Ilona Elkin (actra)

Ilona Elkin was born in Helsinki, Finland to a Chilean father and a Finnish mother. She has a twin sister, Kati. At the tender age of five Ilona's father had just taken her to see her very first Charlie Chaplin film and at the age of 9, she started dancing ballet at the Finnish National Ballet school. True to her word she made her professional debut on the Helsinki stage in a production of the ballet Neapoli only five years later. At the age of fifteen, she briefly moved to live in Vienna, Austria, and two years later she landed in Montreal, where she decided to pursue a career in the performing arts.

The transition from stage to screen has been smooth. She attended the Dome Theatre School and Graduated in 1998. She has played parts in plays such as: MacBeth, Escape from happiness, and After the Fall, to name a few.

Ilona Elkin starred in the series Vampire High playing Merrill a book wormy, super-smart young vampire growing to her own, first released in 2001 on YTV and still airing on the Space Network. Her third series lead came as Claire the independent "20-something" trying to discover her past on Delta State. A live-action animation series in the style of Linklater's Waking Life. The show started airing in September 2003 on Teletoon and continues having a cult following.

Ilona has also guest starred in multiple TV and film productions. Most recently in the series Missing shot in Toronto, she co-starred in a little seen art-house film Ascension with Marie Josée Croze (Les Invasions Barbares), and also did a small part in George Clooney's directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

Next up is End of the Line, a horror feature film directed by Maurice Devereaux (Slashers). Ilona plays the leading role of Karen, a young psychiatric nurse, going through a really "rough day". And that's all we are at liberty to discuss—not to give away the plot. Scheduled release is fall 2006.

Notably, Ilona also speaks Finnish and Spanish fluently, and gets by in French and German. She now lives in Port Perry, a small and idyllic town near Toronto, Canada.