Daughter of French actress Ludmila Mikaël and British stage director and actor Terry Hands, granddaughter of famous French painter Pierre Dmitrienko, the discrete and beautiful Marina Hands first wanted to be a professional horse-rider but, eventually, had to give up these dreams. In 1995, she followed a French acting school, the "Cours Florent". After, she then studied at the Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique and spent one year in England at the London Academy of Music and Arts. In 1999, she made her stage début alongside Robert Hirsch in Dion Boucicault's "Le bel air de Londres" for which she has been nominated for the Molières (the equivalent of the American Tony's). In her young career, she has already worked with some of the most prestigious stage directors, such as Patrice Chéreau who offered her the role of Aricie in Racine's "Phèdre" in which she revealed herself as an accomplished tragedienne. Marina Hands made her real movie debut with 'Andrzej Zulawski' ((Fidelity (2000)) and appeared in Denys Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions (2003), Yves Angelo's Grey Souls (2005), next to Jean-Pierre Marielle and Guillaume Canet's Tell No One (2006), next to François Cluzet.

2006 has been the year of her international recognition when Pascale Ferran offered her the leading part in Lady Chatterley (2006) in which she gave a stunning performance as a young English woman discovering life, love and sensuality; a role for which she received the Best Actress award at the Césars 2007 ceremony (the equivalent of the American Oscars). It is also in 2006 that she joined the prestigious Comédie Française where she has played the Princess in "Tête d'Or" (2006) and will soon play Ysé in "Partage de Midi", two masterpieces of French writer Paul Claudel.