Aksels Aizkalns

Born: March 25, 1994

Born and raised in Liepāja. As a child, he dreamed of becoming an archaeologist, an explorer, and a pilot. Graduated from Liepāja State Gymnasium No. 1 (2013) and continued his life in Riga. During his school years, he was interested only in sports and music, until he accidentally ended up in the Liepāja Youth Theatre Studio with director Juris Ločmelis, where he gained his first theatre-like experience. In 2021, he graduated from the Dramatic Theatre Acting program at the Latvian Academy of Culture under course leaders Indra Roga and Mihails Gruzdovs.

“With a display of performed nonchalance, he protects his vulnerability. A great struggle with himself and the role comes with Raskolnikov. And afterward, having experienced the depths of inner life, Aksels no longer agrees to skim the surface. From then on, he searches for that same depth of Raskolnikov, which unfortunately not every role offers. Injustice pains him; a spirit of protest lives within him. A maximalist coexists in him with rock and roll, an idealist with doubt. His own perspective is important to him, as is unshakable logic, and it matters to him not to repeat himself,” observed Indra Roga during his studies.

Valmiera Theatre welcomed Aksels Aizkalns with open arms, as the actor himself said in an interview with the newspaper Diena (28.09.2023), shortly before the premiere of Joseph and His Brothers, and offers him roles that in no way allow him to remain superficial. If the term “heroic role actor” still held meaning in 21st-century theatre terminology, it would currently apply to Aksels Aizkalns. Oswald in Mrs. Alving, Alexei Kirillov in The Possessed. After Dostoevsky, Ignacio in In the Burning Darkness, Orin Mannon in Mourning Becomes Electra, and Rainis’s Joseph! Disturbers of peace, seekers of truth, incapable of compromise, askers of the big questions.