Chulpan Nailevna Khamatova PAR (; ; born 1 October 1975) is a Russian film, theater and television actress. Biography Early life and theater career Chulpan Nailevna Khamatova was born on 1 October 1975 in Kazan, Tatar ASSR, in what was then the Soviet Union. Her parents Marina Galimullovna Khamatova and Nail Khamatov are both engineers. Her name, Chulpan, means "morning star" (i.e. Venus) in Tatar (she is of Volga Tatar origin). Her younger brother is also an actor. As a child, she was engaged in figure skating and from the eighth grade studied at the mathematical school of the Kazan Federal University. She was accepted at the Kazan State Finance and Economics Institute but ended up changing her mind and entered the Kazan Theater School. Teachers Juno Kareva and Vadim Keshner, assessing the prospects of the beginning actress, advised and helped Khamatova continue her studies in Moscow, and she entered Russian Institute of Theatre Arts, the course of Alexei Borodin. Khamatova performed on the stages of several Moscow theaters: Russian Academic Youth Theater (Dunya Raskolnikova in Crime and Punishment and Anne Frank in Anne Frank's Diary), the Theater of the Moon, the Anton Chekhov Theater (Katya in Pose of the Immigrant), the Open Theater Julia Malakyants (Silvia). In 1998 she was invited to the troupe of the Moscow Sovremennik Theatre. She debuted in the role of Patricia Holman (Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque). She also received roles in the plays Three Sisters (Irina), Mamapapasynsobaka (Andria), The Storm (Katerina), The Naked Pioneer (Masha Mukhina) and Anthony and Cleopatra (Cleopatra), as well as the role of Masha in the new version of the play Three Sisters. In 2008, Khamatova took part in the performance of the Theatre of Nations Stories of Shukshin (directed by Alvis Hermanis), where she played nine of 10 stories. Film career Khamatova has starred in a number of German-language films, and she is considered to be a leading Russian actress. In cinema, Khamatova started acting during the third year of GITIS – Vadim Abdrashitov invited her for the role of Katya in the film Time of a Dancer (1997). Khamatova's breakthrough came with the crime drama Country of the Deaf (1998) by Valery Todorovsky where she played Rita. The picture was about deaf-mute people and Khamatova had to learn sign language for the role. Other notable films with Khamatova's participation include Bakhtiyar Khudoynazarov's picture Luna Papa (1999),