Volodymyr Zelensky as Vasiliy Petrovich Goloborodko, president of Ukraine in Servant of the People.Kvartal 95 Studio
We didn’t pay enough attention to the series Servant of the People when it was on Netflix here for a while. Multiple episodes can now be found on YouTube with a varying quality of English subtitles, along with some badly dubbed episodes. Even those are worth studying because they reveal a lot about President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, and how he became the epitome of courage, strength and leadership.
In an early episode, the newly elected president of Ukraine, a schoolteacher named Vasiliy Goloborodko (Zelensky) is being told by an aide how to behave as president. “Stand here with socks straight!” the aide barks. “Smile. Don’t slouch, chin higher!”
It’s uncanny to see now: The man who would become the real and galvanizing president of his country, is being taught how to be presidential. The entire narrative of Zelensky’s career is in fact a strange case of art and performance intersecting with reality. You couldn’t make it up – except Zelensky did, and then lived it as actuality.
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His role in Servant of the People arrived after years spent in the theatre as an actor, writer, improv artist and administrator. This wasn’t where he was supposed to be, after getting a degree in economics and a law degree. But he’d fallen in love with the theatre as a student and led a popular comedy troupe that specialized in political satire. On the TV show he played a high-school history teacher, a bit earnest but liked by his students. One day, while talking to a colleague, he unleashes a rant about corruption in politics. Unknown to him, a student is watching, records the rant and puts it on YouTube. It’s a big viral hit because he’s articulating the frustrations of ordinary people. One thing leads to another and he’s elected president.
Zelensky's role in Servant of the People arrived after years spent in the theatre as an actor, writer, improv artist and administrator.Kvartal 95 Studio
After several seasons playing the role and becoming one of the best-known people in Ukraine, Zelensky ran for the actual presidency. He didn’t hold press conferences and attended only one TV debate. Instead, he campaigned through YouTube and Facebook statements. In the political chaos of the time, 2019, it worked. The fiction of Servant of the People had become a template for Zelensky’s own existence, an ordinary person bringing truth, honesty and an incorruptible grace into politics.
What the world sees now, that defiance, directness and wit – “I need ammunition, not a ride.” – is utterly authentic, but created out of a curious amalgam of stagecraft, charm, insolence and zeal to truly nail the role of wartime president and commander. He knows how to give an inspiring talk; he knows how to deliver rebukes with pith and resonance. He knows how to look, what he needs to wear and how to command his body to emanate relaxed assuredness. He knows exactly where the camera can spot fakery, and how to avoid that.
Of course, he’s not the first actor to enter politics. Ronald Reagan used his skills to become a politician known as “the Great Communicator” – but that title now properly belongs to Zelensky. Arnold Schwarzenegger entered politics as a populist, right-wing, slash-the-spending exponent and gradually moved toward the centre. It took him years to communicate well.
Zelensky in a scene from Servant of the People.Kvartal 95 Studio
Zelensky is different, unique. He was a successful performer doing everything from stage work to appearing on Ukraine’s Dancing with the Stars, to providing the voice of Paddington in the Ukrainian versions of the movies Paddington and Paddington 2. Now, he has an actor’s absolute comfort as the protagonist, knowing it is literally the role of a lifetime – lives depend on him – and that the actor-as-person has become one with the portrayal. But in his soul, perhaps, he is less an actor than satirist, with a clear-eyed view on hypocrisy and obfuscation.
As with any impressive performance, a good deal depends on the other actors in the immediate environment. In this case, on the world stage, that’s Vladimir Putin, whose stagecraft has deserted him – or he’s relying on out-of-date advice about constructing a strongman image. He looks isolated, literally, when he meets his team or others, from the remote end of a vast table. He looks lifeless. He looks like something from the past, surrounded by landline phones that are antiques outside of Russia.
None of this analysis of Zelensky’s skills is meant to diminish his courage, grace and passion for Ukraine. It is only to note his essential genius. He created and produced Servant of the People, a droll satire anchored in real-life concerns, about an ordinary man thrust into the presidency. Then at the right moment, he weaponized the satire and merged it with real life. Now he’s obliged to rise to the occasion, a bloody turning point in European history, no less, using an unearthly level of artistry.
On the TV show his character remained skeptical, noting that playing the role of president involved a lot of faking it. The character declined to give fake smiles or fake gravitas. He saw his election as a moral project – and now the man who created and played the role defines morality itself in a mad, dangerous world.
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