Ivanna Sakhno

The Camera Legacy in Kyiv

Ivanna Sakhno was born into a family where film was not an option but the natural environment. Her parents, Galyna Kuvivchak-Sakhno and Anatoliy Sakhno, worked as a director and a cinematographer in late-1990s Ukraine. By age seven, she was already running around the sets in Kyiv, watching how lighting was rigged or how an actor was directed.

The move was no whim.

At thirteen she moved to Vancouver to study English, and two years later she landed in Los Angeles to make her way in the industry. In Los Angeles she studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute while auditioning in a language she had barely mastered a few months earlier. And persistence paid off fast.

In 2018, she landed her first major roles in big-budget productions. She played cadet Viktorija in Pacific Rim: Uprising, and that same year she played a relentless assassin in The Spy Who Dumped Me alongside Mila Kunis. But her approach was always far from empty celebrity.

Light Saber Duels and the Villain's Stare

Silence is her greatest tool.

In 2023 she joined the Star Wars universe with the series Ahsoka. Her role as Shin Hati drew audience attention for a physical intensity that needed no grand speeches. The actress worked out her character's psychology as an apprentice on the dark side of the Force, with an aesthetic reminiscent of samurai cinema.

The character's impact also quickly built an immediate fan base on social media. Sakhno designed part of Shin's combat moves based on her previous training and an almost military discipline. For her, acting is a matter of physical presence before words.

Away from the spotlight of big franchises, she maintains a strong bond with her home country. In 2022 she used her platform to denounce Russia's invasion of Ukraine and became one of the most active voices of the artistic diaspora in Hollywood. But she never let her activism overshadow her professionalism on American film sets.

The industry values her talent for mystery.

The Shift Toward Tech Horror

In 2024 her casting in M3GAN 2.0 was confirmed. This sequel to the hit Blumhouse Productions horror film takes a different direction, where psychological tension outweighs choreographed action. Filming was planned to take place entirely on location in New Zealand under the direction of Gerard Johnstone.

The production of this genre film has a budget double that of the original 2022 installment. Sakhno signed a contract that includes strict confidentiality clauses about the nature of her character's role in the plot.

The movie's release was set for June 27, 2025 in U.S. theaters.