From Moscow to Berlin: Actress Aleksandra Rusanova's Path to the European Screen

Aleksandra Rusanova is not an actress who waits for a role to find her. She finds the role and then goes somewhere it has never been before.

Trained at the Studio of Psychological Theatre under Ilya Slobodchikov (director, VGIK) and with a parallel background in psychology, Rusanova has built a practice rooted in emotional excavation: accessing genuine feeling, inhabiting characters from the inside out, and making audiences feel less alone. Now, with a growing screen résumé and an expanding international profile, she is positioning herself for the European market with Berlin as her first base of operations.

Screen & Stage

On television, Rusanova recently played one of the ensemble leads across ten episodes of Workdays, directed by Roman Amsler. On film, she has taken lead roles in Actors (dir. Eugeniy Gorman) and a supporting lead in Two Pieces of September (dir. Musin & Kukushkina).

In Two Pieces of September, filmed in the historic locations of Kolomna, Rusanova portrayed an exhausted muse — unseen by others, yet constantly beside the writer: emotionally feral and strangely magnetic.

Her theatre work spans psychological drama and international co-production. She performed in the ensemble of a Chekhov program staged in Paris alongside the Theatre of Mossoviet (Les Turbulences, dir. Philippe Duban), and has led productions including A Plague on Both Your Houses (as Rosalind) and a Dostoevsky adaptation at Theater B. In Actors, she played the lead character, a strong woman shaped by a dramatic fate.

In 2025, she took part in Women’s Lot, a performance art project exploring intergenerational trauma and the emotional legacy passed down between mothers and daughters.

Aleksandra Rusanova, the Actor Behind the Work

Rusanova began performing at age eleven. She attempted, briefly, to leave it behind pursuing a degree in psychology before the stage reclaimed her entirely. That detour became foundational.

She spent a couple of years working as a psychologist in emergency services, listening to trauma daily, learning to read people's eyes before they speak. The experience, she says, gave her something most actors spend years trying to simulate: the ability to stay present inside someone else's pain without losing herself.

She has also maintained a long-standing commitment to charitable work, including theatrical projects with children in orphanages and an international program supporting children with autism. Her range spans dark comedy and drama, with a preference for complex, genre-bending material.

She is particularly interested in collaborating with directors working internationally and with independent productions seeking character-led storytelling.

Contact alexandrarusanovainquiry@gmail.com | Instagram @alex_rusanova https://ru.etalenta.eu/members/profile/aleksandra-rusanova