# Margarita Levieva
**Margarita Levieva** (born 1980 in Leningrad, Soviet Union, now [Saint Petersburg](https://www.edgepedia.org/saint-petersburg), Russia) is a Russian-born American actress and former competitive rhythmic gymnast, known for roles in the films *The Invisible* (2007) and *Adventureland* (2009) and in television series including *Revenge*, *[The Deuce](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-deuce-tv-series)*, *Litvinenko*, *[In From the Cold](https://www.edgepedia.org/in-from-the-cold)*, and *Daredevil: Born Again*.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | 1980, Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia)[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1760272/bio) |
| Gymnastics | Began rhythmic gymnastics at age 3; trained 13 years and reached Master of Sports, the highest level for her age group, at 11[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1760272/bio) • [2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/) |
| Emigration | Moved with her mother and twin brother Michael to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, at age 11, shortly before the Soviet Union's collapse[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1760272/bio) • [3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-29-ca-levieva29-story.html) |
| Education | Studied economics at New York University, financing her studies as a fashion buyer; trained at the William Esper Studio's Meisner program[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/) |
| Screen debut | Guest appearance on *Law & Order: Trial by Jury*, 2005; lead role in the Fox series *Vanished*, 2006[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/) |
| Notable roles | Annie Newton in *The Invisible* (2007); Lisa P. in *Adventureland* (2009); Abby Parker in *The Deuce* (2017–2018); Jenny in *In From the Cold* (2022); Marina Litvinenko in *Litvinenko* (2022)[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/) • [4](https://www.filmweb.pl/person/Margarita%2BLevieva-522500) |
| Recent work | Heather Glenn in *Daredevil: Born Again* (2025–2026); Eryn in *Task* (2025); cast in *Cape Fear* (2026) and *Behemoth!* (2026)[4](https://www.filmweb.pl/person/Margarita%2BLevieva-522500) |
## Early life in Leningrad
Levieva was born Margarita Vladimirovna Levieva in Leningrad in 1980[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1760272/bio). Her family is Russian Jewish, and she has described how her internal passport listed Jewish as her nationality; her family hid it so friends would not know[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html).
She began rhythmic gymnastics at age three, after seeing girls practicing with ribbons, balls, and hoops through a studio window[3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-29-ca-levieva29-story.html). The training was state-sponsored and, in her words, meant she was "owned by the government"[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html). Young gymnasts trained four to six hours a day, usually seven days a week, starting at age 5, in a regimen she has described as harsh[3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-29-ca-levieva29-story.html). She trained twice a day, seven days a week, and attended gymnastics camp every summer[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html) • [2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/).
**Emigration.** On the eve of the Soviet Union's collapse, her mother left Russia, and her father, to take eleven-year-old [Margarita](https://www.edgepedia.org/margarita) and her twin brother Michael to the United States[3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-29-ca-levieva29-story.html). They settled in [Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn](https://www.edgepedia.org/sheepshead-bay-brooklyn)[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1760272/bio). (One interview places the move at age 13[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html).) Her mother, formerly a professor of mathematics, arrived with no papers, no money, and no English, and packed grocery bags to support the family[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html). Levieva knew no English on arrival and learned it in Brooklyn, where she recalls first speaking with a Brooklyn accent[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/).
## Competitive gymnastics cut short
Levieva reached the highest level available for her age group in Russia, the rank of Master of Sports, at age eleven[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/). In the United States she kept competing: she won her first competition, at Princeton, beating a girl who later went to the Olympics, and was New York State Champion for several years[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/). Because the family arrived illegally, however, she was told she could not compete for the United States without citizenship; her alternative was to return to Russia and compete for Russia, which she did not want[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/). She trained for several more years out of love for the sport, but she has called the end of her Olympic prospects devastating[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/).
She has drawn on the discipline throughout her screen career, performing her own stunt work on the Netflix spy thriller *In From the Cold*[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html), and has said that as a "bulletproof" gymnast she initially struggled with the malleability that acting demands[6](https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/deuce-star-margarita-levieva-importance-malleability-3465/).
## Education and turn to acting
She turned down a place at New York's LaGuardia High School for the creative arts to pursue what she saw as a more stable path, feeling she owed it to her family's sacrifice to guarantee income and health insurance[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/) • [5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html). She attended high school in [Secaucus, New Jersey](https://www.edgepedia.org/secaucus-new-jersey), and studied economics at New York University, paying her way by working as a fashion buyer[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1760272/bio) • [2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/). Sources describe her degree differently: her IMDb biography lists a double major in economics and psychology with minors in philosophy, sociology, and Russian history[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1760272/bio), while an interview with *The Independent* describes a double major in economics and philosophy, completed a year early with honors[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html).
After graduating, she concluded that none of the careers she had imagined, from [Wall Street](https://www.edgepedia.org/wall-street) to psychiatry, satisfied her, told her mother that acting was her only true passion, and enrolled in the Meisner Training Program at the William Esper Studio[3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-29-ca-levieva29-story.html). She soon signed with an agent and booked three pilots, none of which was picked up[3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-29-ca-levieva29-story.html).
