Elli Avramidou has conquered Bollywood. Credit: Bollywood Hungama/CC BY 3.0/WikipediaGreek actress Elisabet Avramidou Granlund left her home in Sweden at the tender age of 21 to move to India to become an actress in Bollywood. Quite unusual, one might say, as the immigration route for most people is almost always the other way around.
Yet, she had a wild dream: To go to exotic India and become a movie star in glamorous Bollywood. Perhaps not so wild, however, if one knows that she is the daughter of a musician and an actress.
“Elli Avram” – Granlund’s new Bollywood name – was born on July 29, 1990 in Stockholm to Jannis Avramidis, a Greek musician of Pontic descent, and acclaimed Swedish actress Maria Granlund, who played in Ingmar Bergman’s Oscar-winning film “Fanny and Alexander.”
From a very young age, Granlund was fascinated by Indian music and the colorful clothes in Hindi films. In fact, she even found similarities between the Greek music her father was playing and Indian melodies. By the time she was a teenager, she was buying Hindi movies and immersing herself in the exotic Bollywood magic.
Meanwhile, the young actress was receiving acting lessons from her mother and her aunt, who also runs a theater. At the age of seventeen, she joined “Sundbyberg,” a Pardesi dance group that primarily performed Bollywood songs.
