Ilya Naishuller

Shortly thereafter, Naishuller began shooting his film-directing debut Hardcore, later renamed Hardcore Henry. The action movie was produced by Timur Bekmambetov, Inga Vainshtein Smith, and Ekaterina Kononenko and featured supporting roles from Sharlto Copley and Tim Roth. Naishuller functioned as a screenwriter, director, producer and also took on a role as an actor. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015, and was released theatrically by STXfilms on April 8, 2016. It went on to gross $14.3 million USD, becoming one of the most successful Russian films since 1991. On the same day, Naishuller, along with Brain Philipson and Will Stewart released a comic book titled Hardcore Akan #1 that provides an origin story of Hardcore Henry.

In 2013, Naishuller appeared in the single Bad Motherfucker, where he also directed the music video. The first-person amateur video went on to be a viral hit online with over 20 million views and was, among others, praised by Darren Aronofsky.

In 1999, with some fellow students, Naishuller founded his first band which soon broke up. In 2008, he founded the rock band Biting Elbows, where he is a singer and guitarist. In 2011, he appeared in the EP Dope Fiend Massacre and the debut album Biting Elbows.

Ilya Viktorovich Naishuller (Russian: Илья Викторович Найшуллер ; born 1983, Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union) is a Russian musician, film director, and screenwriter. He is the founder of the Russian indie rock band Biting Elbows. He is also notable for directing, producing, writing the script, acting and composing the music for the 2015 film Hardcore Henry.