“Theater is such an art that a person endures suffering and hardship, and remains sleepless... Because you try to do the best for the art and for the audience in every way. Today, we also have promising young people. I occasionally watch the broadcasts, and the young people also say that they endure hardship. Let it be so. From the way they speak, I feel that they have looked at the artists before them and chosen this path. Because the hardships we went through have been right before their eyes.”
This was said by the People's Artist Latifa Aliyeva in an interview with Medianews.az.
She later stated that since she came to the field of theater, she also faced the anger of her parents:
“I came to the theater myself. I crossed the boundaries. No one was pleased. Especially my father. I told him, let me study, I will work in the field you want. My father wanted me to work in pictography in Gazakh. I gave him hope. My father made a condition with me, he said, ‘Are you okay now? If you are not okay after you study and come back from Baku, I will kill you.’ Even though I promised him, I was looking for an opportunity to reach my childhood dream. Actually, from my childhood years, my teacher Zuleikha had ignited a warmth for the acting art in my heart. My literature teacher always saw something in me and said, ‘Oh girl, sit down, don't act like an actress.’ There was nothing like that even in the village at that time! What does a fourth-grade child know about what an actress is? I am talking about 1957.”
Years later, the actress also shared some aspects of her theater life with us. She said that in the early years when she first came to the theater, she faced very bad treatment from artists older than herself:
“By coming to this field, I became miserable. Someone should have been behind me to help me, to save me from the jaws of wolves... Because I was a village girl, I was very naive and innocent. I said what I thought. Apparently, that was not allowed. Everyone in the theater took it differently. I was raised differently. What will happen if I later regret it or not? An actress as tall as a mountain kicked me, trampled on me, tried to have me expelled from the theater. The reason was that a journalist from a foreign country who came to our theater praised me. They almost killed me... This is a real event. I can prove this; if necessary, I can appear in court. Many in the theater know this. I got through the struggles barely alive. People get jealous of their peers. An actor or actress as tall as a mountain would not be jealous. Where is it written? If you only knew with whom behind the curtain they were plotting against me?! I will not say who it was about. But today he/she is no longer in this world; I pray for them too. I respect their roles. It has happened and passed. I have never done any harm to anyone. But I did not know that such a poor naive girl would be treated so badly.”
Ali Asgar,
Medianews.az