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Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to be his daughter’s godfather.
Stone, who has made multiple interviews with Putin and expressed somewhat admiration for his rule. he sat down with the Russian leader on June 19 to speak about a variety of issues in addition to Ukraine, the subject of the latest movie, according to the full transcript published by the Kremlin on Friday.
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This photo taken on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, and distributed by Kremlin Press Service shows Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, during an interview with American movie director Oliver Stone for his Revealing Ukraine documentary in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
But the interview took a bizarre turn when Stone praised a Ukranian politician for selecting Putin to be the godfather of his children. Putin, an Orthodox Christian, said practitioners cannot refuse such a request.
“Oh, you cannot refuse it?” Stone then asked. “I thought it was a big honor for you to be the godfather of his daughter ... Otherwise, I would ask you to be the godfather for my daughter.”
“I thought it was a big honor for you to be the godfather of his daughter ... Otherwise, I would ask you to be the godfather for my daughter.”
Putin then asked about Stone’s daughter and whether she wants to become an Orthodox Christian. Stone responded, saying “we’ll make her that.”
Later in the interview, Stone went on to state that the controversial 2013 Russian law banning pro-gay “propaganda” was actually “a sensible law.”
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“Years ago when we were talking about homosexuality, you said that in Russia we don’t propagate it,” Stone said to Putin, who then noted that the law bans “propaganda among minors.”
“Yes, that’s the one,” Stone agreed. “It seems like maybe that’s a sensible law.”
This photo taken on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, and distributed by Kremlin Press Service shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview with American movie director Oliver Stone for his Revealing Ukraine documentary in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
“It is aimed at allowing people to reach maturity and then decide who they are and how they want to live,” Putin added. “There are no restrictions at all after this.”
Stone, best known for movies such as “JFK” and “Nixon,” first became close to Putin following a 2017 documentary series called the “The Putin Interviews.”
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The filmmaker was mocked following the release of the series after Putin showed him on camera footage he claimed was Russian military forces bombing ISIS militants in Syria.
It turned out that the footage was originally U.S. Department of Defense video, from either 2009 or 2013, showing anti-Taliban operations in Afghanistan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.