Ingeborga Dapkunaite

Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė (born January 20, 1963) is а stage and screen actress of Lithuanian origin.

Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė was born in Vilnius, Lithuania (Lithuanian SSR), on 20 January 1963, to the family of Petras Edmundas Dapkūnas, a diplomat, and Ingeborga Dapkuniene (Sabalyte), a meteorologist.

Because of work, her parents spent most of their time abroad (in particular, in Moscow), while Ingeborga remained in Vilnius.

She was cared for by her grandmother Genovaitė Sabliene, the manager of the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, and her aunt and uncle, who held positions at the symphony orchestra.

Dapkūnaitė made her theatrical debut at the age of four as Dolore in the Puccini opera Madama Butterfly.

Later, she also played in Faust, The Demon, and The Queen of Spades.

Dapkūnaitė attended theatrical school at the local House of Unions and practiced sports, such as figure skating and basketball (quite popular in Lithuania by that time).

After school, she enrolled in the Department of Theater Arts of the Lithuanian State Conservatory and studied under Jonas Vaitkus.

After the Conservatory, Dapkūnaitė joined Kaunas State Drama Theatre.

In two years, she had played seven leading roles in the productions by her master, Jonas Vaitkus.

She portrayed Antigone in the production of Sophocles' play, played Shelly in the Buried Child, and several Shakespearean roles.

Later, she was invited to the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre.

She also worked in the Vilnius State Theatre under Eimuntas Nekrošius and performed in The Seagull and The Nose.

Dapkūnaitė debuted on screen in 1984 (as a fourth-grade student) as Aukse in Raimundas Banionis's first feature film Mano mazyte žmona (My Little Wife. In 1986, she performed together with Igor Kostolevsky in Isaak Fridbergas's Nakties paklydeliai (Night Whispers). The same year, she played in Chameleono zaidimai (Chameleon Game, written and directed by Arūnas Žebriūnas.

In 1987, she starred in the television film Elektroninė Senelė (Electronic Grandmother) based on Ray Bradbury's short story I Sing the Body Electric.

and acted in the war drama Savaitgalis pragare (Weekend in Hell).

Her other roles in the Soviet and Russian movies included Vija Beinerte's Stecheniye obstoyatel'stv (1988), Igor Talankin's Osen, Chertanovo... (1989), Alexei Balabanov's Morphine (film) (2008), Aleksandr Melnik's Terra Nova (2008), Jamie Bradshaw's and Alexander Dulerayn's Branded.

Her leading roles included Orange Juice by Andrey Proshkin and Winter Will not Come by Ilia Demichev.

Dapkūnaitė became widely popular in the Soviet Union after the role of the young prostitute Kisulya in Pyotr Todorovsky's 1989 drama Intergirl.

In the 1990s, the success of the Burnt by the Sun sparked interest in Dapkūnaitė among filmmakers in the West.

In 1991, she starred in Dmitry Meskhiev's Cynics, in which she received the 1992 Golden Aries Actress of the Year award.

In 1992, she performed together with John Malkovich in the production of Slip of the Tongue at Steppenwolf Theatre (Chicago) and then at Shaftesbury Theatre (London), directed by Simon Stokes.

This role resulted in many years of friendship and collaboration with Malkovich, while Stokes soon became Dapkūnaitė's (second) husband.

Dapkunaite played in Malkovich's Steppenwolf production Libra, acted alongside him in The Giacomo Variations in Ronacher (Vienna) and Sydney Opera, and in Timofei Kulyabin's production of In the Solitude of Cotton Fields in Dailes Theatre (Tallinn).

Dapkūnaitė also worked in other theaters in the UK, U.S.,, and Europe.

In London, she appeared in Cloaca, directed by Kevin Spacey, at The Old Vic, in Moonlight, and in After Darwin at the Hampstead Theatre, and in The Vagina Monologues at Ambassadors Theatre.

In Moscow, she played ''Vera Pavlova.

Poems'' in the Practice Theatre.

She also performed in the Theatre of Nations and had leading roles in Zhanna, The Idiot, Circus, and Ivan Vyrypaev's Iranian Conference.

She also had a lead play in Touchables (Прикасаемые), the first-ever theatrical production with deaf-blind actors.

She's best known for her performance in Burnt by the Sun (1994) and the leading female role in Katya Ismailova (1994), which won her the Nika Award for Best Actress.

In 1994, the leading role in Valery Todorovsky's 1994 drama film Katya Ismailova won Dapkūnaitė the Nika Award for Best Actress.

The same year, Dapkūnaitė portrayed Marussia in Nikita Mikhalkov's Burnt by the Sun, which received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Grand Prix at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.

Dapkūnaitė was also credited in Mission: Impossible (1996), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Emily Young's debut Kiss of Life (2003), and Okkupert (2015–2019).

Dapkūnaitė performed in theaters in Lithuania, the United Kingdom, United States, and Russia, including Steppenwolf Theatre, Shaftesbury Theatre, The Old Vic, Hampstead Theatre, Theatre of Nations, and more.

She has a long-lasting professional partnership with John Malkovich, they worked together on numerous theatrical productions.

On TV, Dapkūnaitė was the co-host of the Russian edition of the Big Brother reality show (2005) and the spokesperson at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 finals in Moscow.

She also took part in the Stars on Ice (2006) and The new songs about the most important things (2007) TV shows.

She also performed in the music video for the Bi-2 alternative rock track My Rock 'n Roll.

On TV, she appeared as Morpheya in the Sky Court (2011), Mrs Hudson in the adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (2012), Alexandra Feodorovna in the Grigoriy R mini-series (2014), and Maria Feodorovna in Alexei Uchitel's 2017 Matilda.