Cinema & TV

Anton Yelchin

Leningrad-born star who redefined a generation

Ben Whishaw

British actor whose great-grandmother was Russian

David Duchovny

Actor and writer with Ukrainian Jewish roots

Gwyneth Paltrow

Oscar winner with roots in the Russian Empire

Harrison Ford

Han Solo's grandfather fled the Russian Empire

Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Mirren, royalty with Russian roots

Kirk Douglas

Hollywood titan forged from Belarusian immigrant roots

Leonardo DiCaprio

Oscar-winning actor with Russian Imperial roots

Marina Vlady

French cinema icon born of Russian émigré nobility

Mila Kunis

Hollywood star born in Soviet Chernivtsi, Ukraine

Milla Jovovich

Kyiv-born action icon who conquered Hollywood

Natalie Portman

Oscar-winning actress with Lithuanian-Jewish roots

Ornella Muti

Italian screen icon, Baltic-Russian sculptor's granddaughter

Palina Rojinski

Leningrad-born queen of German pop culture

Pamela Anderson

Baywatch icon with Mennonite roots in the Russian Empire

Peter Ustinov

Polyglot actor-playwright with Russian imperial roots

Seth Rogen

Canadian comedy star with roots in the Russian Empire

Steven Spielberg

Hollywood titan, roots in the Russian Empire

Sylvester Stallone

Rocky's roots run through Odessa

William Shatner

Captain Kirk, rooted in the Russian Empire

Winona Ryder

Hollywood icon with roots in the Russian Empire

Yul Brynner

Vladivostok-born king of Hollywood's golden age

Zedd (Anton Zaslavski)

Grammy-winning producer born in Saratov, USSR

Agnes Bruckner

Hollywood actress born in Germany to Russian-German immigrant parents

Akim Tamiroff

Armenian character actor born in the Russian Empire, trained at the Moscow Art Theatre; two Oscar nominations and the first Golden Globe for best supporting actor

Alan Arkin

Oscar-winning American actor whose grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, Russia and Germany

Albert Brooks

Hollywood's sharpest neurotic, rooted in the Pale.

Alejandro Jodorowsky

Surrealist visionary born of empire's diaspora.

Alicia Silverstone

Actress, Cher Horowitz in Clueless (1995)

Alla Nazimova

Actress born in Yalta, trained in Moscow under Nemirovich-Danchenko; Ibsen star of Broadway and producer-star of the silent Salomé

Alma Zack

Israeli singer with Polish-German Jewish roots — winner of HaKokhav HaBa

Amanda Bynes

Nickelodeon star with Russian-Jewish roots on her mother's side

Amanda Seyfried

Mamma Mia actress with partial Russian ancestry through her mother's German-Russian family

Anatole Litvak

Film director born in Kiev, trained in Petrograd; Mayerling, The Battle of Russia, The Snake Pit and Anastasia

Andrew Garfield

Actor; grandson of a Kielce-born emigrant to London

Andrey Zvyagintsev

Siberian filmmaker who made Russia indict itself.

Ania Bukstein

Israeli actress with Russian immigrant roots who starred in Game of Thrones

Annet Mahendru

Moscow-born actress who made espionage bilingual

Ari Folman

Animated trauma into the Beirut massacre

Armie Hammer

Hollywood heir to an Odessa oil dynasty

Barney Balaban

President of Paramount for nearly thirty years, son of emigrants from Tiraspol and Odessa

Ben Stiller

Actor and director; grandson of an emigrant from Frampol in Russian Poland

Bernard Delfont

Born in Tokmak, Russian Empire; London theatre impresario and life peer

Billy Wilder

Galician-born writer-director of Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment

Boris Grebenshchikov

Leningrad-born singer-songwriter, founder of Aquarium (1972)

Brandon Cronenberg

Body horror's second generation

Bronson Pinchot

Perfect Strangers star with Russian-descended father who became a beloved sitcom icon

Carl Reiner

Comedian, writer and director born in the Bronx; creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1922-2020)

Carrie Fisher

Princess Leia and fearless memoirist with Russian-Jewish roots through her father Eddie Fisher

Chulpan Khamatova

Russia's greatest stage actress who fled Putin's Russia to Latvia after opposing the Ukraine war

Costa Ronin

Russian-born actor who played a KGB spy in The Americans and became a Hollywood fixture

Curly Howard

Member of the Three Stooges, son of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants from Kaunas

Dan Levy

Schitt's Creek co-creator, descendant of emigrants from Russian-ruled Poland

Daniel Radcliffe

Actor; his mother's Jewish family includes a great-great-grandmother born in Russia

Danila Kozlovsky

Russia's most celebrated young actor and director, famous in Russia and globally for Vampire Academy

Danny Kaye

Comedian, actor and singer born in Brooklyn to parents from Yekaterinoslav; first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF

Darren Aronofsky

Brooklyn-born director of Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan and The Whale, of Polish-Jewish descent

Dasha Nekrasova

Minsk-born actress and Red Scare podcast host who became a cult voice of millennial disillusionment

Dave Franco

Hollywood actor with Russian-Jewish roots on his mother's side

Daveed Diggs

Hamilton Tony winner with Russian-Jewish roots on his mother's side

David Cronenberg

Canadian film director of The Fly, Dead Ringers and A History of Violence, born in Toronto

David O. Selznick

Son of a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant who produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca

David Schwimmer

Friends actor and director whose great-grandparents were Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire, per genealogical sources

Dianna Agron

Glee actress with a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish family name that traces to Novgorod-Siversky

Dustin Hoffman

Two-time Oscar winner; grandson of emigrants from the Kiev Governorate

Eddie Cantor

Entertainer of the Ziegfeld Follies, Broadway, radio and film, who gave the March of Dimes its name; son of a young Jewish couple from Russia

Edward G. Robinson

Bucharest-born Hollywood star of Little Caesar and Double Indemnity

Emilia Schüle

Born in Blagoveshchensk, Russia, she became one of Germany's most celebrated young actresses

Erich von Stroheim

Vienna-born film director and actor of Greed and La Grande Illusion (1885-1957)

Eugene Levy

SCTV comedy legend with Russian-Bulgarian Jewish roots who found global fame in Schitt's Creek

Eugenie Leontovich

Moscow-born actress who electrified Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1970s

Ezra Miller

The Flash actor with Russian-Jewish roots who became one of Hollywood's most unconventional stars

Fanny Brice

Star of the Ziegfeld Follies and of radio's Baby Snooks, whose life inspired Funny Girl

Feodor Lark

Born in Siberia in 1997 — adopted to the USA as a toddler, became a child actor in Medium

Fred Zinnemann

Born in Rzeszow in the Russian Empire, directed High Noon and A Man for All Seasons

Fyvush Finkel

Yiddish theatre legend from Brooklyn with Russian-Polish roots who found new fame in Picket Fences

Gene Wilder

Actor and writer, born Jerome Silberman to a Russian Jewish family in Milwaukee

Genndy Tartakovsky

Moscow-born animation auteur who created Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Primal

George Sanders

British actor born in St Petersburg in 1906; Academy Award for All About Eve, Rebecca, The Picture of Dorian Gray and the voice of Shere Khan

Gideon Raff

Israeli showrunner with Russian roots who created Prisoners of War — the Israeli series that became Homeland

Gilda Radner

Original cast member of Saturday Night Live (1975–80), Emmy winner 1978; granddaughter of an emigrant from Lithuania

Goldie Hawn

American actress, Academy Award winner for Cactus Flower

Gregory Ratoff

St. Petersburg actor and director who played every European rogue in 1930s Hollywood

Hagai Levi

Israeli showrunner with Russian roots who created BeTipul — the series that became HBO's In Treatment

Harry Warner

Born in the Russian Empire, co-founded Warner Bros and brought sound to cinema

Harvey Fierstein

Playwright and actor; author of Torch Song Trilogy and four-time Tony Award winner

Harvey Keitel

Actor of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and The Piano; Academy Award nomination for Bugsy

Hector Babenco

Argentine-Brazilian director with Ukrainian-Russian roots who made Kiss of the Spider Woman

Hedy Lamarr

Vienna-born film actress and co-inventor of frequency-hopping spread spectrum (1914-2000)

Herschel Bernardi

Broadway and Hollywood actor with Ukrainian-Russian Jewish roots who voiced Charlie the Tuna

Igor Jijikine

Moscow-born actor who played the villain in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Ilya Naishuller

Moscow director who made the first-person action film Nobody and the viral Hardest Button to Button video

Inbar Lavi

Israeli actress with Polish-Moroccan Jewish roots who starred in Imposters and Prison Break

Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė

Vilnius-born actress who starred in Mission: Impossible and became a star across three cultures

Irving Thalberg

Son of German Jewish immigrants; head of production at MGM from 1925

Ivan Mosjoukine

Silent-film star of Russia and then France, born in Kondol in 1889; Father Sergius, Kean and Michel Strogoff; the face of the Kuleshov experiment

Ivan Reitman

Czech-born Canadian director with Russian roots who produced Animal House and directed Ghostbusters

J.J. Abrams

Film and television director and producer (Lost, Star Trek, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), born in New York

Jack Black

Actor and musician, son of the aerospace engineer Judith Love Cohen

Jack Kirby

Son of Austrian-Jewish immigrants; co-creator of Captain America and the Fantastic Four

Jack Warner

Born in Canada to Jewish immigrants from Congress Poland (Russian Empire); head of production at Warner Bros. until 1969

Jake Gyllenhaal

Actor; great-grandson of Latvian Jewish emigrants on his mother's side

James Franco

Oscar-nominated actor and polymath whose mother has Russian-Jewish roots

Janet Suzman

Johannesburg-born actress and director, Royal Shakespeare Company member and Oscar nominee

Janusz Kamiński

Polish-born cinematographer who shot Schindler's List and became Spielberg's visual eye

Jason Alexander

George Costanza on Seinfeld — a genealogy site traces his maternal line to the Russian Empire

Jason Isaacs

Lucius Malfoy actor with Eastern European Jewish roots who became one of British film's finest character actors

Jason Reitman

Director of Juno and Up in the Air — son of Ivan Reitman, grandson of Czech-Russian Jewish refugees

Jason Segel

How I Met Your Mother star and Muppets writer with Russian-Jewish roots on his father's side

Jeff Goldblum

Actor and jazz pianist; grandson of an emigrant from the Minsk Governorate

Jeffrey Tambor

Arrested Development and Transparent actor from a Jewish family with roots in Hungary and Ukraine

Jennifer Connelly

Actress, Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind (2001); her mother's ancestors were Jewish emigrants from Poland and Russia

Jennifer Jason Leigh

The Hateful Eight actress with Austrian-Russian Jewish roots through her mother's family

Jenny Slate

SNL comedian and Obvious Child star with Russian-Jewish roots on her father's side

Joaquin Phoenix

Oscar-winning actor whose maternal grandfather's family came from Russia

John Garfield

Lower East Side-born son of Russian-Jewish immigrants; star of Body and Soul

Jonah Hill

Actor and filmmaker, born in Los Angeles

Joseph Cedar

New York-born Israeli film director; two Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film (Beaufort, Footnote)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Actor and filmmaker; grandson of the director Michael Gordon

Joseph Schenck

Film executive born in Rybinsk; president of United Artists, co-founder of Twentieth Century Pictures and chairman of 20th Century-Fox

Juliana Margulies

Emmy-winning actress of ER and The Good Wife, of Ashkenazi Jewish descent including Russia

Kat Dennings

Actress of 2 Broke Girls and the Thor films

Kate Hudson

Actress of Almost Famous and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days; co-founder of Fabletics

Kevin Kline

American actor, Academy Award winner for A Fish Called Wanda and three-time Tony Award winner

Kirill Serebrennikov

Rostov-born theatre and film director placed under house arrest by Putin — now in exile in Paris

Konstantin Khabensky

Leningrad-born actor who starred in Night Watch and became the face of modern Russian cinema internationally

Ksenia Solo

Riga-born Canadian actress who starred in Lost Girl and Black Swan

Kyra Sedgwick

Golden Globe and Emmy winner for The Closer

Lana Wood

Natalie Wood's sister — born to Russian immigrant parents, played a Bond girl in Diamonds Are Forever

Larry Fine

Member of the Three Stooges, born in Philadelphia to a Russian-Jewish family

Larry King

Radio and television host born in Brooklyn; son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus; host of Larry King Live on CNN, 1985-2010

Lauren Bacall

Bronx-born Hollywood and Broadway star whose paternal grandparents came from Valozhyn (now Belarus)

Lee J. Cobb

The original Willy Loman — Russian-Romanian Jewish actor who defined American theatrical realism

Lee Philips

American actor and director with Russian Empire Jewish roots

Lee Strasberg

Galicia-born American acting teacher, artistic director of the Actors Studio (1951-1982)

