Mattias Nurga moves to Tartu for Vanemuine debut

Actor Mattias Nurga, a graduate of the 32nd class of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre’s drama school, will move from Tallinn to Tartu for his first role at the Vanemuine national theatre, ERR reports.

Nurga’s debut will be in Ivan Vyrypaev’s play Drunk, which premieres on September 19, 2026. He described the role as a dream project that was once only an aspiration.

Nurga recently turned 24 and grew up in Õismäe. He is his family’s only child and said his roots are half in Hiiumaa and roughly half among the Seto people.

As a child, he considered becoming a competitive dancer, a footballer, an actor and a zoologist. He said he knew hundreds of animal species by heart and imagined becoming a scientist who would spend his life exploring jungles and caves and crossing oceans underwater on the back of a dolphin.

Although he had visited the theatre several times before eighth grade, Nurga initially found it boring and artificial. He said the performances featured older actors in medieval costumes speaking in a “pathetic and false” tone and saying things he could not understand.

His view changed after he saw the Estonian Drama Theatre’s production Väljaheitmine. “It turned out that theatre can also be really cool,” he said, adding that without that experience he might never have returned to the theatre.

Drama school was Nurga’s only plan. If he had not been accepted, he said he might have become a backpacker or obtained a football coaching licence.

Nurga said he could not name a single favourite Estonian actor because there were so many good ones. Among foreign actors, he mentioned Leonardo DiCaprio, Joaquin Phoenix and Willem Dafoe. In Estonia, he has particularly liked Märt Avandi, Tambet Tuisk, Priit Võigemast and Marika Vaarik.

In the long term, Nurga hopes to play Richard III, ideally at least 10 years from now. What he seeks most from theatre is catharsis.

He defined theatre in one sentence as “a place where people come together and all look in the same direction.” Asked whether life without theatre was possible, he replied: “Of course it is. But what kind of life is that?”