Alexandra Maria Lara

With delicately chiseled Eastern European features and a lithe, graceful presence, Romanian-born actress Alexandra Maria Lara evinced professional qualities that promised to set her apart from her contemporaries. She launched her career rather nonchalantly, with roles that confined her to her native continent -- films such as the 2001 satire Südsee, eigene Insel and the 2002 psychological drama Fisimatenten that generally failed to traverse the Atlantic. Lara expanded her scope, however, via two key crossover roles, both portrayals of historic figures that played largely off of the thespian's classical look: that of Countess Maria Walewska in Yves Simoneau's 2002 epic telemovie Napoleon (about the titular French ruler) and that of Traudl Junge, a young housekeeper who bears witness to Adolf Hitler's decline, in the superior period drama Downfall (2004). International audiences next caught Lara via a small supporting role in Control (2007), director Anton Corbijn's much anticipated biopic of post-punk singer Ian Curtis.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide