photo by tj turner
Spotting a young guy tapping away on a laptop in a south Minneapolis coffee house, you might not recognize the clean-cut face that graced billboards all over Moscow. But here he is: the Duluth-born Odin Biron, who for the last few years has been playing an American doctor on Russia’s No. 1 sitcom, Interns. Without speaking a word of the language, two years into college in Michigan Biron applied for a study abroad program at the Moscow Art Theater. “After three months, my teachers invited me to stay,” he says. “And that shifted everything.” Biron embarked on years of intensive acting study, becoming fluent in Russian and acting in lead roles on the Moscow stage before an audition led him to major TV stardom. Interns has concluded its run (the final season has been shot but won’t air till fall), and Biron has relocated to the Twin Cities, where he has been taking cooking classes and assessing stage and film options. For the moment, he realizes his sensibilities are as much at home in Russia as Minnesota: “Finding the golden middle—that’s what I’m trying to do.”
