Krišjānis Strods
Born: 7 October 1997
Born in Riga, Krišjānis lived in Inčukalns until the age of six and later grew up in Sigulda. He graduated from Sigulda State Gymnasium in 2016. He gained his first theatre experience at the Sigulda Art School Baltais flīģelis under actress and director Ārija Liepiņa–Stūrniece.
In 2021, he graduated from the Dramatic Theatre Acting Course at the Latvian Academy of Culture, led by Indra Roga and Mihails Gruzdovs.
He develops his acting skills through observation of everyday life. Krišjānis’s dream is to fly into space and experience weightlessness for a short period of time. He once wanted to become an astronaut; he is fascinated by the universe and everything connected to it. As a child, he wanted to become a cashier because he thought he would be able to keep all the money he received himself. He would have gladly played in Kroders’s production of Hamlet. He sometimes travels to Valmiera from Sigulda by bicycle.
“Krišjānis develops his abilities harmoniously and steadily. He has excellent powers of observation. (…) He is reliable, warm, and someone others can depend on. Over these years, he has polished a sense of humour that is uniquely his own—subtle wit, expressed unexpectedly seriously, that refreshes even the most exhausting moments,” said Indra Roga, describing her student.
During the 2021/2022 season, he was nominated as Best Young Actor of the Year for his role as Carlos in the production The Burning Darkness. In an outwardly restrained form, he is able to embody an active inner struggle and a complex process of thought.
He has portrayed Nikolai Stavrogin, who has lost his moral compass between good and evil, “a man who, against his own will, seduces everyone, pursuing their hearts and minds” (Toms Čevers); Nick, lost in the games of adulthood, in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; and the “passionately arrogant” (Henrieta Verhoustinska) Dana in Joseph and His Brothers.
“Krišjānis is a very orderly person in everyday life—certainly much more orderly than I am. When staging productions in Valmiera, I stay in the actors’ dormitory, where in the kitchen one can see Krišjānis’s carefully arranged shelf of food and spices. Almost alphabetically organised, it contains a wide variety of seasonings and ingredients, which he then uses in practice. It seems that Krišjānis’s knowledge of cooking could be compared to his continuously growing knowledge and mastery on stage. (…)
Krišjānis is very easy to work with because he intuitively trusts the director. He does not demand extremely long explanations, but is ready to enter unknown territory and search for answers there. In any case, Krišjānis’s acting range continues to expand.”
(Director Toms Treinis, Teātra Vēstnesis, 2023/I (149).)
