Maya Maron

Early life

Maron is the youngest of four siblings. Her mother, an office manager, was born in Siberia, where her family fled from Poland before World War II. Her father was born in Eastern Europe and is a diamond dealer. She grew up on Balfour Street in Tel Aviv. When she was 12, her parents divorced after 24 years of marriage.

Maron went to the primary school for the arts in Tel Aviv. During fourth grade she was sent to the theater track, but did not stand out. In 1996, during the summer vacation between ninth and tenth grade, she was scouted in the Arad music festival and cast in Ari Folman's film Saint Clara, later she was nominated for the Ophir award as supporting actress in that film. She started high school at the notable Thelma Yellin school of the arts, but transferred to Ironi E, a municipal high school, a year later. She did not serve in the Israel Defense Forces saying "they didn't want me because I was too skinny. Not that I had any plans to argue with them".

Acting career

In 1998, Nir Bergman was producing his own film entitled "Sea horses" to be submitted as his graduation work for the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, Jerusalem. Maya was cast as the lead role.

In 2002 Bergman cast her in the leading role in Broken Wings. A highly symbolic portrayal of a family living in Haifa and struggling to recover 9 months after the sudden and senseless loss of its father figure (himself appearing only in vague recollections and old family footage). She played the lead role of the daughter struggling to come to terms with her new position as head of the crumbling household, after mother Orly Banai shunts the task. The movie won audience approval as well as international and national critical acclaim appearing in numerous international film festivals. The movie won several awards including the Ophir award for best picture, landing Maya with the best actress award.

Between 2003 and 2004, she played several minor parts in the films She's Not 17 alongside Dalia Shimko and Campfire. In 2005 she again played the lead in a Sam Spiegel student movie dubbed "Whatever It Takes" (בעיניים עצומות‎), as the fragile and self-destructive partner in a lesbian relationship.

In 2005 she was cast on the Betipul television series as a suicidal gymnast. She played the fiancee of the character played by Yehuda Levi in the crime series The Arbitrator ("Haborer"), and in 2009 she was cast in the lead role on the melodrama Weeping Susannah on HOT3.

In 2006 and 2007 her acting projects included a theater role as Strophe in Phaedra's Love, Sarah Kane's modern take on the mythological tale of Phaedra and Hippolytus.