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Lena Olin
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Irina Derevko
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The Basics: Born March 22, 1956 in Stockholm, Sweden, Lena Olin's heritage
almost destined her choice of acting as a career. Her father, Stig Olin, was an actor, and
one of his most notable roles was in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Olin herself
hated the limelight her family was in and decided to enroll in medical school.
It was Bergman who convinced her to try acting, and Olin wound up working with
him extensively in projects such as King Lear and After
the Rehearsal (in a role created especially for her). She
began acting in American films in 1988, and "Alias" is her first major role on
television.
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The Basics: Irina Derevko remains as much an enigma today as she was
when she first returned from "the dead." She's Russian by birth, and her
association with the KGB and Alexander Khasinau predated her relationship with Jack Bristow. When
their daughter Sydney was six, Irina faked her own death in a car accident
with the help of a KGB agent. She and Khasinau broke from the KGB to create
their own spy organization, where she was known as The Man. Upon turning herself in to
the CIA, she helped complete multiple missions from her jail cell before breaking
out and hooking up with Sark and Sloane. She's double-crossed everyone so many
times, there's no way to know what she really wants. But her love for Jack
and Sydney seems to be the real deal.
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Personal: Olin is married to "The Cider House Rules" and "Chocolat"
director Lasse Hallstrom, with whom she has a daughter. She also has a son
from a previous marriage.
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Personal: She and Khasinau were lovers (ew!), presumably right up
until she shot him to death. Her relationship with Jack was engineered by
the KGB in order to extract secrets from him about Project Christmas, a secret
child spy-training program. Along the way, they had a daughter, who grew up
to be just as adept a spy as her parents. Despite her massive treasonous
betrayal of them, Jack and Sydney can't help but indulge their love for Irina,
hoping she's changed but never quite believing it.
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Work History: Though Olin made many films in Sweden, her breakthrough role
in America was in The Unbearable Lightness of Being with Daniel Day-Lewis. She went on
to receive an Academy Award nomination and a New York Film Critics award
for her work in Enemies: A Love Story. Her recent film roles have included
Queen of the Damned, Chocolat, and Hollywood Homicide.
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Work History: Irina was recruited into the KGB by Khasinau in 1970 and
went undercover as Laura Bristow shortly thereafter. Her civilian employment was
as a college literature professor, sparking Sydney's interest in the same career.
It's unknown when exactly she and Khasinau went freelance or how she became the
boss, but her partnership with the CIA enabled her to steal some Rambaldi
artifacts that later wound up in Sloane's hands. It appears she's currently
playing both sides of the good/evil fence.
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Trivia: Olin has said that she is a natural at playing violent, vengeful
characters because she has access to a lot of inner fury. Her anger and
fearlessness date back to her early days as "a demon ice hockey player," where she
always scored her goal but was subject to much disciplinary action for elbowing
other players. She's never been a huge fan of Hollywood, and after she accepted the
role in Enemies: A Love Story, she cried for days because she didn't
want to leave Sweden. Now she makes her home in New York with a second residence in Sweden.
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Trivia: She won't hesitate to shoot her daughter or clock her with a hockey stick when she needs
slowing down. Her ingenuity must run in the family, what with the
mother-daughter underwater breathing trick. So must a certain method of
flipping the hair. If you want to talk about embedding Morse code in
a pair of earrings, she's your woman. She's able to sustain chemistry with men who really,
really want to hate her. She makes a darn foxy assassin/prison
inmate/estranged parent.
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Information was gathered from
The Independent (London),
Blockbuster.com, and
Thespian Net.
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