Volodymyr Zelensky has become an unlikely hero across the world for bravely facing off against Vladimir Putin’s all-out invasion.
Ukraine’s president has been applauded for his bravery in staying in Kyiv to help his forces bash back waves of Russian attacks.
And the 44-year-old has won a legion of fans for his good looks as the public swooned over his video addresses to foreign powers.
But just five years ago, the world’s most talked out leader was just an actor and comedian (with a law degree) who had a voiceover credit for Paddington and a stint on Ukraine’s version of Dancing with the Stars.
Pictured: Ukrainian comedian, and Presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky reacts at his campaign headquarters following a presidential elections in Kiev, Ukraine, on April 21, 2019
Now rather than playing a small animated Peruvian bear on the silver screen – he finds himself standing up to the invading Russian Bear in real life.
Zelensky was born in Kryvyi Rih, a large city in central Ukraine, to Jewish parents before they moved to Erdenet in Mongolian for four years.
He was expecting to move to Israel to study after passing his exams, but his father refused to let him go, instead sending him to study law at Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics.
Aged just 17 he started comedy and joined the Russian show KVN and won KVN’s Major League in 1997 and spent time across former Soviet countries – including Russia – touring.
Zelensky has become an unlikely hero across the world for bravely facing off against Vladimir Putin’s all-out invasion
By this point married to screenwriter Olena Zelenska, with whom he has two children, he moved into film and television and starred in Love in the Big City, the sequels and Office Romance. Our Time.
But he began showing an interest in politics from 2014 when the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture suggested it would ban Russian artists from the country.
In 2015 he played the president of the country in the TV series Servant of the People, which also railed against corruption in the leadership.
Zelensky took power for real in 2019 after winning a landslide victory against Petro Poroshenko, who is now embroiled in a series of scandals from his time in office.
Zelensky visits the front-line positions of Ukrainian military in Donbass, Ukraine in December 2021
Like his character, he ran on an anti-corruption campaign and trounced the pro-Russia incumbent by taking 73 percent of votes.
Poroshenko lost to the television star across all regions of the country, including in the west where he traditionally enjoyed strong support.
It was an extraordinary outcome to a campaign that started as a joke but struck a chord with voters frustrated by poverty, corruption and a five-year war.
At his campaign HQ, as the exit polls came out, Zelensky said: ‘I will never let you down. While I am not formally president yet, as a citizen of Ukraine I can tell all post-Soviet countries: ‘Look at us! Everything is possible!’