Leonard Nimoy

Spock of Star Trek, director of Star Trek III and IV and Three Men and a Baby; son of Yiddish-speaking parents from Iziaslav

Lev Gorn

Stavropol-born actor who became a fixture of American film and television

Lewis Milestone

Film director born Leib Milstein in the Russian Empire; two Academy Awards, for Two Arabian Knights and All Quiet on the Western Front

Liev Schreiber

Actor and director — Tony for Glengarry Glen Ross, Ray Donovan, director of Everything Is Illuminated; grandson of an emigrant from the Russian Empire

Lily Collins

Actress of Emily in Paris, To the Bone and Mank, twice nominated for a Golden Globe; Russian Jewish descent through her maternal grandfather

Lior Raz

Creator and star of Fauda — the Israeli Netflix thriller that became a global phenomenon

Lisa Bonet

Cosby Show breakout star whose mother has Russian-Jewish ancestry

Lisa Edelstein

House MD's Dr. Cuddy — her Russian-Jewish grandparents shaped a family of achievers

Lisa Kudrow

Actress and producer; granddaughter of an emigrant from Ilya, near Minsk

Logan Lerman

Percy Jackson star whose family traces Russian and Polish Jewish roots

Lorne Michaels

Toronto-born creator of Saturday Night Live — his parents came from Russia

Louis B. Mayer

Co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, born in the Russian Empire (Dymer or Minsk)

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Actress and filmmaker — Secretary, Crazy Heart, The Honourable Woman, writer-director of The Lost Daughter; her mother's grandparents emigrated from Latvia

Mandy Moore

Singer and actress — debut album So Real (1999), A Walk to Remember, Rapunzel in Tangled, Rebecca Pearson in This Is Us

Mandy Patinkin

Actor and singer descended from Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland

Maria Ouspenskaya

Actress and teacher born in Tula; founding member of the Moscow Art Theatre's First Studio, teacher of Lee Strasberg, twice nominated for an Academy Award

Marina Maximilian

Dnipro-born Israeli pop star who brought Russian musical soul into Hebrew music

Mark Ivanir

Chernivtsi-born actor who appeared in Schindler's List and The Terminal

Marty Feldman

The goggle-eyed comic genius of Young Frankenstein — his parents came from Kyiv

Matthew Broderick

Actor, born in Manhattan; two-time Tony Award winner

Matthew Weiner

Creator of Mad Men; grandson of immigrants, his grandfather born in Russia

Maya Rudolph

SNL star whose father Richard Rudolph has Lithuanian-Jewish roots from the Russian Empire

Mayim Bialik

Big Bang Theory and Blossom actress with Ukrainian-Polish Jewish roots who also has a PhD in neuroscience

Melvyn Douglas

Born Melvyn Hesselberg, son of a Riga-born Jewish concert pianist — American actor, two Academy Awards

Michael Chekhov

Actor and teacher, nephew of Anton Chekhov; star of the Moscow Art Theatre's First Studio and head of MAT-2, later an Oscar nominee for Spellbound and author of To the Actor

Michael Douglas

Producer and actor; grandson of emigrants from Chavusy

Michael Dudikoff

American Ninja star whose father emigrated from Russia — an unexpected action hero of the 1980s

Michel Hazanavicius

French director of Lithuanian and Polish Jewish descent; Academy Award for Best Director for The Artist

Mike Nichols

Born in Berlin to a Russian-Jewish family that had lived in Siberia; film and stage director and EGOT winner

Mike Todd

Born to Ukrainian-Polish Jewish immigrants — the showman who made Around the World in 80 Days and married Elizabeth Taylor

Mila Jovovich

Born in Kyiv, raised between Moscow and Los Angeles — became The Fifth Element and Resident Evil icon

Mischa Auer

St Petersburg-born actor nominated for an Academy Award for My Man Godfrey (1936)

Moe Howard

Leader of the Three Stooges, 190 Columbia shorts (1934–57); son of Lithuanian Jews from Kovno

Molly Picon

The Queen of Second Avenue — her parents came from Kyiv, she became the greatest Yiddish theatre star in history

Natalia Oreiro

Uruguayan actress and singer, a star in Russia since Muñeca Brava and a Russian citizen since 2021

Natalie Wood

Born in San Francisco to emigrants from Barnaul and Ussuriysk

Nehemiah Persoff

Jerusalem-born character actor with Russian-Jewish parents who became a Hollywood legend

