Biography

Kari Kleiv was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA. Her mother, Grete Salomonsen, is a Japanese-born film director and writer, of Norwegian and Mongolian descent. Her father, Odd Hynnekleiv, is a Norwegian producer and cinematographer raised in Norway and Brazil. She grew up in five countries. Kleiv wanted to become an actress after seeing a one-woman play about Florence Nightingale at the age of eight. Her nanny was an actress and would act out all the characters skillfully and uniquely from various Shakespeare plays like the Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet. She started acting on stage at the age of ten and simultaneously took acting classes at the Actors Place in Virginia with her teacher and whom she still calls her "American mom". She wrote her first screenplay at the age of 11 with her best friend and Navaho Native American in mind to play the main role. She continued after moving to Norway at the age of 12 to study acting and perform in plays like Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in seaside town, Kristiansand. While out walking her dog, she was spotted at age 14 by a director on the show "Midt i Smørøyet", a Norwegian teenage TV program on NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting), and debuted on TV in a leading part on the show, coinciding with debuting on stage with a self-formed girl rock band where she played guitar and co-wrote the music. Short films and TV commercials followed, in Japan and Norway, and in Shanghai, China, for a Minolta commercial in 2003. That same year, she moved to London, where she was spotted by Mark Owen of Take That, as she was filming a music video for one of her songs. He came up to her in the street in Holland Park with director Sten Hellevig asking if she actually played guitar, or if it was just a prop for what he thought was a fashion shoot. She answered she was actually playing her self-composed songs that same night. He came to the show and subsequently offered her a producing contract. Her single "When Can I See You" was one of the tracks from the producer Owen hired, Leo Abrahams, and the single was the first from a female solo artist released on Fierce Panda Records, where singles from bands who later became successes also had debuted (Coldplay, Keane, Placebo, Death Cab for Cutie, and Ash). She focused on music for a few years, touring the UK and writing for other artists, before going back to acting full time. She started training full time at Drama Centre London, studying Stanislavski, Meisner and Yat Malmgren/Laban work unique to Drama Centre, also studied by alumni Paul Bettany, Colin Firth, Michael Fassbender and Tom Hardy.

She received several requests from agents after her graduation show, where she played a housewife in denial of murder, and another role as a delusional criminal investigator, and signed with IAL in London. She has since worked in feature films, shorts, TV, music videos, commercials and stage. She was recently seen on the BBC program The Real White Queen and Her Rivals and in the short Drone starring Ewan Bremner. She has acted opposite Kris Kristofferson in Yohan, and her mentor after graduating from Drama Centre London in 2012 has been Greta Scacchi. She played opposite Kris Kristofferson in a scene in the feature film Yohan, who inspired her to continue songwriting, along with acting. She is soon to be seen legendary director Stephen Frears' upcoming film The Program acting opposite Ben Foster.
- IMDb mini biography by: L. M. Johansen