Yekaterina Rednikova

In 1998, Yekaterina Rednikova received a Nika award (the "Russian Oscar") for her performance in, "The Thief" by Pavel Chukrai. This was her first lead role. Yekaterina traveled with "The Thief" to Los Angeles, where it was nominated for "Best Foreign Language Picture" by the Academy. This role, for which she was called, "the Russian Liv Ullman" by Italian critics at the Venice film festival, led Katerina to pursue an international career. Rednikova was born in Moscow, the daughter of an engineer, Valeriy Rednikov, and an accountant, Yelena Rednikova. Her older brother, Dmitriy, was a physicist and worked on the aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe before becoming a screenwriter. Yekaterina stepped on a stage for the first time when she was 6 and played two small roles with one of the biggest theater companies in Moscow: Lenkom. One of the accomplished actors with whom she shared the stage wrote her an autograph that changed her life and encouraged her to become an actress. Yekaterina entered the very competitive Russian Theater Academy (GITIS) at the age of 17. After graduating from the Theater Academy, she worked with several theater companies, more often in American classics such as "A Streetcar named Desire" and "Beyond the Horizon" than in Russian plays, which is ironic since Yekaterina is a relative of classic Russian playwright Anton Chekov. After "The Thief", Yekaterina played lead roles in movies in Russia, Turkey, Great Britain and the United States. She was nominated for "best Turkish actress" at the Turkish Critic Awards in 2000 for her performance in the Turkish movie, "Balalayka", which was quite an accomplishment since she did not speak Turkish before arriving on set. In 2005, Yekaterina played the female lead opposite Daniel Craig in the BBC production, "Archangel". Since 2003, Yekaterina has been living in Moscow and in Los Angeles. At the moment, she is preparing for the role of Raisa Gorbachev in the upcoming project, "Raisa", based on the life of former Russian President Michael Gorbachev.