Nicholas Schenck

Film executive born in Rybinsk in 1881; president of Loew's Inc., the parent company of MGM, for three decades

Noah Wyle

ER's Dr. Carter — his father Stephen Wyle has Russian-Jewish roots from the Russian Empire

Oleg Taktarov

Born in secret Soviet nuclear city Sarov — became UFC champion and Hollywood actor

Oleg Vidov

Soviet heartthrob who defected from the USSR — became a Hollywood actor and freedom symbol

Olga Fonda

Born in Ukhta, Komi Republic — Russian actress who built a Hollywood career in action and thriller films

Olga Kurylenko

Born in Berdyansk, Ukraine — became a Bond girl, starred in Oblivion and relocated to France

Otto Preminger

Film director and producer of Laura and Anatomy of a Murder, born in Austrian Bukovina (1905-1986)

Patricia Arquette

Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress whose Jewish mother's ancestors emigrated from Poland and Russia

Paul Muni

Lemberg-born actor; Academy Award winner for The Story of Louis Pasteur

Paul Reiser

Mad About You star whose family came from Russia and Romania — a quintessential New York Jewish comedian

Paul Rudd

Actor; both parents descended from Jewish immigrants to London from Russia, Belarus and Poland

Peter Falk

American actor best known as Lieutenant Columbo; reported to be of Russian Jewish ancestry on his father's side

Rade Šerbedžija

Croatian actor of Serb origin, cast again and again as Hollywood's Russian

Raj Kapoor

India's great showman and the best-known Indian film star in the Soviet Union

Rashida Jones

Parks and Recreation star whose great-grandfather came from Latvia (Russian Empire)

Regina Todorenko

Odessa-born presenter who became one of Russia's most popular TV hosts — now in exile

Renata Litvinova

Moscow's most theatrical actress and screenwriter — an unforgettable presence in Russian cinema

René Auberjonois

Odo in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; his maternal great-grandmother was a Russian noblewoman

Rick Moranis

Ghostbusters' Louis Tully — his grandparents came from Russia and Ukraine

River Phoenix

Actor of Stand by Me, Running on Empty and My Own Private Idaho (Volpi Cup, 1991); his mother's father's family came from Russia

Rob Reiner

Actor and director born in the Bronx, son of Carl Reiner (1947-2025)

Robert Downey Jr

American actor whose paternal great-grandparents were Lithuanian Jews

Robert Hossein

French actor and director whose father was born in Russian Central Asia and whose mother was born in Kiev

Roger Vadim

His father fled Kyiv — the director who launched Brigitte Bardot and married Jane Fonda

Rosanna Arquette

Desperately Seeking Susan star — shares Polish-Russian Jewish roots with sisters Patricia and David

Rouben Mamoulian

Stage and film director born in Tiflis to an Armenian family; staged Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma! and Carousel, and made Becky Sharp, the first three-strip Technicolor feature

Sacha Baron Cohen

Comedian and actor from a Belarusian Jewish family on his father's side

Sam Raimi

Director of The Evil Dead and the Spider-Man trilogy, born in Royal Oak, Michigan

Samuel Goldwyn

Film producer born in Warsaw, Congress Poland; the 'G' in MGM

Sarah Jessica Parker

Actress and producer, born in Nelsonville, Ohio

Sasha Demidov

Born in Tashkent, trained at GITIS in Moscow — became one of Israel's most beloved stage and screen actors

Sasha Luss

Born in Magadan — the Russian Far East model who starred in Anna and became an international face

Saul Rubinek

Canadian actor born in a German DP camp to Polish-Russian Jewish survivors — Unforgiven, Warehouse 13

Savely Kramarov

Moscow's most beloved comic actor who defected to Hollywood and starred alongside Clint Eastwood

Scarlett Johansson

Actress whose mother's family came from Minsk and from Russian-ruled Poland

Sean Penn

Actor and director with three Academy Awards — Mystic River, Milk and One Battle After Another (2026); grandson of emigrants from Merkinė, Lithuania

Sergei Diaghilev

Impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, born in the Novgorod Governorate

Shemp Howard

Original member of the Three Stooges, son of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants from Kaunas

Sidney Lumet

Son of Warsaw-born actor Baruch Lumet — directed 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network

Sol Hurok

Born in Pogar, Russia — became America's greatest impresario and brought Russian culture to the world

