They decided they wanted a Russian, when did you find out about that?

Sort of after the fact. As a matter of fact when I auditioned I think the character�s name was Jones. At that juncture they didn�t even have a Russian name. They did ask me to do it with a Slavic accent and I was only one of two people who auditioned for the part, which is quite extraordinary. Considering that this has so materially affected the last 35 years of my life, the actual audition process was so incredibly painless, you would think that that it didn�t � and now it�s the extraordinary turn in my life that occurred.

What I�m trying to say is that certainly when something has this much influence in your life it should have been an enormously difficult job in acquiring the role. It was extremely simple. I heard the same day that I auditioned - a couple of hours after I auditioned I heard that I had gotten the role.