‘Ulya’

Courtesy of Ego Media

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With a population of about 1.8 million, comparable to that of West Virginia, the Baltic country of Latvia is punching well above its weight in terms of cinematic breakouts. Case in point: Flow‘s Oscar for best animated feature in 2025. Now, an emerging actor from Latvia is taking an increasingly global spotlight and is gearing up for his Cannes debut: Kārlis Arnolds Avots.

You may have seen him in the dramedy series Soviet Jeans as protagonist Renārs, a rock’n’roll fan who sets up a secret underground jeans factory in a psychiatric hospital in 1979. He won the best actor honor in the international section of the 2024 edition of Series Mania for the role. Or you may have caught him in January, which won the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival award for best international narrative feature and saw him play an aspiring filmmaker in the capital Riga, who finds himself caught up in the political turbulence of the January 1991 struggle for Latvian independence.

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If not, his Cannes debut should do it. The 29-year-old leads Ulya, from January director Viesturs Kairi&scaron;s, which world premieres in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section on May 21. Avots, who had the idea for and co-wrote the film, portrays legendary female Latvian basketball player Uļjana “Ulya” Semjonova in her journey from a rural life and feeling awkward about her height and confused about her identity to becoming a basketball star. She ended up winning the Soviet Union’s national championship and the European Champions Cup 15 times each, the Olympic Gold medal with the USSR in 1976 and 1980, and she became the first non-U.S. woman in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Avots didn’t have to look far for his subject. After all, Avots knew Ulya, and more closely than many people. “I’ve known her all my life, and when I moved to Riga, she became my neighbor,” the actor tells THR. “Her story moved me so much, and I just realized that this is my Hamlet. Actors are always searching for stories that can emotionally disarm them. And for me, this was the one where I could be as honest as possible.”

What drew him in was not the trophies but the person behind them. “Before she became this champion of the world, she became the champion of her inner world,” Avots explains. “I’ve always been moved by stories about misfits, about square pegs in round holes. Among my favorite films of all time are Werner Herzog’s [The Enigma of] Kaspar Hauser and David Lynch’s The Elephant Man. I felt like an outcast, like all of us who are too skinny, too broad, or way too tall or short, or just too different from the standard format. So I could empathize with Ulya and feel the film is really universal.”

At 197 centimeters, or about 6’5″, the actor is not quite as tall as Semjonova’s 213 centimeters, or 7′. But he had a different challenge in portraying her awkward movements early in her career. “I’m quite an athletic guy,” Avots shares with THR. “I can dunk. So, I had to find her different rhythm and get my body closer to hers. For two years, I didn’t lift any weights. That helped me to move away from myself and into the character.” The fact that she was left-handed and he is right-handed also helped a bit, he notes.

‘Ulya’ film still, courtesy of Ego Media

Playing a woman was never something he dwelt on. “I don’t believe an actor acts with their gender,” he explains. “They act with their soul.” The stars he mentions as role models come as no surprise in that context. “In recent years, I have been really inspired by Sandra Hüller, who is a very exciting actor to watch. Seeing Jessie Buckley in Hamnet also inspired me so much. And Joaquin Phoenix has always been a great role model because he can get into that zone where you can feel there is no acting at all. You get thrilled and stunned for a moment by this complete honesty.”

Research was equally vital. Avots spoke at length with Semjonova herself and her teammates to have “the backstory ingrained in my skin” and printed out pictures of the basketballer in various body positions and with different facial expressions. “I just tried to mirror the pictures and collect these positions, states and expressions,” he emphasizes. “I wanted to be as authentic as

Cannes Rising Star: Latvian Actor Kārlis Arnolds Avots Stars in 'Ulya'