He’s outgrown anonymity

The legend of Schwab’s drugstore -- of being discovered in an unlikely place and becoming a star -- lives on, though in ways more poignant and more unexpected than might be imagined.

Such is the case of then-14-year-old Olzhas Nusuppaev, who was found in an orphanage in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan and cast in “Schizo,” a film that went on to appear in festivals at Cannes, Tokyo, Toronto, Copenhagen and Morocco and that opens here April 1. Along the way, Nusuppaev has won several best actor awards.

“He even became actor of the year in Kazakhstan, or something like that,” says the film’s director, Guka Omarova, laughing a bit at the wonder of it all.

Of course, it’s a wonder that she had everything to do with creating. Omarova says she was “looking for someone who was strange. He’s calm, he doesn’t look smart, but at the same time he could be aggressive, so you don’t know what to expect of a guy like that.”

In other words, she was looking for someone like Schizo, so named because of his unpredictability. He lives with his mother and her younger boyfriend (Eduard Tabyschev) in poverty near Almaty in southeastern Kazakhstan, a derelict, windswept area on the Chinese border. To make ends meet, Schizo is employed by the boyfriend to solicit fighters for illegal fistfights.

One of them, before dying in the ring, entrusts his prize money to Schizo, instructing him to give it to his girlfriend (Olga Landina). It turns out that she is older (28), attractive and poor, and she has a young son (played by another orphan, Kanagat Nurtay). Schizo falls in love with her and the child and becomes the man of the house -- which means supporting them, something he does with surprising cunning and ruthlessness.

“It’s strange because people from the Western world think it’s a very tough movie, but for us it’s just normal, regular,” says Omarova.

Fateful turns of events

The director is a native of Kazakhstan who peddled Philip Morris cigarette brands on the street (“I was the only woman driving a car in Almaty,” she says. “I had a beautiful business future”), then studied journalism, worked in television, directed documentaries and co-wrote a highly successful film called “Sisters.” She was inspired to write “Schizo” by a young fighter who approached her at a cafe and told her about himself. He had a mangled nose and missing teeth, and it was clear he wouldn’t last much longer. She couldn’t get this man out of her head. A little later the teenage son of a friend committed suicide, and the images came together in her mind.

How Omarova found the young man to play a character inspired by suicide is, she says, “a strange story.” She began casting the film in June 2003 with the idea that she would start shooting that fall. But schoolchildren were on their summer holidays, so there was no easy way to canvass the country for the right boy.

“Then I had a very weird idea,” says Omarova, who now lives in the Netherlands. “I thought maybe I should take a look at an orphanage house. I called my assistant and said, ‘Take a camera and go and have a look.’ He chose an orphanage [at random]. And it was his first day of casting, it was the first orphanage, and it was the first boy. It was him. And later, when we looked at 300 people, we came back to him.”

Omarova says she wasn’t concerned about Nusuppaev’s inexperience but about his height, which made him look younger than she wanted the character to be. But she was won over by his mixture of aloofness and vulnerability.

“I asked him to play a gangster in front of the mirror,” she says of the first time she actually saw him. “He was so awkward and so touching.” According to Omarova, when she found Nusuppaev he was the leader of what the orphanage director called high-risk kids, meaning they smoked, drank and stole. Both his mother and his aunt had died of a vascular disorder, which he has inherited (which explains the unexplained bandage on his leg in the film). His father, a pianist, is an alcoholic, so Nusuppaev and his older brother were taken away from him by the state -- and split up. In another strange story, Omarova says she actually considered the brother for the part, not knowing that he was related to Nusuppaev.

Working with teenagers

One thing Omarova had to deal with that she wouldn’t have with a boy from a more conventional background was his guarded nature, a common characteristic of institutionalized children. This, she says, she overcame simply by working with him (the shoot lasted six weeks). It may have helped that she was an actress when she was his age, working for the famed Russian producer Sergei Bodrov (who also produced and co-wrote this film). And she has a 17-year-old son herself, so she’s certainly used to dealing with teenage boys.

Asked if he liked the experience, Nusuppaev, speaking Russian as Omarova translates, says, “Yes, except when she was shouting at me.” Omarova describes her relationship with Nusuppaev as friend, sister and mother, a combination she can pull off in part because she’s 36 but looks 26. She needs to be all of these things to him because even though the movie was huge in Kazakhstan and his face was everywhere on posters, no one has come forward to claim him. So Nusuppaev, now 16, is back at the orphanage.

“Before the film he had lots of problems with alcohol and cigarettes, but now everything has changed,” Omarova says. “I think he became more self-confident. He’s definitely not a child anymore. It’s a great experience that people love him. Now it’s helping him to be strong enough to struggle. But he has another problem: He has lots of girls.”

Nusuppaev, who will leave the orphanage when he is 18, says he would like to continue acting but has to think about making money. Omarova is helping him accumulate enough to continue his schooling and thinks he may try the oil business, because that’s where the money is in Kazakhstan.

“Although I don’t think he can make it because he’s more humanitarian, rather than businessman or technician,” she says. “We’ll see.” Meanwhile, with the festivals and press appearances, Nusuppaev has gotten to see a bit of the world. While in New York recently he was most impressed by St. Patrick’s Cathedral. And when the movie was screened at Cannes last spring, he and Omarova’s son met for the first time at the famed La Croisette hotel and had a glass of Champagne. But even this heady experience was bittersweet, because although the boys got along well, Omarova says her son is a bit jealous of the attention she gives Nusuppaev -- and vice versa.

“It’s very complicated,” Omarova says, not wanting to hurt either boy. “It’s like being on a knife edge.”

Which is to say that -- at least for now -- Nusuppaev is part of the family.