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![Who's Who [imagemap with 6 links]](images/anna_intrnl_whoswho.gif) |
 Who's Who Anna Karenina Helen McCrory Anna Karenina is the wife of Alexey Karenin, a high-ranking government official. At the story's outset, she leaves her son, Seriozha, for the first time to journey to Moscow, where her philandering brother, Stepan Oblonsky, has once again betrayed his long-suffering but loyal wife, Dolly. While there, Anna encounters cavalryman Alexey Vronsky and begins the passionate affair that will eventually lead to her downfall. Tolstoy got the idea for his heroine's first name -- and her tragic ending -- from a neighbor's suicide. In Anna Karenina, he tried to write "a novel of contemporary life," with marriage and adultery as central themes. Coming from a classical background that includes work with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, Helen McCrory brought a wealth of academic research to the role of Anna. "I read a lot about Russian culture at the time, Tolstoy's other work, and biographies of Tolstoy and his contemporaries. But once we started filming, I threw it all away. The whole point of Anna is that she is alive in the moment. Her ability to love and her ability to be alive are extraordinary. You know from the minute she steps onto that train that she'll never survive. People like Anna either explode themselves or society explodes them. But she has a glorious finale." "To play a character like Anna, you, as a person, need to have those textures and layers," says director David Blair. "It's not something you can put on for the camera. Helen is beautiful, but she's not a hackneyed beauty, and she's very intelligent." In Tolstoy's Words With the insight of a man of the world, from one glance at this lady's appearance, Vronsky classified her as belonging to the best society. He begged pardon, and was getting into the carriage, but felt he must glance at her once more; not that she was very beautiful, not on account of the elegance and modest grace which were apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining grey eyes, that looked dark from the thick lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking some one. In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness which played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something that against her will it showed itself now in the flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly perceptible smile.  Alexey Vronsky Kevin McKidd Alexey Vronsky is an aristocrat, a soldier, and a charmer with good looks that his comrades envy. In the midst of wooing Kitty, he falls in love with Anna Karenina and pursues a love affair with her that ultimately destroys them both. When Kevin McKidd first read the script of Anna Karenina, he knew he could not play Vronsky as a straight romantic lead. "I'm not an actor who's interested in making good, clean characters who are meant to be perfect human beings. I find it embarrassing. And it's patronizing to the audience when filmmakers decide that people who are deeply in love have to be beautiful. People will just switch off because they think, 'Wait a minute. I'm just a normal person, and I feel things deeply, so why do they have to be beautiful on screen before they're allowed to be passionate?'" For all his insistence on realism, McKidd has no problem with the idea of love at first sight. "The minute Vronsky and Anna meet, their affair is inevitable. I met my wife that way at a party and I just knew my whole life had changed. These things don't just happen in books." McKidd's film credits include roles as the tragic gentle giant Tommy in Trainspotting (1996) and as Durward Lely in Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy (1999). In Tolstoy's Words 'Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kiril Ivanovitch Vronsky, and one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of Petersburg.... Fearfully rich, handsome, great connections, an aide-de-camp, and with all that a very nice, good-natured fellow. But he's more than simply a good-natured fellow, as I've found out here -- he's a cultivated man too, and very intelligent; he's a man who'll make his mark.' Alexey Karenin Stephen Dillane Karenin, Anna's husband, is obsessed with appearing correct in the eyes of society. He loves Anna because she is his wife, but their relationship is without passion. When he learns of Anna's affair with Alexey Vronsky, he demands that their life go on as usual. Seemingly on her deathbed after difficult childbirth, Anna finally begs for and receives his forgiveness. But Karenin cannot swallow his bitterness at her disgrace and denies her custody of their son, Seriozha, as punishment. On reading the script of Anna Karenina, Stephen Dillane found that he had sympathy for the man who is usually portrayed as a cold-hearted villain. "Karenin is an able and principled man, but he is a man in desperate, desperate pain. He is trying to seek any way out that he can." Dillane