At 26 years of age you wouldn’t expect Kristyna Hessova to be as skilled in the creative arts as she is. An ex-pat from the Czech Republic, Kristyna is a highly experienced stage actress- she has worked in many cities throughout Europe, even having shows written for her. Add to this her skill as a photographer and a model and you have an impressive creative package.



Recently she moved to Melbourne with her new husband and is trying her hand in our small but exciting creative world.

At a young age Kristyna was bitten by the creativity bug (much like the acting bug but with broader symptoms) and has been singing, dancing, acting and playing music for as long as she can remember. As a little girl she wanted to be a fashion model but was told that she would never be tall enough, so instead, because she was always around people who were arty she did it for fun, eventually she decided that she wanted to try her hand on the other side of the camera and so began an interest in photography.

At one point she was considering training as a concert pianist but decided that sitting alone at a piano for six hours a day was not exactly her trick. In her mid teens her mother came to her and said she should be an actress.

‘That’s what I was sort of hiding away and thinking about, but I didn’t have enough courage to tell her because it’s not the best job and everyone says get a real one. I didn’t dare tell my family but she said; we all know, since you were about one you were performing in front of everyone.’



As with any industry it is possible to get lucky but education goes a long way. That’s not to say that Kristyna isn’t educated in the arts- quite the contrary.  Kristyna has a Masters Degree in Drama and Stage Acting, spending four years at the Janacek Academy of Performing Art in Bruno (Czech Republic) and one year on exchange at the Theatre Academy in Prague studying improvisation.

On top of this she spent 6 months at the HKU theatre school in Utrecht (try saying that 10 times quickly), Holland, focusing on body international acting. While she was still in Europe there were plenty for opportunities for work- a lot of stage acting (not too surprising given the Masters Degree), including a few one woman shows, a couple of commercials and a small movie role with the BBC, which, for Kristyna, was an amazing experience- ‘There’s nobody more professional than the BBC.’

Kristyna had some formal modeling training when she was younger but says that there isn’t much to it- you just need the confidence to get up there and do it.

Having all the education and experience in the world means nothing if you can’t find inspiration to keep you interested.  ‘What inspires me? People...I was trying to figure out why I’m doing so many things at the same time and I realised that I’m just really interested by people. Acting is about people, you’re trying to transmit some passions about your character to your audience and I love that... and I love to feel like being someone else, even though it’s always you anyway trying to change yourself.’



This inspiration shows through in her photography too. ‘Photography is the same thing you're trying to capture what you see individual perception of that person if it good tells a story... I love it... People and life.’

Having established that Kristyna’s inspirations are people and life I decided to find out a little more about hers. ‘It took me a long time to realise why am I doing so many things at the same time...I was doing theatre at the University and every summer I would go for 2-3 months working and travelling overseas... I have to keep moving, I love learning different languages, it’s connected with my passion about people, I guess.

I was born in Czech Republic, spent half a year in Holland, Lived in London for a while, I’ve got a lot of friends in France, I’ve spent a year there all together, went to Belgium for a couple of months. I lived in the states for one year and travelled to Mexico during that time, lived in Japan for ½ a year, lots of travel in Asia and Australia.’ After settling in Australia with her new husband, they their honeymoon in Tonga, where they dived with whales.

Other interests include sport, horse riding and spending time in the country and future plans to travel, which will now be based around diving.

Clearly travel is one of her great passions, I wondered if all her travelling helped in her acting. ‘Not many actresses in Czech Republic, and I would say it is the same here, would go to different country, because you want to act in your mother tongue, but I actually found out when I was acting in the different workshops in Holland and stuff in different language your main tool is gone and that actually helps you to explore your body expression much more deeply.


When you’re speechless because in a foreign language it doesn’t come so naturally to express yourself you do it through your body and the expression comes through at a different level.’

You said to me that being on one side of the camera really helps when you’re on the other side.  How do you think your experiences in acting have helped or hindered you in photography or modeling and vice versa?

Absolutely, it’s like being an actress, I don’t respect a director who has never been actor before, because they have no idea what they’re doing. If they’ve done it before they have a better understanding of where the actor is coming from.