Soviet Romeo and Juliet: how to make a film about love "You never dreamed of"

The film "You never dreamed" was based on the novel by Galina Shcherbakova "Roman and Yulka". Shcherbakov was inspired by the story of his son — in the tenth grade, he climbed up the drainpipe to the sixth floor to his beloved. After leaving her a note on the balcony, the boy began to descend, and in the middle of the way the pipe fell off. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but everyone remembered the story.

Shcherbakov took the finished story to the editorial office of the magazine "Youth", and when she did not wait for an answer, she sent the text to the Gorky film Studio. A few days later, the writer was already discussing the future film with director Ilya Fraz. However, I had to change the name and the name of the heroine — the management of the State Cinema was outraged: "Lovers are called Roman and Julia? Does your Shcherbakova think of herself as Shakespeare?!" So Yulka became Katya.

There was a lot of controversy around the finale of the story. Just before the start of filming, Galina Shcherbakova found out that her story was not taken to the magazine precisely because of the death of the main character at the end of the story. She took the manuscript and rewrote the last few sentences right in the editorial office, leaving readers the opportunity to think out the finale themselves.

For the role of Roma, the director watched hundreds of young people until he was advised to invite sixteen-year-old Nikita Mikhailovsky from Leningrad. His stepfather worked at Lenfilm, and the boy himself starred in episodes from the age of six and was well acquainted with the profession of an actor. At the auditions, he simply shocked everyone with his sincerity and openness. It was impossible to imagine a better Novel, and after filming Galina Shcherbakova said that everyone involved in the film sobbed at the screenings — he played a young lover so deeply.The actor was predicted to have a great future, but he played several roles, and after graduating from the Institute of Performing Arts he went to the Leningrad underground. He founded an informal studio and took up experimental art. At the age of 27, Nikita Mikhailovsky died of leukemia, leaving a son and daughter.

For the role of Katya's mother, the director approved Irina Miroshnichenko in advance and conducted the tests only by order of the State Committee, in fact, he was waiting for the actress to recover after the accident. The actress Tatiana Aksyuta was approved for the role of Katya herself, although she was already 23 years old, and had to play a schoolgirl. The actress had such a touching young appearance that no one suspected that she was seven years older than her on-screen lover. After the release of the film, Tatiana Aksyuta found crowds of fans of high school age. It was a shock to them that the girl graduated from both school and institute and even got married.

The song "The Last Poem" based on the poems of the Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore was created by Alexey Rybnikov back in 1970. It was written for the movie "Treasure Island", but the song was not included in the adventure story. Ten years later, the composer was writing music for the film "You never Dreamed" and realized that this song was simply necessary here. "The Last Poem" is performed by Irina Otieva and Vera Sokolova.