My name is Kata Junninen, professionally Kata Irene, and I’m an actor, athlete and performer originally from Finland, and currently based in NYC.

My journey to acting is a little different as it came through my professional ice skating career. Therefore I feel like I need to explain a bit of that before talking about my acting. I started skating when I was 3 years old and have skated one way or another ever since. I became consistently more competitive in synchronized skating early on in my career during which I skated at the highest possible level for almost 10 years. In those years I was lucky enough to represent Finland, Sweden and lastly Team USA. With my US team SkylinersI was on the World Team and a part of Team USA for synchronized skating 2018 and 2019 before “retiring”.

I mention my skating background because that’s where my love for acting and performing began. As long as I can remember I was encouraged by coaches and teammates to explore acting. And as I got to NYC I finally took their advice and studied at NYCDA’s conservatory for Acting for Film and TV where I graduated May 2020. In school I fell madly in love with script study and the hunt for authentic human relation in creating your character, which to this day is my favourite thing to explore. The battle between conscious and subconscious, fear and love, the discrepancy of acting against what we truly want and why is absolutely fascinating to me.

I love the diversity of my expression; the physicality my athletic career allows me combined with the rich internal emotional life I always possessed and the technical skills I honed in school. The combination of these enable me to express something truly special and powerful through the camera and make me a sincerely unique talent.