He’s set to play the fictional Russian pop superstar Alexander Lemtov in Netflix’s upcoming movie Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga. And now, in an interview with Attitude magazine, actor Dan Stevens has revealed some more details about his character, including a “big secret”.
Spoilers ahead
Dan Stevens plays a closeted Russian popstar in Netflix’s Eurovision movie
In much of the promotional material released so far, it is clear that Stevens will be the antagonist to Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams’ Icelandic underdogs. But Lemtov will have more layers than the one-dimensional baddie we saw in the trailer.
Stevens tells Attitude that the character has a big secret — he’s LGBTQ. This is significant given that Alexander is from Russia, specifically Chechnya.
The former Downton Abbey star elaborates.
“He’s the anti-hero. He’s an obstacle for Lars (Ferrell). Lars wants to be Lemtov and there’s tremendous jealousy and he worries he’s going to steal Sigrit (McAdams)…
It was more interesting, though, that he wasn’t there to woo her. He has his issues with his identity and what he’s able to admit to”.
While the Netflix Eurovision movie looks set to spoof the sillier aspects of the song contest, Dan is also aware of Eurovision’s cultural and societal importance. He describes it as a “competition that champions diversity across a continent where huge disparities remain when it comes to LGBTQ acceptance”.
“It’s unbelievable that there are still countries that don’t acknowledge the existence of certain sexualities: it seems mad to me…
There are artists in so many countries who can’t admit it [being LGBTQ], because they’d be in danger. But the best thing about Eurovision is that it’s a haven and a celebration. It champions [LGBTQ rights]…
That’s why Alexander is king of the castle there, because it’s a safe space. For that night, they are celebrated.”
LGBTQ rights in Russia
Dan doesn’t disclose whether Lemtov is gay, bisexual or falls somewhere else on the LGBTQ spectrum. He does, however, touch upon the situation for LGTBQ people in Russia and Chechnya.
“Lemtov is from Chechnya. I looked up Kadyrov’s and Putin’s attitude to gay people, and we didn’t want to belittle that danger in any way. We wanted to get it right and hit the right notes…
After some of the trailers, people wondered if a Russian villain wasn’t very progressive, but I think once people see the film they’ll realise that wasn’t the case”.
Russia has had a gay propaganda law in place since 2013. It is designed to “protect” children from being exposed to homosexuality. In Chechnya, a federal subject of the Russian Federation, there was an “anti-gay purge” in 2017. Police are reported to have rounded up and tortured groups of men suspected of being gay.
Will you watch Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga when it is released on Netflix on Friday 26 June? Let us know in the comments.
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I’m pretty sure that Dima Bilan’s actual winning performance is more cringe and over the top than whatever they came up with in the parody.
It’s good they’re having a say in a comedy movie. Hope it comes across well.
Speaking of Russia: looks like this week’s Eurovision Again is 2008! The final was like the only good part of it (save for the winner) so I suppose it won’t be too bad. I’ve figured out that the pre-2004 ones are every other week and the others are ones the EBU has the rights to (1991, then 2018, then 1988, then 2008, so next week is back to the stuff fans are really hoping for).
Oh come on. “Believe” sucked.
It’s not a “great” winner but sucked might be pushing it. I don’t like the over-the-top stage performance but I do enjoy it as a song.
I don’t like his voice, I don’t like the cliche lyrics, I don’t like the overdone production (and it’s Timbaland, he should know better), and I don’t like the staging. I’m genuinely flabbergasted as to how it won besides the usual cheering squad pushing it up the scoreboard plus the votes in general being all over the place. Different strokes for different folks, but it’s not my cup of tea.
“Believe sucked” you should add “in my opinion”. I think it is decent song and performance was very good and professional.
Lol, professional? A professional would bother to pronounce English properly, and wouldn’t do this out of place seducing crawling on the floor, cringe shirt opening, that had nothing to do with the song atmosphere. He acted like he’s singing some sort of sleazy sex song, while actually singing a cliche ballad about whatever, but there was nothing sexy about the song or the songs lyrics. They threw the sex in because they thought “ESC is gay, our singer should be shirtless and moist for this performance no matter what our song is”.
That’s actually pretty noble of them to incorporate a pretty serious real-life issue into the background of one of their characters.
Lazarev is it you? 🙂
Well…if he lives in Russia…it seems he can’t. Like anybody else there.
LGBTQ is a part of Eurovision and that’s okay for me but I have to mention an “off-topic” here ……..I’m 100 % sure that the soundtrack of that movie will be a huge success. The 2 songs we have heared so far are amazing. That gives me hope that the other songs will be stunning too. Just want to say that.
Trash as i suspected. He looks nothing like a person from there. Won’t see that movie.
I have no choice but to stan
His costume screams LGBT