THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER -- Annette Bening, who plays the Russian actress Irina, had been attached to the project for a long time and was thrilled the film was finally seeing the light of day. “I’m so grateful that they wanted to do it. It took a lot of work for these people to get the money together to do a period film of Chekhov in this environment,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.
“When I did one of his plays like 30 years ago, I was playing the ingenue in The Cherry Orchard and a very good director said, ‘What is ridiculous about your character?’ Which is really a smart thing because Chekhov always found what was ridiculous in people, but he loved people,” Bening said.
The actress said having the opportunity to play this role onscreen was “a dream come true.”
“All of us grew up doing plays. I was a theatre major at San Francisco State. We all fell in love with Chekhov because he was a genius,” she said. “He managed to find that fine line between what is tragic and what is hilarious.”