Sophie Winkleman

British actress with Russian-Jewish grandmother who married into the British royal family

Stan Lee

Comic-book writer and Marvel editor, born in Manhattan to Romanian-Jewish parents

Stella Adler

Born in New York to Odessa-born Yiddish theatre king Jacob Adler — taught Brando, De Niro and Beatty

Steven Seagal

American action-film actor and aikido teacher; Russian citizen since 2016

Svetlana Khodchenkova

Moscow-born actress who played Viper in The Wolverine and became Russia's most internationally recognised star

Taika Waititi

New Zealand director of Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit, whose maternal great-grandfather was a Russian Jew from a Novozybkov family

Taylor Momsen

Gossip Girl actress turned rock frontwoman — her maternal grandmother has Russian Jewish roots

Theodore Bikel

Actor and folk singer who played Tevye more than 2,000 times and was often cast in Russian roles; the original Captain von Trapp

Timothée Chalamet

Actor; great-grandson of Jewish emigrants on his mother's side

Timur Bekmambetov

Born in Kazakhstan, directed Night Watch — the biggest Russian blockbuster ever — then conquered Hollywood

Tomar Kapon

Israeli actor with Russian-Iraqi Jewish roots who starred in When Heroes Fly

Tony Curtis

Son of Hungarian-Jewish immigrants; star of Some Like It Hot

Topol (Chaim Topol)

Israeli actor, Tevye of the 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof and of thousands of stage performances; his father was born in Russia

Téa Leoni

Madam Secretary actress whose mother has Polish-Russian Jewish roots

Val Lewton

Born in Yalta — the producer who invented psychological horror and made RKO's greatest films

Vic Morrow

Combat! star whose parents came from the Russian Empire — the quintessential TV tough guy

Victor Garber

Canadian actor with Russian-Jewish roots who starred in Titanic, Alias, and won multiple Tony Awards

Vladimir Mashkov

Wallace Shawn

The Princess Bride's Vizzini — his Russian-Jewish grandfather shaped a playwright who became Hollywood's most quotable villain

Walter Koenig

Pavel Chekov of Star Trek and Alfred Bester of Babylon 5; son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants named Königsberg

Walter Matthau

American actor born on the Lower East Side to a father from Kyiv and a mother from Lithuania; Oscar and two-time Tony winner

Warner Brothers

Born in Krasnosielc, Poland (Russian Empire) — the four brothers who built Hollywood's most socially conscious studio

William Friedkin

Director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, born in Chicago to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine (1935-2023)

Woody Allen

Filmmaker whose grandparents came from Panevėžys, Lithuania, and from Austria

Yael Grobglas

Yakov Smirnoff

Comedian born Yakov Pokhis in Odessa in 1951; the Soviet immigrant of 1980s American comedy ('What a country!'), later a Branson headliner and doctor of psychology

Yevgeni Aryeh

Yuliya Snigir

Yuri Shevchuk

Born in Magadan — frontman of DDT, Russia's most politically fearless rock band

Zac Efron

Actor, born in San Luis Obispo, California

Zero Mostel

The original Tevye and the original Max Bialystock

Zoë Kravitz

Actress and director; her father's family descends from Russian and Ukrainian Jews

Daniel Donskoy

Moscow-born German actor, musician and host of Freitagnacht Jews

Maximilian Mundt

Lead of Netflix's How to Sell Drugs Online Fast — Germany's biggest streaming star with Russian paternal roots

Katharina Thalbach

Berlin theatrical legend with Russian theatrical roots — the most beloved actress on the German-speaking stage

Mark Waschke

Star of Dark (Netflix) — Germany's most internationally recognised dramatic actor with Russian family roots

Kostja Ullmann

Russian-born German actor known for Sommersturm and major German romantic comedies

Pom Klementieff

French actress, Mantis in the Marvel films, granddaughter of the Russian-born painter Eugène Klementieff

Ira Aldridge

African-American Shakespearean tragedian who toured the Russian Empire from 1858, befriended Taras Shevchenko and died on tour in Łódź

Georges Pitoëff

Stage director and actor born Gevorg Pitoyan in Tiflis in 1884; co-founder of the Cartel des Quatre, who introduced Chekhov, Pirandello and Shaw to the French stage

Ludmilla Pitoëff

Stage actress born in Tiflis, one of the great Paris actresses between the wars; Saint Joan, Nora and Chekhov's heroines in the Pitoëff company