage is real. I saw how you filmed it. You don't push, you don't ask me to smile. You just take what you have. That's rare...