Born in 1968 in the old Siberian town of Tomsk, Lesnikova spent her childhood in Ukraine and followed in her parents’ footsteps as a stage and film actor. Since graduating from the Leningrad State Institute of Theater, Music and Film (LGITMiK) in 1989, she has been one of the leading actresses of the Molodezhny (Youth) Theater on the Fontanka, starring onstage in Nina Sadur’s Moon Wolves, Oliver Goldsmith’s The Mistakes of a Night, Yukio Mishima’s Madame de Sade, Euripides’s Medea, Jean Anouilh’s The Lark, and other productions. Lesnikova holds the title “Honored Artist of Russia.”

FILMOGRAPHY (since 2003 sometimes credited as Darya Yurgens)
2005	Italianetz (The Italian)
2005	Morskie D’iavoly 1 & 2 (Sea Devils 1 & 2) - TV miniseries
2005	Banditskij Peterburg (Bandits’ Petersburg) ­ TV miniseries
2002	Krot (Mole) ­ TV miniseries
2002	Peizazh s Ubiistvom (Landscape with Murder) ­ TV miniseries
2002	Ulitsy Razbitykh Fonarei (Streets of Broken Streetlights) ­ TV miniseries
2001	Dom Nadezhdy (House of Hope) ­ TV miniseries
2001	Agentstvo NLS (The NLS Agency) ­ TV miniseries
2000	Brat 2 (Brother 2)
1998	Pro Urodov i Liudei (Of Freaks and Men)