## Screen career
**Breakthrough, 2005–2009.** Levieva made her television debut with a guest appearance on *Law & Order: Trial by Jury* in 2005, the same year [New York](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-york-magazine) magazine named her one of its "50 Most Beautiful New Yorkers"[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/). In 2006 she starred in the Fox series *Vanished*, and in 2007 she played Annie Newton, the tomboyish antagonist of the supernatural thriller *The Invisible*, directed by David Goyer[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/). Goyer cast her after a cold read despite her few credits, and the film's fight and stunt sequences challenged her even as a trained gymnast[3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-29-ca-levieva29-story.html). In 2008 she appeared in *Noise* opposite [Tim Robbins](https://www.edgepedia.org/tim-robbins) as a Russian philosophy student, a performance that led the New Yorker critic David Denby to write that he "would watch her in anything"[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/). Her turn as the flamboyant Tilt-A-Whirl operator Lisa P. in Greg Mottola's 1987-set comedy *Adventureland* (2009), including a much-noted slow-motion entrance, followed[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/).
**Stage and television.** Also in 2009 she made her Broadway debut in *Impressionism*, starring [Jeremy Irons](https://www.edgepedia.org/jeremy-irons) and [Joan Allen](https://www.edgepedia.org/joan-allen), after roughly eight auditions for the role[2](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/). On television she played recurring roles in *[How to Make It in America](https://www.edgepedia.org/how-to-make-it-in-america)* (HBO, 2010–2011) and *Revenge* (ABC, 2011–2015), and a leading role in the NBC series *Allegiance* (2015)[7](https://www.tvinsider.com/people/margarita-levieva/).
**The Deuce.** From 2017 to 2018 she played Abby Parker, a college student drawn into the world of 1970s [Times Square](https://www.edgepedia.org/times-square), in *The Deuce*, David Simon and George Pelecanos's HBO series about the sex-work economy and the rise of pornography[6](https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/deuce-star-margarita-levieva-importance-malleability-3465/) • [8](https://posturemag.com/online/margarita-levieva/). She has said the role resonated with her own mother's story of self-determination, and she valued the show's three-dimensional portrayal of sex workers[8](https://posturemag.com/online/margarita-levieva/) • [6](https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/deuce-star-margarita-levieva-importance-malleability-3465/).
**Russian roles.** For much of her career she was not cast as Russian: she says casting directors assumed she was Spanish because of her name, judged that she did not look Jewish for Jewish roles, and held a stereotyped image of Russian women that did not match her[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html). Only recently, she says, has she begun playing Russian parts[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html).
In the 2022 Netflix series *In From the Cold* she played Jenny, a former Russian spy whose history of state training and reinvention in America closely mirrored her own background as a former Soviet gymnast and immigrant[9](https://www.looper.com/754930/how-margarita-levievas-unique-background-prepared-her-to-play-jenny-on-in-from-the-cold-exclusive/).
**Litvinenko.** In ITV's 2022 four-part drama *Litvinenko* she played Marina Litvinenko, widow of [Alexander Litvinenko](https://www.edgepedia.org/alexander-litvinenko), the FSB officer poisoned with polonium in London in 2006[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html). Marina Litvinenko supported the production, which Levieva said she would not have accepted without; she took the part despite fearing consequences for family still in Russia[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html).
## Recent work
Levieva appeared in the 2022 drama *Litvinenko* and the same year's *In From the Cold*[4](https://www.filmweb.pl/person/Margarita%2BLevieva-522500). She was filming the [Star Wars](https://www.edgepedia.org/star-wars) series *The Acolyte* (2024) in Wales when she spoke to *The Independent*[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html). She then played Eryn in the 2025 series *Task* and Heather Glenn in *Daredevil: Born Again* (2025–2026), and has upcoming credits in *Cape Fear*, *The Gymnast*, and *Behemoth!* (all 2026)[4](https://www.filmweb.pl/person/Margarita%2BLevieva-522500). Her filmography totals roughly 45 screen credits spanning 2004 to 2026[10](https://www.kinopoisk.ru/name/677619/).
## References
1. [Margaritа Levieva Biography, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1760272/bio)
2. [Margarita Levieva: An interview with Adventureland's Lisa P., Under the Radar (2009)](https://undertheradarmag.com/interviews/margarita_levieva/)
3. [She's anything but 'Invisible', Los Angeles Times (2007)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-29-ca-levieva29-story.html)
4. [Margarita Levieva, Filmweb filmography](https://www.filmweb.pl/person/Margarita%2BLevieva-522500)
5. [Margarita Levieva on starring in Litvinenko, The Independent (2022)](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/margarita-levieva-interview-litvinenko-b2245252.html)
6. ['The Deuce' Star Margarita Levieva on the Importance of Malleability, Backstage](https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/deuce-star-margarita-levieva-importance-malleability-3465/)
7. [Margarita Levieva, TV Insider](https://www.tvinsider.com/people/margarita-levieva/)
8. [Margarita Levieva on Being an Immigrant and Finding Confidence, Posture (2017)](https://posturemag.com/online/margarita-levieva/)
9. [How Margarita Levieva's Unique Background Prepared Her To Play Jenny On In From The Cold, Looper](https://www.looper.com/754930/how-margarita-levievas-unique-background-prepared-her-to-play-jenny-on-in-from-the-cold-exclusive/)
10. [Маргарита Левиева, Кинопоиск](https://www.kinopoisk.ru/name/677619/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screen actors of the Anglosphere and Europe › American actors: 2000s onward › Surnames Le to L*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 12, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license