An Austrian actress, born in Vienna, Austria. Her family moved between Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom. She is the great-granddaughter of the Austrian organist and composer Anton Heller, and the great-granddaughter of Emmerich Bukovics, actor and artistic director of the Volkstra Theater in Vienna. Actresses in her extended family include Toni von Bukovics and Adrian Gessner. She showed an interest in acting from an early age and wrote, produced, and acted in several theater productions alongside her full-time education. She earned a master's degree in English from Cambridge University and spent the early years of her career training at the Actors Temple, London. Her first film role was in the film Secret Paths.