Actress and screenwriter Jelena Veljaca grew up in her hometown in Zagreb, Croatia. She has a weekly column in one of Croatia's prominent dailies Nedjeljni Jutarnji. Jelena starred in the first telenovela Villa Maria with performances in Pride of the Ratkaj Family and Obični ljudi . She was also one of the writers of the Croation edition of reality game show Survivor. In 2009, Jelena Veljaca released a collection of her newspaper columns titled Mama vam je cijelo vrijeme lagala.