was particularly impressed by the breadth of Allan Cubitt's script. "This adaptation is better than most because it covers the Levin-Kitty relationship and the Oblonsky marriage as well as the central love affair between Anna and Vronsky. Tolstoy's book is about what relationships are; it's about whether you pursue the forces of your heart or stick with the relationship you've made because you said you would. Ultimately, it's about love." Dillane is currently starring on Broadway in The Real Thing. His other memorable performances include the title role in Hamlet, for which he won the 1995 Richard Burton Shakespeare Globe Award, and his portrayal of journalist Michael Henderson in Michael Winterbottom's acclaimed feature film Welcome to Sarajevo. In Tolstoy's Words At Petersburg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, the first person that attracted her attention was her husband. 'Oh, mercy! Why do his ears look like that?' she thought, looking at his frigid and imposing figure, and especially the ears that struck her at the moment as propping up the brim of his round hat. Catching sight of her, he came to meet her, his lips falling into their habitual sarcastic smile, and his big, tired eyes looking straight at her. An unpleasant sensation gripped at her heart when she met his obstinate and weary glance, as though she had expected to see him different. Seriozha Jackson Leach Seriozha, Anna and Karenin's son, becomes the center of their marital battle. Karenin tells the boy that his mother is dead and refuses to grant Anna either a divorce or custody of Seriozha. Her freedom becomes linked to the abandonment of her son, a sacrifice she is not willing to make. Young Jackson Leach has already established himself in the acting world with appearances in several television and movie productions, including a role in Masterpiece Theatre's adaptation of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. In Tolstoy's Words ... he was charming, with his fair curls, his blue eyes, and his plump, graceful little legs in tightly pulled-up stockings. Anna experienced almost physical pleasure in the sensation of his nearness, and his caresses, and moral soothing, when she met his simple, confiding, and loving glance, and heard his naïve questions. Countess Vronskaya Sara Kestelman Countess Vronskaya first meets Anna on a train ride to Moscow. It is there that Anna encounters the Countess's son, Alexey Vronsky. Sara Kestelman is a British film and television actress whose credits include Lady Jane (1986) and Mind Games (2000). In Tolstoy's Words His mother, a dried-up old lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her eyes, scanning her son, and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from the seat and handing her maid a bag, she gave her little wrinkled hand to her son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand, kissed him on the cheek. Princess Betsy Tverskaya Abigail Cruttenden Princess Betsy Tverskaya is a shallow society gossip who carries on adulterous affairs in secret while publicly shunning Anna for her open relationship with Vronsky. She is described in Anna Karenina as Anna's "cousin's wife," and in the Masterpiece Theatre film as Vronsky's cousin. Abigail Cruttenden is a British television and film actress whose credits include Hideous Kinky (1998), several episodes of Sharpe, and the Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. In Tolstoy's Words The third circle with which Anna had ties was pre-eminently the fashionable world -- the world of balls, of dinners, of sumptuous dresses, the world that hung on to the court with one hand, so as to avoid sinking to the level of the demi-monde.... Her connection with this circle was kept up through Princess Betsy Tverskaya, her cousin's wife, who had an income of a hundred and twenty thousand rubles, and who had taken a great fancy to Anna ever since she first came out, showed her much attention, and drew her into her set.... Countess Lydia Deborah Findlay When Anna leaves, Lydia Ivanovna, a society matron, arrives at Karenin's home and announces that she will run the house and advise him on personal matters. She uses religion to keep him close and to demonize Anna, and she succeeds in convincing Karenin that Seriozha should not see his mother. Deborah Findlay won Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for Stanley in 1997. She appeared in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991) and The End of the Affair (1999) with Ralph Fiennes and will star as Miss Phoebe in Masterpiece Theatre's Wives and Daughters. In Tolstoy's Words The Countess Lydia Ivanovna was a tall, stout woman, with an unhealthily sallow face and splendid, pensive black eyes. Anna liked her, but today she seemed to be seeing her for the first time with all her faults. Prince Scherbatsky Malcolm Sinclair Prince Scherbatsky, father of Dolly and Kitty, is a traditional aristocrat, shepherding his daughters through the trials of modern courtship and marriage. He