The team of the mini-series “Queen Gambit” of the streaming service Netflix offered Ukrainian chess player Vasyl Ivanchuk to play one of the key roles in the project. The world champion in blitz and fast chess told about it in an interview to Radio Svoboda.
According to the Lviv resident, he was considered for the role of Russian grandmaster Vasily Borgov, who in the final episode of the series meets the main character behind the chessboard – Elizabeth Harmon. However, despite the interest of the chess player, he never got the role.
“I was sent an e-mail saying that there was such an offer to play the role of Borgov. I found out that the company is solid, that such a film is really being prepared. Then I wrote – what exactly do you offer? I need to know more or less the amount of work. It may have been a week between me receiving the letter and replying to it. And they answered – sorry, we have already found another actor for this role, “said the chess player.
However, Ivanchuk’s participation in the project was not limited to this episode. The thirteenth world chess champion Harry Kasparov, who was a consultant to the creators of the series, decided to base the final game of the series on a real chess match. It is about the meeting of Vasyl Ivanchuk and the American chess player Patrick Wolf, which they played in 1993 (ended in a draw – ed.).
The premiere of the mini-series “Queen Gambit” took place in late October. In four weeks, he set a new record for the streaming service Netflix. During this time, the mini-series, based on the novel of the same name by American science fiction writer Walter Tevis, was watched by 62 million users.
