Catinca Untaru

Catinca was born in Bucharest, Romania on 21 March 1997, the only child of Untaru family. When she was three years old, she told her grandparents that she would like to became a theatre actress waiting for people to give her flowers on a stage. From an early age, she was fascinated by fantasy stories and legends. She started to take English lessons at the age of 4 and her teacher, a former Romanian flight attendant, noticed her interest and started to tell her stories about countries and customs to keep her focused. Soon she was speaking English with different accents. She competed against hundreds of children from all over the world for the role of Alexandria, the main character in Tarsem Singh's The Fall (2006). She won the role, despite not fitting the initial character description. Catinca Untaru became the first Romanian child actress to star in an international film. Right from the start, her discovery has consisted of a series of fortunate coincidences.