Biographie
Stass Klassen is an international film, TV, and theatre actor working on three continents with most talented actors and directors, Jesse Plemons, Robert De Niro, William Sadler, Lesli Linka Glatter, Josh Holloway among others. He has starred in dozens of Film and TV productions, such as Zero Day (2025) (Netflix); Duster (2025) (HBO MAX); The Comey Rule (2020) (SHOWTIME) as President Vladimir Putin; The Blacklist (2013); The Detour (2016); as well as Comedy Central's A President Show Documentary: The Fall of Donald Trump (2019); The Americans (2013) (FOX); Ekaterina. Impostors (2014) (Russia) as Frederick the Great, King of Prussia; and many other film and TV productions for major industry producers in USA and Russia, including Bollywood where he played the role of C.M. King, the British governor of Lahore, in a period piece Saka: The Martyrs of Nankana Sahib (2016).
Born in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, then a former Soviet Republic, he studied quantum chemistry at Lomonosov Moscow State University, before switching to acting and graduating from Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute, one of the top acting schools in Russia and the world. After the graduation he toured in the UK as Juliet (and Benvolio) in an all-male, Shakespearean version of Romeo & Juliet, where 8 actors played all roles, earning rave reviews, such as "[Stass Klassen is] the most remarkable Juliet in recent memory" and "the company has class, and above all, they have Klassen" (Yorkshire Post). Upon completion of that tour, he came to New York to meet and collaborate with prominent US theatre figures, Martha Coigney (Director of International Theatre Institute) and Edward Albee among them.
He was a co-founder, producer, and lead actor at the New York Art Theatre, an Off-Broadway Theatre Company in New York City. Among his 20+ theatre credits are the title roles in Off-Broadway productions of "Something Cloudy, Something Clear" by Tennessee Williams; "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky; "Counting The Ways" by Edward Albee; as well as the appearance in the Metropolitan Opera production of The Nose (2014) directed by William Kentridge at Lincoln Center, New York City.
His other New York theatre credits include Arthur Schnitzler's "Professor Bernhardi"; "The Fall" by Albert Camus; Jean-Paul Sartre's "No Exit"; "Ward No. 6" by Anton Chekhov; Heinrich von Kleist's "The Broken Jug"; "Too Clever By Half"; "Lt. Nants"; "City Of Mice" (European tour: Hamburg, Barcelona, Hanover, etc.), etc.
Stass Klassen also studied Theatre in Hamburg, Hanover, New York City, and Moscow, receiving MFA in acting from the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute (Moscow). He directed a one woman show "Me, Myself, and Anna" and co-directed "My Poor Marat" for the Voyage Theatre Company (NYC).
