Helmut Bakaitis
Helmut Bakaitis is a German-born Australian director, actor and screenwriter and playwright.
He is best known for his role in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions as the character the Architect.
Early life and education
Bakaitis was born in Dresden or Lauban, Lower Silesia, Germany, to Lithuanian parents, Vincas and Eugenia Bakaitis, who were fleeing Lithuania at the time. He spent his first five years in UN transit camps in Germany and Austria, while his father worked as a translator.Bakaitis arrived in Australia with his family in 1950 at the age of six. They initially lived in immigration centres. His father, an academic, hoped to become a teacher or lecturer, but was forced to dig sewers to support the family. Bakaitis was educated at Fort Street High School, Sydney, where he had earned a scholarship. Bullied at school, he immersed himself in books, language, film and the performing arts. He formed a drama group and performed in and directed school productions, and eventually began to write plays. He left home at 16, and worked as a stenographer while still studying.
Bakaitis won a scholarship to the National Institute for Dramatic Art. While there, he formed his own theatre company together with a group of fellow students, including Jim Sharman. NIDA supported the student initiative and toured one of the productions. Before Bakaitis had graduated, he was offered his first professional acting role at the Theatre Royal in Hobart.
Career
Bakaitis spent seven years with the Melbourne Theatre Company as an actor and head of the youth workshops, followed by stints with the Old Tote Theatre, the Sydney Theatre Company. and as co-director of Adelaide's Come Out Youth Festival. He subsequently studied a post-graduate diploma in Drama and Education at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and established youth programs in inner London.On his return to Melbourne, he became founding artistic director of St Martins Youth Arts Centre, Melbourne, where he worked for 5 years, then the Director of the New Moon Company in Cairns for 3 years. Back in Sydney he became Director of Penrith's Q Theatre for 7 years, followed by Head of Directing at NIDA for nine years until 2007. He then started teaching directing at Australian Academy of Dramatic Art, now the Australian Institute of Music – Dramatic Arts.