Shows like the barbarians

Gana Bayarsaikhan is a Mongolian model, TV and film actress best known for her role as "the girl" in the 2019 film Waiting for the Barbarians and as Tuva Olsen in the 2020 Sky TV series Intelligence.

Bayarsaikhan was born and raised in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She started her career as a model, and has appeared in Schön and Where magazines. After finishing drama training, she took a coaching programme to help her accept her own speech and accent for auditions.

Bayarsaikhan made her screen acting debut as the android Jade in the 2015 film Ex Machina alongside Domhnall Gleeson. and secured small roles as Khutu in Ben-Hur (2016) and in Wonder Woman (2017).

Bayarsaikhan purportedly became the first Mongolian actress ever to play a lead role in a Hollywood movie when she was cast as "the girl" in the 2019 film Waiting for the Barbarians, which co-starred Johnny Depp and Mark Rylance, and premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival on 6 September 2019, to which Bayarsaikhan attended. Director Ciro Guerra described how Bayarsaikhan and the other 14 Mongolian actors shared their culture, enriching the film in the process.