Lii Tedre was born Tallinn during World War II, shortly after the Soviet reoccupation of Estonia.

Her diploma production roles include Vera in Maxim Gorky's The Last Ones and Murike in Egon Rannet's Kriminal Tango and Very Decent People.

Notable performances throughout her career with the Endla Theatre have included roles in works by such varied international authors and playwrights as: Astrid Lindgren, Agnieszka Osiecka, Alexander Ostrovsky, Brecht and Weill, Shakespeare, Thornton Wilder, Lope de Vega, Daphne du Maurier, Leo Tolstoy, György Spiró, Joseph Stein, Carl Erik Soya, Michel Tremblay, Jerome Kern, Selma Lagerlöf, Charles De Coster, Ernest Thompson, Wendy Kesselman, Molière, Inga Ābele, Shelagh Stephenson, John Millington Synge, Kenneth Lonergan, Jon Fosse, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Kaite O'Reilly, Ronald Harwood, Patrick Hamilton, Sławomir Mrożek, and Israel Horovitz.

[4] In 1991, she appeared as the character Eeva Almar in the Ingo Normet-directed television film Otto Almari nägemus, based on the 1907 story Uurimisel, by A. H.

[6] Tedre's first major role in a motion picture was that of Mother in the 1992 Mati Põldre-directed historical drama Need vanad armastuskirjad, which chronicles the life of Estonian musician and composer Raimond Valgre.