Alicja Bachleda-Curuś

Polish actress and singer born in Mexico, city of Tampico; the daughter of Lidia and Tadeusz Bachleda-Curuś. Her uncle is Adam Bachleda-Curuś, former mayor of Zakopane.

While growing up in Poland, Bachleda studied at the National Ballet Academy in Kraków from 1989 to 1998, and at the National Academy of Music’s vocal department in Cracow from 1998 to 2000. As a 19 year old, she moved to the United States to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City.

As a 15 year old, Bachleda landed a lead role in the 1999 film Pan Tadeusz, directed by Academy Award winning Polish director Andrzej Wajda. Four years later, she won a role in Polish soap opera Na dobre i na złe. Bachleda then began crossing over into mainstream films outside of Poland, appearing in the German film Sommersturm in 2004. She returned to her birthplace of Mexico to film the 2007 thriller Trade, starring Kevin Kline. The film gave an unflinching look at the world of human trafficking. Bachleda then returned to Europe to play a Jewish girl in the historical drama Der geköpfte Hahn, which took place during World War II in Transylvania, Romania. Her next film was 2009’s Ondine, a film about an Irish fisherman who thinks he catches a selkie.