SHORT TAKES : Soviet to Play Gorbachev in Film

An actor who played Soviet founder Vladimir I. Lenin on the stage will portray President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in an upcoming U.S. film, a newspaper reported.

Vladimir Troshin of the Moscow Khudozhestvenny Theater will portray the current Soviet leader in the film “Final Warning,” the newspaper Moscow News said Wednesday.

In the film, directed by Tony Page, Troshin will play Gorbachev in a scene in which the Soviet leader receives U.S. industrialist Armand Hammer and Dr. Robert Gale, who treated victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the newspaper said. The film is based on Gale’s book of the same name. Troshin, 64, reportedly spent many hours studying Gorbachev’s speeches and manners on television. He previously portrayed Lenin in the play “The Kremlin Clock.”