Irina Apeksimova

Who is Irina Apeksimova?

Irina Apeksimova is a Russian stage and screen actress.

Apeksimova was the child of classical musicians, Victor Nikolaevich Apeksimov and Svetlana Yakivna Apeksimova. Irina was the second child in the family; her older brother Valery later became a jazz composer and pianist in the United States.

Because her parents worked in the theater and music (her father taught at a music school and later taught piano at a conservatory, and her mother was choirmaster at the municipal Theater of Musical Comedy and later a choir conductor at a conservatory), Apeksimova was surrounded by talented and creative people. She often stayed backstage at the musical theater, where the child actors did their homework and played.

Apeksimova's parents divorced when she was in the eighth grade, and she moved with her mother to Odessa, where she studied acting.

After high school Apeksimova went to Moscow to enter the Moscow Art Theater School, but was rejected because of her Odessa accent. Back in Odessa, she joined the Odessa Opera Theater and danced for a year in the corps de ballet. She then applied again to the Moscow Art Theater School but was again rejected. After this setback, Irina returned to Volgograd and joined the Theater of Musical Comedy, in the corps de ballet.