Known for both her screen and stage performances, she has gained recognition for featuring in films such as Burnt by the Sun (1994) and Katya Ismailova (1994), which won her the Nika Award for Best Actress.

She was cared for by her grandmother Genovaitė Sabliene, the manager of the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, and her aunt and uncle, who held positions at the symphony orchestra.

[7] Dapkūnaitė attended theatrical school at the local House of Unions and practiced sports, such as figure skating and basketball (quite popular in Lithuania by that time).

[4][9][6][19][20] Dapkūnaitė debuted on screen in 1984 (as a fourth-grade student) as Aukse in Raimundas Banionis's first feature film Mano mazyte žmona (English: My Little Wife.

[21] In 1987, she starred in the television film Elektroninė senelė [lt] (English: Electronic Grandmother) based on Ray Bradbury's short story I Sing the Body Electric.

[22][23] Dapkūnaitė became widely popular in the Soviet Union after the role of the young prostitute Kisulya in Pyotr Todorovsky's 1989 drama Intergirl.

In 1994, the leading role in Valery Todorovsky's 1994 drama film Katya Ismailova won Dapkūnaitė the Nika Award for Best Actress.

[9][25][26][27] Her other roles in the Soviet and Russian movies included Vija Beinerte's Stecheniye obstoyatel'stv (1988), Igor Talankin's Osen, Chertanovo... (1989),[8][1][2] Alexei Balabanov's Morphine (film) (2008), Aleksandr Melnik's Terra Nova (2008), Jamie Bradshaw's and Alexander Dulerayn's Branded.

[33] On TV, Dapkūnaitė was the co-host of the Russian edition of the Big Brother reality show (2005) and the spokesperson at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 finals in Moscow.

[38] She also acted together with Emir Kusturica in the espionage thriller L'affaire Farewell (2009) by Christian Carion[39] and played in Alexis Lloyd's romantic comedy 30 Beats (2012).

[44][45][46] Dapkūnaite played top Russian diplomat Irina Sidorova, one of the key roles in the Norwegian series Okkupert (English: Occupied), first aired in 2015.

Since 2015, she had produced a Touchables (Russian: Прикасаемые) theatrical project in the Theatre of Nations, which aims to integrate deafblind people into the acting community.