Eva-Maria Leonardou, a multifaceted artist, graduated from both college with a Bachelor of Business Administration and the prestigious Drama School of Athens.
Six months after graduation, she was handpicked by Oscar-nominated Writer/Director Nikos Foskolos to play the lead in his television series, which, after her arrival, became the number one rated television show in her country, jumping from 28 to 50% in the ratings.
A year later, she became the lead actress of Greece's longest running prime time television show, raising the ratings from 18 to 40%. She also performed at Herod's Roman Theater in front of 4000 people.
Giving up a flourishing career, Eva-Maria Leonardou came to the US to fulfill a lifelong dream to bring her talent to the American screen. Being fluent in both English and Greek, she is also versed in German.
Soon after her arrival, the United States recognized her as an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability in Acting" and offered her permanent residence. She became a member of the Screen Actor's Guild and jumped into work right away.
She co-starred in the movie "Rivals of Jesus" for National Geographic. Her first directing attempt, the short film "Work of Art", which she also executive-produced, wrote, and starred in, was selected among 12,000 submissions and made it to the second round of Steven Spielberg's directing contest On the Lot.
Eva-Maria Leonardou was also cast as the female lead in the feature film "On a Dark and Stormy Night", which won Best Feature Film at the Chicago Horror Film Festival. She acted in a feature film with Christopher McDonald and wrote her second Feature Screenplay, "Incarnated", which had been in development until 2014.
In 2014, Eva-Maria rediscovered the Christian Orthodox Faith, in which she was baptized since the first months of her life. She started confessing and taking the Holy Communion every week. Within one and a half months, her entire personality changed.
As she said, Hollywood and the entire entertainment industry suddenly repulsed her, and she found the True Meaning of Life. Within a couple of months, she left Los Angeles for good.
In 2016, she became the Sunday School Teacher at a remote small village of Corinth in Greece and remained at that position until 2018.
