Elise Schaap

Elise Schaap is a Dutch actress whose career has spanned more than a decade, marked by versatile performances across television and film. Born on 21 September 1982 in Papendrecht, the Netherlands, she moved with her family to Rotterdam at the age of six, where she began working in a tanning salon at fifteen before committing to the performing arts. Schaap later honed her craft at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam, an education that laid the groundwork for her later success. The Swing Girls earned her a Best Actress award at the Monte‑Carlo Television Festival in 2011, demonstrating her early capacity to command the screen with a blend of emotional depth and subtle humor. Her personal life includes the birth of a daughter in 2015, an event she has cited as a source of inspiration and grounding amid a demanding schedule.

In recent years, Schaap has become a familiar face in Dutch and international productions. She portrayed a pregnant Romanian bride in the popular series Familie Kruys, and her role as the girlfriend of a drug kingpin in Undercover garnered both critical and audience acclaim, leading to a reprisal of the character in the 2021 film Ferry. She continued to expand her repertoire with starring roles in My Father Is an Airplane (2021), Hotel Sinestra (2022), and Faithfully Yours (2022). In 2021, she was announced as the lead of the first Dutch Netflix original comedy series, cementing her status as a pioneering talent in the streaming era. Schaap's accolades include a consecutive three‑year streak of the Televizier‑Ster award (2021) and a Golden Calf nomination in 2014 for Afscheid van de Maan, underscoring a career defined by both popular appeal and artistic recognition.