Alexandra Maria Lara

Born in Bucharest, Lara is the only child of Valentin Plătăreanu, an actor, and his wife, Doina. In 1983, her family decided to flee to West Germany to escape Nicolae Ceauşescu\'s regime in Communist Romania. Although the family had originally planned to emigrate to Canada, they settled down in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, before eventually moving to Berlin.\n', 'After graduating at the Französisches Gymnasium Berlin in 1997, Lara went on to study acting under the management of her father, co-founder of the Theaterwerkstatt Charlottenburg, finishing in 2000.\n', 'By sixteen, she was playing lead roles in various television dramas[clarification needed]; since then, she has appeared in films, including as Traudl Junge, Adolf Hitler\'s secretary, in the Academy Award-nominated 2004 film Downfall; following this, Francis Ford Coppola wrote her a letter and gave her a leading role in Youth Without Youth (2007).[citation needed]\n', '