Rade Serbedzija (Raf Larin)

Rade’s 40-year movie career has taken him to all parts of the globe and he is equally at home in his native Croatia, elsewhere in Europe and in the United States. He graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb and, while still a student, played leading roles in films and theater productions. He is remembered as an outstanding Peer Gynt, Don Juan, Oedipus, Hamlet and Richard III.

He has written and published four books of poetry, released four albums and directed 12 plays. He has appeared in well over 100 movies and television shows in many different languages. Together with Vanessa Redgrave he founded a theater that produced such plays as “Brecht in Exile,” “Liberation of Skopje,” “Smoke” and “Opera Sarajevo.”

After playing the lead in the highly successful “Before the Rain” he was cast in films directed by such luminaries as Phillip Noyce, John Woo, Franco Rossi and Stanley Kubrick in such movies as “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Polish Wedding,” “Stigmata” “ “Mighty Joe Young,” “Mission Impossible II,” “Space Cowboys,” “Snatch,” "Shooter," and "Battle in Seattle."  He has starred alongside Val Kilmer, Elisabeth Shue, John Turturro, Tom Cruise and Glenn Close.
He has participated in many charity and peace initiatives.

Agata Gotova (Daria Larina)

Agata started her career early, in the Soviet Union’s version of a Mickey Mouse Club—a singing and dancing show performed by children. She spent her childhood touring Europe, performing as part of the famous children’s dance troupe Kalinka and headlined the troupe’s 1989 film.

As a teenager she joined the theater, then moved to France where she attended Sorbonne University.
“I jumped on a plane and went to Paris. I had no papers. I didn’t speak French. I simply created an opportunity for myself. It was the same when I came to California for the first time. I crossed at the Mexican border without papers and I did not speak English,” she says in what is now perfectly accented English.

In Los Angeles she hosted a pilot for Russian television titled “Faces and Names,” in which she did red carpet interviews with stars. She went on to do 20 shows in the series. This led to the award-winning “Autograph,” a 30 episode series in which she held sit-down interviews with such celebrities as Janet Leigh, Laura Linney, Robert Duvall, Martin Landau, David Carradine and Michael York.

The story of “Say It In Russian” is based partly on episodes from her own life. She wrote it together with Kenneth Eade, Jeff Celentano and Larry Gross.

The darkest moment during filming came appropriately at 3:00 a.m. on a freezing winter morning outside Moscow. Wearing a thin dress she was picked up and carried by Steven Brand towards a mansion. But he dropped her on a hard layer of snow and fell on top of her.
“Everybody came running to me, very concerned. I was in great pain, but I didn’t want the children there to see it. So I just said, ‘okay, I’m on the beach at Monaco. This is not snow. It’s sand.’”


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Steven Brand (Andrew Lamont)

Although native to Dundee, Scotland, Steven lived in East Africa when he was young, spending nine years in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. He saw his first film at a drive-in cinema in Kenya.

In 2002, having worked extensively in theater, film and television in the U.K., he was brought over to the U.S. to star in Universal’s “The Scorpion King.” Following the success of that American debut, his work has included the HBO series “The Mind of the Married Man,” “Stephen King’s “Diary of Ellen Rimbauer,” and, more recently the movie “Treasure Raiders” with David Carradine.

Brand’s first work was starring opposite Catherine Zeta Jones in the enormously popular British TV series “The Darling Buds of May.” Following that he worked consistently in British theater and television.  He has appeared on U.S. television series, such as “Navy NCIS,” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”


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Faye Dunaway (Jacqueline De Rossy)

Faye Dunaway is an icon of the American movie industry, who first burst on to the scene in Arthur Penn’s 1967 “Bonnie and Clyde,” playing Bonnie opposite Warren Beatty’s Clyde.
She became one of the hottest actresses of the late sixties and seventies, playing neurotic, highly driven women with sex appeal, with roles in such films as “The Thomas Crown Affair” with Steve McQueen in 1968 (and again in the 1999 remake of the film), “Little Big Man” with Dustin Hoffman, and in “Chinatown” with Jack Nicholson. She also starred opposite George C. Scott in Stanley Kramer’s “Oklahoma Crude.”
Perhaps her most notorious role was her portrayal of Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest, in which she famously beat her daughter with a wire coat hanger.
Other major films of that era were “The Three Musketeers,” “The Towering Inferno,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Network,” “Voyage of the Damned” and “The Champ.”
More recently she has starred in “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc” and “The Yellow Bird,” which she also wrote, produced and directed.
She called her 1995 autobiography “Looking for Gatsby: My Life.” The title came to her because she had auditioned for the role of Daisy in “The Great Gatsby” that went to Mia Farrow.

Musetta Vander (Natalia)

A native South African, Musetta Vander was raised without that most basic of modern conveniences--television! Radio programming, childhood books and weekend trips to the drive-in introduced her to the magical world of movies. It was not until the mid-'70s that South Africa finally got television, and the big black box in the family living room "miraculously" sprang to life.

However, as the daughter of a ballet teacher, Musetta was no stranger to the entertainment world and debuted on stage at the age of four. Her childhood was filled with numerous dance performances including "Giselle", "Coppelia", "The Student Prince" and "Showboat", and, shortly after completing school, she qualified as a ballet teacher herself.

After earning a BA in Communications and Psychology, she landed the plum job as anchor host for an MTV-like television show in South Africa. One day, a handsome visiting American, Jeff Celentano, spotted her on television, made her his bride, and whisked her off to the very place she had always dreamed of--Hollywood.

Shortly after her arrival, she became part of the very world she used to host, appearing as the "dream girl" in more than 20 music videos for such top recording artists as Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Elton John and Chris Isaak.

It was her critically acclaimed stage performance in the original South African play "Soweto's Burning", about the trials of an interracial friendship in that racially segregated country, that provided her transition to the big screen. Musetta has since performed in numerous feature films, including collaborating with her husband on Under the Hula Moon (1995) and Gunshy (1998). She has also worked alongside such screen veterans as Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh and Will Smith in Wild Wild West (1999), George Clooney and John Turturro in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and John Hurt and Louis Gossett Jr. in Monolith (1993). She's also added a slew of television credits to her arsenal, including guest appearances on the hit shows "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995), "Stargate SG-1" (1997) and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997).