Biography

Estelle Bajou is a French-American actress, composer, and writer.

Praised by critics as a "first-rate young actor" (NY Times), and "excellent at bringing a humanity and honesty to complex characters" (Huff Post), Bajou's acting credits include Broadway's Once, Boardwalk Empire (2010), Person Woman Man Camera TV (2022), Charming the Hearts of Men (2021) (opposite Anna Friel), Spielberg's The Post (2017), Chaplin of the Mountains (2013) (filmed in Iraq), and SubHysteria (2010), award-winning shorts like The Number 2020 Is Somehow Destroyed (2021), Glimpses - A day in a life (2020), Full Throttle Paradise (2022), Lullaby for Ray (2011), Broke (2014), Henry Buys a Hat (2012), and plays at Edinburgh Fringe (Won: The Stage's Award for Best Acting), 59E59, The New Ohio (Won: NY Innovative Theater Award: Outstanding Performance Art Production), American Repertory Theater (Boston), three national tours, et al. Member: SAG-AFTRA, AEA.

Described as "elegantly constructed" (NY Times), "sensational...incisive" (Rough Cut Cinema), and "terrifically effective" (American Theater Web), Bajou's composing has earned several awards, including a Drama Desk nomination alongside one of her heroes, Philip Glass, and Best Americana Score at the Garden State Film Festival for Glimpses - A day in a life (2020). Her composing/music credits include Broadway's Once, Ken Burns' Prohibition (2011), Small Time (2020), Spielberg's The Post (2017), Fireworkers (2017), Beneath Disheveled Stars (2014), and Occupy, Texas (2016), award-winning shorts like The Number 2020 Is Somehow Destroyed (2021), Malala (2021), Sentimiento Es La Bomba (2020), Paper Year (2024), klutz. (2019), Starring Austin Pendleton (2016), Henry Buys a Hat (2012), and plays at Labyrinth Theater Co, Edinburgh Fringe, 59E59, PS122, et al. Member: American Federation of Musicians.

Bajou writes plays, screenplays, and poetry. Her full-length play, Poetry, was a Finalist in the 2021 ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition. Her feature screenplay adaptation of Poetry is a Quarterfinalist in the 2022 ScreenCraft Film Fund. She co-wrote (and starred in) the feature, Person Woman Man Camera TV (2022) (forthcoming 2022). Her poetry received a 2021 Pushcart Prize nomination, and is featured in Broad River Review, California Quarterly, Heavy Feather Review, SWIMM, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection, I Never Learned to Pray, was Longlisted for the C&R Press Poetry Award and is forthcoming in 2022. Member: The Actor's Studio Playwrights and Directors Unit, The Dramatists Guild.

Raised in a furniture factory town in the NC mountains, she bears the traces of travel across the Americas and Europe, to Venezuela, Turkey, and Iraqi Kurdistan, among other formative places. She now lives in New York City with a bunch of houseplants.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

She was a 2016 Drama Desk nominee for Outstanding Music in a Play alongside such notable composers as Pulitzer and Tony winner Tom Kitt, and Oscar nominee Philip Glass.

She sings and plays several instruments including violin, mandolin, guitar, as well as some piano and drums.

At age nineteen, she graduated with a BA in Theatre and Creative Writing from Bard College at Simon's Rock. She then went on to earn an MFA in Acting at The New School.

She is fluent in French and English, speaks some Spanish, a bit of Russian, as well as a few words of Kurdish, which she learned while shooting Chaplin of the Mountains (2013) on location in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2009.

Bajou writes plays, screenplays, poetry, and fiction, and makes visual and interdisciplinary art. Her full-length play, Poetry, is a Quarterfinalist in the 2021 ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition. Her poetry and visual art is featured or forthcoming in About Place Journal, Broad River Review, California Quarterly, Cathexis Northwest Press, Heavy Feather Review, Middlesex: a Literary Journal, Sheila-Na-Gig, South Florida Poetry Journal, SWIMM, The Abstract Elephant Magazine, The Closed Eye Open, This Broken Shore, Variant Literature, and Wild Roof Journal. Her first poetry collection, I Never Learned to Pray, is forthcoming in 2022.