Konstantin Yurievich Khabensky, PAR (; born 11 January 1972) is a Russian actor of stage and film, director and philanthropist.
From 1997, he was part of the Saint Petersburg Lensoviet Theatre cast until 2000, after which he transferred to the Moscow Art Theatre in 2002 where he is still active. Khabensky's first lead roles in cinema were in Women's Property (1999) and in the film In Motion (2002). Among the Russian audience, he gained recognition with the TV series Deadly Force (2002-2005), while his international breakthrough came with the films Night Watch (2004) and Day Watch (2006) as the protagonist, Anton Gorodetsky.
Other notable films with him in the lead role include Poor Relatives (2005), The Irony of Fate 2 (2007), Collector (2016), TV series Pyotr Leschenko. Everything That Was... (2013), The Method (2015) and Trotsky (2017).
One of the most acclaimed actors in Russia, Khabensky has earned numerous awards, including two Nika Awards for The Admiral (2008) and The Geographer Drank His Globe Away (2013). He has also won three Golden Eagle Awards for Best Actor, three Kinotavr Awards and the Russian Guild of Film Critics Award.
Based on the data of the website KinoPoisk, Konstantin Khabensky was declared to be the most popular actor in Russia in the first 15 years of the 21st century.
Khabensky made his directorial debut in 2018 with the Holocaust drama Sobibor, where he also played the role of Alexander Pechersky.
Alongside his work in cinema, Khabensky is a philanthropist, in 2008 he established the Konstantin Khabensky Charitable Foundation which provides assistance to children with oncological and other serious brain afflictions.
Early life Khabensky was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) to Russian Jewish father, Yuri Aronovich Khabensky and Russian mother, Tatiana Gennadievna Khabenskaya (née Nikulina). Both of his parents were engineers. His mother also worked as a mathematics teacher. He has an older sister, Natalia Khabenskaya.
In 1981, he together with his family moved to Nizhnevartovsk, where Konstantin lived over the period of four years. In 1985 the family returned to Leningrad. After finishing eight classes of secondary school No. 486, Konstantin entered the Technical College of Aviation Instrument Engineering and Automation, but after studying there for three years, he realized that this profession was not for him. He tried many jobs including as a janitor, cleaner, street musician, and then was hired as a lighting technician at the theatre studio "Subbota" where he later performed for the first time. In 1990 Khabensky entered the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinema (course of Veniamin Filshtinsky), where his classmates were Mikhail Porechenkov, Andrei Zibrov and Mikhail Trukhin. For the final exam, Konstantin performed as Estragon in the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, his graduation was in 1995.
Career Early roles (1994–2003) Khabensky's cinematic debut was in the 1994 comedy film To whom will God send where he appeared in a minor role of a pedestrian.
In 1995, after graduating from the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts, Konstantin worked at the Perekriostok Experimental Theater where he served for one year. At the same time he acted in the Lensoviet Theatre in Saint Petersburg.
Konstantin Khabensky moved to Moscow in 1996 to become a stage actor in Satyricon Theatre where he performed in background roles. He worked there for only a few months and returned to the Saint Petersburg Lensoviet Theatre.
Between 1995 and 1996, he worked as a presenter of regional TV in the department of music and information programs.
In 1998, he acted in three pictures at once. In the satiric romantic drama directed by Dmitry Meskhiev, Women's Property, Khabensky played the lead role of Andrei Kalinin, a young aspiring actor who decides to seduce the aging actress and professor of a teaching institute Elizaveta Kaminskaya, played by Yelena Safonova. For the role he received the Best Male Actor award at the Gatchina Literature and Cinema Film Festival. Khabensky also starred in the Russian-Hungarian criminal fantasy melodrama of Tomas Toth, Natasha and had an uncredited role of a musician in the social drama of Aleksei German, Khrustalyov, My Car!
The actor said that he got his first roles by chance. The role in Natasha went to the actor after a meeting with the Hungarian director Tomas Toth. "We talked, recalls Konstantin, he asked: "Will you act?" - I said: "I will!" Then we drank vodka. And so began work in the cinema." He was cast in the picture Women's Property in a similar way. The actor recalls: "I go downstairs to the studio, some man rises up, comes across and looks at me: "Somehow I do not know you!" - I answer: "I do not know you either!" - and we parted. And then people came up to me and said that it was director Dima Meskhiev and that I was approved for the role in his new film Women's Property.
The following year, Konstantin played a small role in Nikolai Lebedev's thriller The Admirer (1999). The next notable work in the cinema was the main role in the drama of Vladimir Fokin's House for the Rich (2000). Next year he played in another film by Dmitry Meskhiev, comedy-drama Mechanical Suite.
Khabensky received wide recognition among Russian television viewers after he was cast as investigator Igor Plakhov in the crime procedural comedy-drama series Deadly Force (2000-2005).
Another important role was of Sasha Guriev in the picture In Motion (2002), the directorial debut of Filipp Yankovsky. The film was about a successful and charming journalist who suddenly realizes that he has found compromising evidence on his politician friend. For the role he received the Best Male Actor award at the Vivat, Russian Cinema festival.
In 2003, he played musician Kostya, similar in looks to John Lennon, in the television series Lines of Fate directed by Dmitry Meskhiev. In the same year, he had the supporting role of journalist Gosha in comedy Peculiarities of National Politics, also by the aforementioned director.
