All Romanians are vampires

Anamaria Marinca (born April 1, 1978 in Iaşi, Romania) is an award-winning Romanian actress, having starred in the Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

She graduated from the University of Fine Arts, Music and Drama “George Enescu” in Iaşi. She speaks Romanian, English and French.

In 2005, she won three Best Actress Awards (the BAFTA Television Awards, the Royal Television Society Award and the ‘Golden Nymph’ at 45th Festival de Télévision de Monte Carlo) for her role in Sex Traffic, a CBC/Channel 4 drama about human trafficking. As well as appearing on stage in Romanian theatre productions, she also acted in Measure for Measure at the National Theatre in London.

In 2007, she starred in the Romanian film 4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) by Cristian Mungiu, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, and two other awards (the Cinema Prize of the French National Education System and the FIPRESCI prize). She also appeared in the Francis Ford Coppola film Youth Without Youth. In 2008 she appeared as a supporting character in the BBC 5-episode miniseries The Last Enemy as Yasim Anwar, a human rights activist and the lead character’s love interest. Marinca appeared in the Romanian drama Boogie and Oliver Hirschbiegel‘s acclaimed Five Minutes of Heaven.

Most recently, Marinca played the leading role in Storm by Hans Christian Schmid, starred in Julie Delpy‘s The Countess and acted in Sleep with me by Marc Jobst.

From July 24-August 8 2009 Marinca was in Sarah Kane’s final play “4:48 Psychosis”, directed by Christian Benedetti in the Young Vic Theatre in London.^[1]

Marinca has also appeared in the ITV drama (UK) Sleep With Me as a budding French author with sinister designs on the character played by Adrian Lester and his wife.