Julie Estelle

Estelle rose to stardom at 15 years old after debuting in a 2005 romance film Alexandria, taking on the role of a 20 year-old college senior. For her acting in this film, Estelle won The 2006 MTV Indonesia Awards "Most Favorite Rising Star".[4] In 2006, Estelle starred in a blockbuster horror film Kuntilanak (The Chanting) and its two spin-offs in 2007 and 2008, respectively.[5] She was featured on the cover of Playboy Magazine's Indonesian edition for July 2006 issue, right after she turned 17.[6]

In 2010, Estelle dipped into her first action film genre in The Mo Brothers' mega blockbuster slasher film Macabre.[7] The following years, Estelle played in numerous local TV series and movies. At 20 years old, Estelle was the seventh-highest paid actress in Indonesia.[8] In addition to modelling career, she also appeared in several music videos.

In 2012, it was announced that Estelle has joined Gareth Evans' action crime film The Raid 2, the sequel of 2011 hit The Raid: Redemption. She was cast as Hammer Girl,[9] a merciless female assassin who uses claw hammers as her signature weapon and is proficient in Silat Harimau.[10] Evans was impressed with her audition and decided to cast her in spite of her lack of martial arts background.[11] For the role of Hammer Girl, Estelle learned pencak silat from Yayan Ruhian, the co-choreographer of the film.[12]

In 2014, Estelle attended Sundance Film Festival for The Raid 2 world premiere. Justin Chang of Variety praised Estelle, "Two particularly nasty assassins, the aptly named Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman) and Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle), feel straight out of the Tarantino playbook, particularly in a climactic endgame whose red-walled production design seems to be channeling Only God Forgives." [13][14]

For her performance in The Raid 2, Estelle received the Best New Actress award at Jackie Chan Action Movie Awards at The 2015 Shanghai International Film Festival.

In 2016, Estelle reunited with Iko Uwais and Mo Brothers of Macabre for another action thriller Headshot. Estelle walked the red carpet of Toronto International Film Festival for the premiere of Headshot in Midnight Madness programme in September 2016.[15] In the same year, Estelle starred in a drama Letters from Prague, as a woman trying to fulfill her deceased mother's last wish to deliver a box filled with letters from her past to an old guy living in Prague. The film was selected as the Indonesian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards.[16]

Estelle garnered wider international critical acclaims for her role as The Operator in Timo Tjahjanto's 2018 action thriller The Night Comes for Us. The film had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on 22 September 2018,[17] and was distributed by Netflix.[18] Kieran Fisher of Film School Reject wrote, "Her role was that of a background player, but she certainly made a memorable impression and further proved that she could get mix it up with the best of them", and "The actress boasts such a commanding screen presence and effortlessly compelling aura that she could become a household name in the West if she picks the right roles."[19]

In November 2018, Estelle joined ICM Partners as her representative agency in the U.S.[20] The following month, she was cast to play the leader of rebels in an American-Indonesian joint production action film Foxtrot Six.[21] The film was released in late February 2019. The Jakarta Post praised her performance in the film, "She is the best performer of the film as she rarely comes off as awkward even when delivering the film’s forced dialog and her character also being the most interesting."[22]