Stage

By the age of 24 (1987), Dapkūnaitė had performed in six plays at Kaunas Theatre, shone in Shakespearean roles, and dreamed of playing Natasha Rostova in War and Peace.^[10]

In 1992^[11] Dapkūnaitė appeared on stage in the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, after John Malkovich had in 1991 auditioned for an Eastern European actress for a play called Slip of the Tongue,^[12][3] which later played in Shaftesbury Avenue in London. It was directed by Englishman Simon Stokes, who became her second husband. She also appeared in a play written by Malkovich called Libra, about Lee Harvey Oswald,^[11] and they have collaborated on many productions since; by April 2023, there had been nine, and Malkovich called her his "oldest, closest, colleague".^[12]

In January 2011 she appeared on stage with Malkovich again, in The Giacomo Variations at the Sydney Opera House, as part of the Sydney Festival.^[1]

In 2014, she played the title role in young playwright Yaroslava Pulinovich's play Zhanna, directed by Ilya Rotenberg at the Theatre of Nations in Moscow.^[13]

In April 2023, Dapkūnaitė acted alongside Malkovich in the play In the Solitude of Cotton Fields in Tallinn, Estonia.^[12]

Film and TV

Dapkūnaitė played the lead role in the 1987 telemovie Elektroninė senelė (Electronic Grandmother), based on the Ray Bradbury short story "I sing the Body Electric", aired on Central Television in Russia.^{[10][lower-alpha 1]}

Her breakthrough role was as a prostitute in Intergirl in 1989, which made her household name in Russia.^[3]

She is known for her role in the Russian film Burnt by the Sun (1994),^[14][11][15] She has also had a number of minor roles in some top Hollywood movies, including Mission: Impossible (1996)^[11] and Seven Years in Tibet (1997), the latter of which featured her as the wife of Heinrich Harrer (played by Brad Pitt).^[16][8]

Dapkūnaitė played Helen in Emily Young's debut feature Kiss of Life (2003), stepping in at short notice after the actor originally booked to play the role, Katrin Cartlidge, died suddenly in 2002.^[17]

She portrayed the Russian Tsarina Alexandra in the 2003 British TV mini-series The Lost Prince, and was mother to Thomas Harris's fictional cannibal and serial killer, also known to be of Lithuanian origin, in the film Hannibal Lecter, in Hannibal Rising (2007).^[18]

Also on television, she portrays a Bosnian refugee named Jasmina Blekic in Prime Suspect series 6, with Helen Mirren, which aired in 2003.^[19][20] In the first season of the 2004 BBC series Bodies, created by Jed Mercurio, she played nurse Katya Bredova.^[21]

In 2012 she played Kenneth Branagh's love interest in the Wallander TV episode "Dogs of Riga", and also starred in the film Branded.^[22] She also portrayed the role of Mrs Hudson in Russia's Sherlock Holmes, filmed in 2012.^[23]

Dapkūnaitė again plays Tsarina Alexandra in the 2014 Russian miniseries Grigoriy R, about Rasputin.^[24]

She plays the role of top Russian diplomat Irina Sidorova in the Norwegian show Okkupert (Occupied), first aired in 2015.^[25][26]

Dapkūnaitė plays the lead role of Estonian detective Inga Veermaa in the Russian-Estonian remake of the 2011 Swedish/Danish crime drama The Bridge. Two series were made, airing from 2018 to 2020 in Russia and Estonia.^[27][28][29]