favors the solid, sincere Levin, while his wife, the Princess, favors the dashing Vronsky. Malcolm Sinclair has appeared on British television (McLibel!, 1993) and in feature films (A Question of Guilt, 1993). In Tolstoy's Words The old prince, like all fathers indeed, was exceedingly punctilious on the score of the honor and reputation of his daughters. He was irrationally jealous over his daughters, especially over Kitty, who was his favorite. Princess Scherbatskya Gillian Barge Princess Scherbatskya is mother to Dolly and Kitty. An old-fashioned noblewoman, the princess is set on finding the best match for her youngest daughter, Kitty. But society has changed since she was a young woman, and the princess finds herself confronted with difficult choices -- and disagreement from her husband -- in the altered landscape of modern courtship. Gillian Barge is a British television actress whose credits include Doomwatch: Winter Angel, The Lake of Darkness, and Dr Willoughby. In Tolstoy's Words Princess Scherbatskya had herself been married thirty years ago, her aunt arranging the match. Her husband, about whom everything was well known beforehand, had come, looked at his future bride, and been looked at. The matchmaking aunt had ascertained and communicated their mutual impression. That impression had been favorable. Afterwards, on a day fixed beforehand, the expected offer was made to her parents, and accepted. All had passed very simply and easily. So it seemed, at least, to the princess. But over her own daughters she had felt how far from simple and easy is the business, apparently so commonplace, of marrying off one's daughter. Dolly Oblonsky Amanda Root Dolly Oblonsky is married to Anna's brother, Stiva, and, despite his infidelities, she loves him and is true to him. Similarly, she continues to stand by Anna while others shun her after her affair with Vronsky becomes public. Despite her own rocky marriage, Dolly encourages Kitty to marry Levin. In Tolstoy's exploration of marriage, she represents the long-suffering wife and devoted mother. Amanda Root's recent film work includes the Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion, as well as an adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. In Anna Karenina, she was determined that Dolly should not be seen as a pushover. "I felt passionately that Dolly is not a little victim. She's courageous and brave and has to make a very hard choice, one that she doesn't take lightly, to make her marriage work. Life is so different for women today. Put me in Dolly's situation and I'd go mad, but at that period, the majority of women were in precisely her position -- married to men who were constantly having affairs. I really admire her courage in sticking it out and working at a future. I think people underestimate how powerful that is. In marriages today, lots of people look at just what can you get out, not what you put in. For Dolly, it's the opposite." In Tolstoy's Words Dolly was standing before an open chest of drawers, in a dressing-jacket, sorting things out. Her once luxuriant and beautiful hair was pinned in thin little braids on the nape of her neck. Her large, apprehensive eyes were made more prominent by the emaciation of her pale wan face.... Stepan "Stiva" Arkadyevitch Oblonsky Mark Strong Anna's brother, Stepan "Stiva" Oblonsky, is Tolstoy's portrait of decadence, hypocrisy, and self-indulgence. He is unfaithful to his wife, Dolly, who loves him and stands by him. Stiva is often viewed as a shallower version of Anna: living by his passions, but nowhere near as intensely as his sister. Playing Oblonsky, Mark Strong was struck by how much easier men had it than women in Tolstoy's time. "[Anna's] adultery forces her under the wheels of a train, but his is completely accepted by society. It's the woman who has to pay the price. I don't think Tolstoy endorses that attitude, but he certainly shows it up, and Oblonsky is the embodiment of that reality." Strong is best known to PBS viewers as Mr. Knightley in the BBC's Emma, an experience that left him all the more impressed by the sheer modernity of Tolstoy's ideas. "If you look at Jane Austen, it's all about making a good marriage. But Anna Karenina is about what happens after the honeymoon, which is so much more interesting to a modern audience." Strong thinks his baldness contributes to the contemporary feel of Anna Karenina. "You don't get a lot of bald men in period drama.... I think it's probably something that people have been embarrassed or ashamed about throughout history. So when makeup rang up, I said I didn't want to wear a wig. And they said, 'Fine, great. The more we can make it look modern, the better.'" In Tolstoy's Words Stepan Arkadyevitch was not merely liked by all who knew him for his good-humor, his bright disposition, and his unquestionable honesty. In him, in his handsome, radiant figure, his sparkling eyes, black hair and eyebrows, and the white and red of his face, there was something which produced a physical effect of kindliness and good-humor on the people who met him. 