We were reading about the American Academy of Dramatic Arts the other day and we didn’t realize so many professional actors actually graduated from there. Academy Award winning actor Adrien Brody, Kim Cattrall, Danny Devito,
Hank Azaria and Oscar winner Anne Hathaway, among many others attended AADA. The Swedish actress Michelle Nordlander also attended that very prestigious acting school. Michelle was even invited to join the Theatre Company of the school after she graduated. That is a very high compliment and is given only to a very small percentage of students.
She performed in countless plays there including, Noises Off as Tim Allgood, the stage Manager. That’s right, Michelle played a man, which was a first in that school. They suggested that she play the part as a woman but Michelle saw how interesting that challenge was and she persuaded the school to let her play it as written. That just demonstrated what kind of courage Michelle had and that it would take her as far as she wanted to go in the entertainment industry.
Acting has always been in her blood and the urge to act came when she was only 8 years old after she saw the musical Oliver! The bug had bitten her and by the time she was 13 she knew for sure that acting would be her life’s career. The first time she acted in front of anyone was when she performed her audition. Naturally, she chose a very difficult monologue to do in front of the judges: Ophelia’s speech in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Well, needless to say, she passed the audition with flying colors and got into a well-known acting high school on Sweden’s Gotland Island.
She joined a musical company at that time and performed in numerous musicals including, Fiddler On The Roof, The Secret Garden and Cabaret, to name just a few. After that she auditioned for another acting school for their two-year program. She was so good they accepted her and moved her right into the second year courses, bypassing the whole first year. She was also offered a job as an actress and assistant director after she went back to Stockholm and finished a one-year program at another acting school at the Boulevard Theatre.
Michelle has done plenty of stage productions, TV shows, Web series and films and has many more projects planned for the rest of this year.