Since 2003, Khabensky has been a member of Moscow Art Theatre stage cast, and a lead actor in Alexander Vampilov's Duck Hunting (Zilov), Mikhail Bulgakov's The White Guard (Alexey Turbin) and Hamlet (Claudius).
Night Watch and breakthrough After starring as magician Anton Gorodetsky in the blockbuster fantasy films Night Watch (2004) and Day Watch (2005) directed by Timur Bekmambetov, Khabensky became famous worldwide. The films are about the struggle between respective supernatural forces that control daytime and nighttime – Light Others and Dark Others. Both films became box office successes, with the duology grossing $73 million internationally. Bekmambetov described that he needed an actor for the role of Gorodetsky who was handsome, slightly naive, slightly cunning and that "his eyes must show that he has a conscience". The character of the film Anton Gorodetsky became one of his most well-known roles and the success of these films in Russia and abroad has made Khabensky one of the best-known Russian actors in the West.
Khabensky reunited with Meskhiev for the fifth time in Our Own (2004), a World War II drama film where he played political commissar Livshitz. In the same year he also had a supporting role in Goddess: How I fell in Love by Renata Litvinova.
In 2005, he played in Filipp Yankovsky's historical mystery film The State Counsellor, adaptation of the novel of the same name by Boris Akunin. His character in the film was Green (Grigory Grinberg), a revolutionary who attempts to murder the governor of Moscow. For this role, he received his first Golden Eagle Award, as best supporting actor.
In the same year, he acted in two works by Pavel Lungin — comedy film Poor Relatives about a grifter and TV miniseries The Case of "Dead Souls" loosely based on various stories by Nikolai Gogol, including Dead Souls. Leslie Felperin from Variety wrote in her review of Poor Relatives — "Although largely an ensemble piece, thesp Khabensky, a ubiquitous presence in Russian films these days, steals the show with his shambling, sleazeball Letov, demonstrating excellent, previously underexposed comic timing as well as a knack for deadpan and slapstick." Khabensky received the Best Male Actor award from Kinotavr and Russian Guild of Film Critics (Golden Aries).
Khabensky had a supporting role as Leon Trotsky in the miniseries Yesenin, which told the conspiracy version of the death of the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, played by Sergei Bezrukov. Konstantin would later revisit the character in the 2018 biographical series. Also in 2005, Khabensky appeared in the television series The Fall of the Empire and Female Novel.
In 2006, the actor starred in the film Rush Hour directed by Oleg Fesenko and based on the novel by Jerzy Stawiński. In the same year aired the television series Filipp's Bay, in which Khabensky was filmed in parallel with the shooting of Day Watch.
In 2007, Khabensky played Kostya Lukashin opposite Elizaveta Boyarskaya in Timur Bekmambetov's the romantic-comedy The Irony of Fate 2, sequel to 1976 Soviet classic The Irony of Fate. Its plot centered around the grown-up children of Evgeniy Lukashin and Nadezhda Sheveleva who have managed to get into the same situation as their parents many years ago. The film made $55 million against a $5 million budget, with $49 million coming from the Russian box-office alone. For the film he earned the Best Comedy Actor prize at the MTV Russia Movie Awards.
Also in 2007, he appeared as Denis Maltsev in thriller The Russian Triangle by Aleko Tsabadze which was about two brothers who survive brutal torture and Chechen captivity.
In 2008, Khabensky reunited with Elizaveta Boyarskaya to film the 2008 biographical movie The Admiral by Andrei Kravchuk. He portrayed Alexander Kolchak, vice-admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy and leader of the anti-communist White Movement during the Russian Civil War. The film earned $38 million at the box-office. Khabensky was recognized as best actor at the MTV Russia Movie Awards and Golden Eagle Awards.
In the same year, he played Anton Prachenko in suspense film The Ghost by Karen Oganesyan. The picture was about a crime novelist in a creative crisis who becomes an unwitting witness to a murder and whose fate becomes linked with the hired killer who committed it, played by Vladimir Mashkov.
2009–2014
Khabensky appeared in the 2009 mystical drama The Miracle by Aleksandr Proshkin. The film was inspired by the urban legend of Zoya, who after dancing with an icon of Saint Nicholas became paralyzed.
In 2010, he played Vyacheslav Kolotilov in the comedy Lucky Trouble which co-starred Milla Jovovich and was directed by Levan Gabriadze. The film was about a school teacher traveling to Moscow to get married but who on his way there is mistaken for a football coach which puts him in danger of missing his own wedding.
In the supernatural courtroom drama series Heavenly Court made in 2011, he played the character of Andrei who dies and becomes a prosecutor in the afterlife. He also appeared in the children's film Fairytale.Is and the historical picture Raspoutine during the same year.
The following year, he played the role of Alexei Turbin in the miniseries The White Guard, based on the novel of the same name by Mikhail Bulgakov.
Konstantin played an alcoholic geography teacher Victor Sluzhkin in the 2013 adventure drama The Geographer Drank His Globe Away directed by Alexander Veledinsky. It was based on the eponymous novel by Alexei Ivanov. His acting received considerable praise in Russia and abroad. Ronnie Scheib from Variety wrote that "thanks to Konstantin Khabensky’s charismatic, sardonic performance as Victor, even personal deterioration proves fascinating and consistently entertaining". Khabensky won the Best Actor prize at Kinotavr, Russian Guild of Film Critics Awards, Nika Awards and the Golden Eagle Awards.