Hilje Murel

Hilje Murel (born 17 December 1975) is an Estonian stage, film, and television actress.

Hilje Murel was born in the town of Võru in Võru County. She is a 1998 graduate of the EMA Higher Drama School (now, the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre) in Tallinn. Among her graduating classmates were: Tiit Sukk, Veikko Täär, Harriet Toompere, Andero Ermel, Liina Vahtrik, and Jan Uuspõld.

In 1998, shortly after graduation from the EMA Higher Drama School, Murel began an engagement as an actress at the Ugala theatre in Viljandi where she made her stage debut in the role of Ida in Astrid Saalbach's 1986 play The Dance Lesson. Murel would spend ten years as an actress with the Ugala, leaving the theatre in 2008. Memorable performances during her years onstage with the Ugala theatre include roles in works by such varied contemporary and classic international authors and playwrights as: Shakespeare, Molière, Leo Tolstoy, David Harrower, Thorbjørn Egner, Friedrich Schiller, Mark Twain, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Conor McPherson, Ben Travers, Mark Ravenhill, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Eve Ensler, Giovanni Boccaccio, Erich Maria Remarque, Nikolai Gogol, Jean Anouilh, Anton Chekhov, Otfried Preußler, Alistair Beaton, and Donald Margulies, among others. Roles in works by Estonian authors and playwrights include works by: Oskar Luts, Eduard Vilde, Anton Hansen Tammsaare, Kauksi Ülle, Olev Remsu, Hella Wuolijoki, Urmas Lennuk, August Gailit, August Kitzberg, and Loone Ots, among several others.