Biography

Yuri Kaplan was born on June 25, 1988 in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. He has three sisters and one half-sister. At the age of eight Yuri moved to Israel for one year. At nine he moved to Canada, after which he moved back and forth between Canada and Israel throughout his adolescence. Through this he gained a strong sense of Hebrew and Canadian culture while maintaining a balance of Russian language and culture at home. Yuri is fluent in English, Russian and Hebrew. From 2009-2012 Yuri served in the Israeli Defense Forces in the Combat Engineering Unit. During his time in the forces he moved up in rank from Private to Corporal, and graduated as Sergeant.

From a young age Yuri loved film. He loved watching story lines unfold and creating his own scenarios in his mind. At first Yuri loved creating his own plots and twists on the movies that he watched but those scenarios branched out from the movies that he was watching and began revolving around his own life events; scenarios of what could have or would have been. Yuri started seeing film as a means of self-reflection and self-expression.

Since 2013 Yuri has been learning as much as possible about the process of film making. He began as a background actor and has since studied in various acting and stunt schools in the Toronto area. Yuri is certified with Fight Directors Canada as an Intermediate Actor Combatant in small sword, long sword, quarterstaff, rapier and dagger, and single sword. Yuri has also studied acting at Armstrong Acting Studios, Second City and Sears & Switzer among others.

In June 2014 Yuri started doing stunts when he met Goran Stjepanovic. A few months later he produced Last Chance where he was in charge of various crew jobs while performing stunts. In the fall of 2014 Yuri played a role in the short film Bevy of Brollies for the Toronto 48 Hour Film Festival.

In the Spring of 2015 Yuri had his first key role in a short film for Sheridan College. A Week later he had another main role in a short film for York University.

In early 2015 Yuri finally stepped into his first lead role in the feature film, Can't Escape. While performing this role he was also involved in the writing and pre-production process as well.

Since playing his lead role as Dmitri Kuznitskiy, Yuri has he taken on a few other lead roles in short films. Most recently he has stepped into yet another role in a feature film playing the male lead in the action-comedy Morse Code.
- IMDb mini biography by: Julia Da Silva