Director of the film "Twenty Days Without War" Alexei Herman recalled how during a short break at the shootings Yuri Nikulin sat down to rest in the sun, putting him his face. At that time he did not resemble a clown or a folk artist. He was a real soldier.

"He even had some soldier dignity: he said, I will bring you tea, and I will take off the boots, but I will never hole. In the years of the Great Patriotic War, the simple soldier was very respected, there was some independence in them. She was in Yuria Vladimirovich,” Herman recalled.

According to the director, picking in the frame with Nikulin other actors who played soldiers was difficult, because they looked fake. Because they are false and he is real. Here is the whole magic.

"He played great roles before Twenty Days Without War, but other. And here he played the intellectual who he was really. He talked to the frontmen in a language they understood. Yuri Vladimirovich has never had an acting circle, by which an experienced actor will always be distinguished in the crowd. It was real, even in the cinema. And in life," the director told the magazine "The Art of Cinema".

The filming took place in Tashkent. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU of the Uzbek SSR was Sharaf Rashidov. There was an agreement that there would be a reception. The event will be attended by the author of the literary basis of the film Konstantin Simonov, Rashidov himself, as well as several members of the filming group headed by Alexei Yuryevich Herman. There was Nicole, who had a goal.

Alexey Herman recalls her as follows: "Rashidov knew my father, so we were in talks on material support for the film. For me it was extremely important. Nikulin in Tashkent met some old clown who needed an apartment. He made me such a scam. I am talking about wagons, about railway structures, about the need to block the tram ring, about the placement of the group. Nicole is about a clown who needs an apartment. I gave him the whole leg. When they came out, I said to him, “Yuri Vladimirovich, well, a clown clown, it’s your business, but here the whole operation is done: calls, drinks. And he replied to me, "You, Lesha, and Simonov will get everything for the painting, I have no doubt about this, and no one will give this clown an apartment."