Elsa Helena Saisio (born 19 July 1981) is a Finnish actress. She graduated from the Helsinki Theatre Academy in 2003. [1]
Saisio began her professional career in Shakespeare productions already before her graduation. Her early stage roles include Julia, Ophelia, Anya in The Cherry Orchard and Cordelia in King Lear . She has made several main and supporting roles in Finnish movies and frequent television appearances along with her stage career. [1]
Saisio grew in a theatre family: her parents are Pirkko Saisio and Pirjo Honkasalo, and her biological father Harri Hyttinen was also an actor. [2]
She has appeared in the 2022 television series Stop Nyqvist and Whiskey on the Rocks .
The Sound of Music is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Set in Austria on the eve of the Anschluss in 1938, the musical tells the story of Maria, who takes a job as governess to a large family while she decides whether to become a nun. She falls in love with the children, and eventually their widowed father, Captain von Trapp. He is ordered to accept a commission in the German Navy, but he opposes the Nazis. He and Maria decide on a plan to flee Austria with the children. Many songs from the musical have become standards, including "Do-Re-Mi", "My Favorite Things", "Edelweiss", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", and the title song "The Sound of Music".
Charles Laughton was a British and American actor. He was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and first appeared professionally on the stage in 1926. In 1927, he was cast in a play with his future wife Elsa Lanchester, with whom he lived and worked until his death.
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith was a British actress. Known for her wit in both comedic and dramatic roles, she had an extensive career on stage and screen for over seven decades and was one of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actresses. She received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, four Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for six Olivier Awards. Smith is one of the few performers to earn the Triple Crown of Acting.
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was a British actress with a long career in theatre, film and television.
Dame Helen Mirren is an English actor. In a career spanning 60 years, she is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, five Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, an Olivier Award and a Tony Award. She has been honored with the BAFTA Fellowship in 2014, the Honorary Golden Bear in 2020, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2022. Mirren was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003.
Joan Ann Plowright Olivier, Baroness Olivier, commonly known as Dame Joan Plowright, was an English actress whose career spanned over six decades. She received several accolades including two Golden Globe Awards, an Olivier Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.
Ellen Tyne Daly is an American actress whose six-decade career included many leading roles in movies and theater. She has won six Emmy Awards for her television work, a Tony Award, and is a 2011 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee.
Jennifer Tilly is an American-Canadian actress and professional poker player. Known for her distinctive breathy voice and comedic timing, she is the recipient of a Saturn Award, a Fantasporto Award, and a GLAAD Award, as well as nominations for an American Comedy Award, a Gemini Award, two MTV Movie Awards, and an Academy Award.
Helena Kristina Bergström Nutley is a Swedish actress and film director. From an acting family, she began her career in 1982. She has appeared on the stages of the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten) and the Stockholm City Theatre, but is best known for her work in films. The Women on the Roof is considered a breakout role for her. Her most awarded film is The Last Dance, for which she received the Guldbagge Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Festival Awards in Montreal and Istanbul. Her husband, Colin Nutley, has directed her in several movies. In 2007, she directed for the first time for the film Mind the Gap. She is also a screenwriter and a singer.
Pirkko Helena Saisio is a Finnish author, actress and director. She has also written under the pen names Jukka Larsson and Eva Wein. Saisio has a broad literary output, dealing with many kinds of texts from film screenplays all the way to librettos for the ballet. Her novel Betoniyö (1981) was adapted into a feature film Concrete Night in 2013 by Pirjo Honkasalo.
Willemijn Verkaik is a Dutch singer and actress. She is best known for her stage roles in the musicals Wicked and Elisabeth, and for providing the voice of Elsa in the German version and the Dutch version of Disney's Frozen.
Pirjo Irene Honkasalo is a Finnish film director who has also worked as a cinematographer, film editor, producer, screenwriter and actress. In 1980 she co-directed Flame Top with Pekka Lehto, with whom she worked earlier and later as well. The film was chosen for the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. In the 1990s she focused on feature documentaries such as "The Trilogy of the Sacred and the Satanic". Honkasalo returned to fiction with Fire-Eater (1998) and Concrete Night (2013), both of which were written by Pirkko Saisio. Concrete Night won six Jussi Awards in 2014, among them the Jussi for the Best Direction and the Jussi for the Best Film. Its world premiere was at the Toronto International Film Festival in Masters series.
Elsa Lystad was a Norwegian film and stage actress. She was a recipient of the Leonard Statuette, the King's Medal of Merit, the Amanda Honorary Award, and Gullruten.
Jacqueline Ruth Weaver is an Australian theatre, film, and television actress. Weaver emerged in the 1970s Australian New Wave through her work in Ozploitation films such as Stork (1971) for which she won AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Alvin Purple (1973), and Petersen (1974). She later starred in Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Caddie (1976) for which she won the AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress in Film, Squizzy Taylor (1982), and a number of television films, miniseries, and Australian productions of plays such as Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire.
Frozen is a musical with music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, and book by Jennifer Lee, based on the Walt Disney Animation Studios' 2013 animated film Frozen. The story centers on the relationship between two sisters who are princesses, Elsa and Anna. Elsa has magical powers to freeze objects and people, which she does not know how to control. After inheriting the throne, Elsa flees, inadvertently causes the kingdom to become frozen in an eternal winter, and nearly kills her sister. She must sacrifice and show true love to save the day.
Simona Stašová is a Czech stage, filmm and television actress. Since making her theatre debut in 1976, she has acted on stage in theatres and appeared in numerous films and television productions. Stašová has won multiple awards for her acting, both inside her native Czech Republic and internationally.
Rita Raave is an Estonian stage, television and film actress, and painter.
Kärt Tomingas is an Estonian stage, television, voice and film actress, singer, lecturer and acting and theatre pedagogue. Tomingas' career began in the 1980s as a folk-pop, rock and jazz singer and soon after began a career as an actress. Since 2008, she has been an acting lecturer and has taught acting.
Maarja Jakobson is an Estonian television, stage and film actress whose career began in the late 1990s.
Stephanie Adrienne McKeon is an Irish actress. She began her career as a teenager in the RTÉ soap opera Fair City (2004–2007). She was nominated for Laurence Olivier and WhatsOnStage Awards for her role as Anna in the West End production of Frozen.