Olia Lazaridou (Athens, 13 March 1954) is a Greek actress and director. Her father was a radio producer and advertiser. She studied acting at the Drama School of the Art Theatre where she performed, as an actress, in tragedies and in the play Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, directed by Giorgos Lazanis. In 1986 she went to France where she attended classes at the school of Antoine Vitez. Lazaridou became known to the general public through her frequent film appearances in the 1980s. Her first film appearance was in a small role in Nikos Koundouros' film 1922 in 1978. She has starred in a total of 17 films and has twice won the Best Actress award at the Thessaloniki Greek Film Festival for the films The Stigma in 1982 and Terirem in 1987 while in the same year she also won the Best Supporting Actress award for the film Archangel of Passion. In 2005 she was awarded for her entire body of work. The 46th Thessaloniki Film Festival featured special screenings in her honor of the films The Rags Still Sing by Nikos Nikolaidis, Invincible Lovers by Stavros Tsiolis, The Stigma by Pavlos Tassios, and The Nostalgist by Eleni Alexandraki. Lazaridou herself maintains an ambivalent attitude towards her film appearances.