'Aha! Stiva! Oblonsky! Here he is!' was almost always said with a smile of delight on meeting him. Kitty Scherbatsky Paloma Baeza Kitty Scherbatsky is Dolly's sister, an 18-year-old debutante. Tolstoy based the character of Kitty on his own wife, Sonya. Levin's happily married domestic life with Kitty reflects Tolstoy's happy early years with Sonya. "Playing a Russian princess was wonderful," says Paloma Baeza. "It's like slipping into another magical world. But Kitty is more than a one-dimensional character. She starts out as the conventional well-brought-up girl playing the piano to catch her man, but the happy ending is quite different from the one she imagines. What I really like about her is that she has the ability to put social expectations aside and go with her feelings and her humanity. Before her wedding, her husband makes her read about all the other women he's ever slept with. It is almost as if he has an affair before they even begin their marriage. Another woman might not have gone through with the marriage, but Kitty is strong. She knows where she stands with her God and with her man." For Baeza, who starred in Masterpiece Theatre's adaptations of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd and Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, swinging a bustle is second nature. In Kitty, she rose effortlessly to the challenge of ice skating in full 19th-century costume. "The frustrating thing was waiting for the ice to freeze in Poland. In the end, we had to go to Finland to find the right kind of ice." In Tolstoy's Words When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness and good-humor. The childishness of her expression, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made up her special charm, and that he fully realized. But what always struck him in her as something unlooked for, was the expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and above all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted world, where he felt himself softened and tender, as he remembered himself in some days of his early childhood. Constantine Levin Douglas Henshall Tolstoy based the character of Constantine Levin, the passionate and conflicted landowner, on himself. While Anna Karenina looks for happiness through love, Levin embarks on his own search for spiritual fulfilment through marriage, family, and hard work. He journeys to Moscow to propose to Kitty, who refuses him in anticipation of a proposal from Vronsky -- a proposal that never comes. Kitty and Levin are eventually reunited, marry, and have a son. Douglas Henshall, a fan of Russian literature, was thrilled to be offered the role of Levin. "Levin is like the voice of Leo Tolstoy. He's probably one of the first existentialists: someone who hides guns and ropes in the shed to take away the temptation to shoot or hang himself. It's only the idea of this one perfect woman -- Kitty -- that keeps him alive." Henshall has appeared in several British television productions as well as in films, including Angels and Insects (1995), Orphans (1997), and This Year's Love (1999). During the filming of Anna Karenina, he found himself identifying closely with Levin, but even he was mentally covering his eyes when Levin gives his bride-to-be the diaries chronicling all his previous sexual misadventures. "This is something that Tolstoy actually did himself," says Henshall. "But you can just see the articles in Cosmopolitan saying, 'Never, ever do this!' Levin wants there to be no secrets between him and Kitty, but it's just a terrible idea." In Tolstoy's Words ... 'That is he,' said the doorkeeper, pointing to a strongly built, broad-shouldered man with a curly beard, who, without taking off his sheepskin cap, was running lightly and rapidly up the worn steps of the stone staircase.... Levin was about the same age as Oblonsky and their intimacy did not entirely rest on the drinking of champagne. Levin had been Oblonsky's comrade and boyhood friend. They were fond of each other, in spite of the differences in their characters and tastes, as friends who have come together in early youth frequently are.... Nikolai Paul Rhys Constantine Levin's brother, Nikolai, is based on Tolstoy's own brother Nicolai, who died of tuberculosis in 1860. Like Levin, Tolstoy immersed himself in work on his country estate to alleviate his grief. Levin's confrontation of death through his brother's illness is one of the novel's major themes. Paul Rhys is a British film and television actor who has appeared widely in both the United States and Britain. His credits include roles in Vincent and Theo (1990) and Chaplin (1992), as well as a turn as Edgar in Masterpiece Theatre's production of King Lear. In Tolstoy's Words ... Levin saw facing him in the doorway his brother's huge, thin, stooping figure -- familiar yet alarming, so wild and ill did he look with his great frightened eyes.  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