Steinunn Ólína Þorsteinsdóttir

Steinunn Ólina Þorsteinsdóttir (born 2 July 1969 in Reykjavík, Iceland) is an Icelandic actress, TV show host, writer and producer.

Biography

Early life

Steinunn Ólina grew up in Reykjavik with her mother, the actress Bríet Héðinsdóttir, and her father Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson, a writer and translator of dramatic literature, and first found fame with a starring stage role at the age of fifteen. At seventeen she moved to London, England to study drama at the Drama Centre London, from which she graduated in 1990 along with contemporaries like Helen McCrory and Tara FitzGerald. She subsequently moved back to Iceland to re-launch a career on the stage and television as a mature artist, making her debut at the National Theatre of Iceland in the role of Solveig in Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt.

National Theatre and elsewhere

Eventually Steinunn Ólina was hired as a contracted star player at the National Theatre of Iceland where she spent the next fourteen years, appearing in over 50 productions and portraying a range of leading characters in contemporary and classical plays alike. Her many significant roles at the National include Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady by Lerner and Loewe and Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof, also contributing to several stage productions of comedy and farce, such Ray Cooney’s Two for One and in Michael Frayn's Noises Off as the misfortunate actress Dotty Otley. She has also interpreted many classical characters such as Irena, in Chekhov’s Three Sisters, Aglaja in a dramatization of The Idiot by Dostoyevsky and Queen Margaret in Shakespeare’s Richard III for which she garnered the prestigious “Grima awards” (The Mask) in 2004.^[1]

Steinunn Ólina has also been featured in numerous high profile stage productions with several different acting companies, tackling leading roles in plays by masters of the absurd such as in Eugène Ionesco's The Lesson, her portrayal of Roxy Hart in Chicago by Kander and Ebb as a guest star with the Reykjavík Theatre Ensemble.

Television and film work

Steinunn Ólina produced, wrote, directed and hosted her own live talk show Over My Dead Body - with Steinunn Ólina on the Icelandic State Broadcasting Television Channel 1.

Steinunn Ólina has also contributed to other television shows as a comedienne and writer, such as the RUV-TV's “New Years Eve Comedy Hour Variety Show” the most preeminent annual event on National Television in Iceland, to which she has rendered her services on several occasions. Steinunn has also appeared in a handful of television plays, sitcoms and feature films, including Beowulf and Grendel, starring Gerard Butler in 2005.^[2]

Personal life

She broke into the stratum of novelists with the publishing of her semi-autobiographical novella “Parental Guidance” which made number one bestseller in Iceland 2006. Steinunn Ólina's career and her offerings to theatre, film, and television continues to soar and in 2004 she moved to the United States. Steinunn Ólina currently resides in Los Angeles with her actor husband Stefán Karl Stefánsson of LazyTown fame, three daughters and a son.^[3]

References