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When Daniel Alexander was born he awakened in a world that was a stage and in which he learned to waltz on tightropes before he could walk. His parents were artists who belonged to a Russian troupe, and who encouraged their son to make of danger his profession. In 1993, soon after his parents' troupe had moved from Germany back to the Ukraine, Daniel, at the age of ten, began to train at the Palucca Ballet School in Dresden.
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The coming six years he learned to obey and command his body, and his bearing started to exude the kind of physical presence that he admires so much in actors such as Toshiro Mifune and Arkady Raikin. This helped him to be accepted in the Stuttgart Drama School.
MMI
His physical presence and acting talents were soon recognized by Roman Polanski who invited him to play a role in his production of Dance Of The Vampires. Needless to say that being under the direction of a master like Polanski revamped Daniel's already intense passion for the stage and allowed his talents to be challenged to new heights. His eager attendance of the Stuttgart Drama School was accompanied by acting jobs in productions of As You Like It, West Side Story, and Peter and the Wolf.
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At twenty, Daniel moved to New York to learn film acting. Having grown up speaking and loving both Russian and German helped him to become quickly fluent in English. After studying at several acting schools he met and started working with D.J. Mendel, a director who has been collaborating in many films by Hal Hartley, and who explores ways of wedding acting more intimately with other arts such as music, painting, and sculpture. This approach towards acting could not fail to appeal to Daniel, whose curiosity had always been directed towards multi-media. His talents are highlighted in two of Mendel's films, marking the beginning of what promises to be a rich future for this intense, sophisticated, and emotionally profound actor.
Biography by Johannes Lagerweij
