Elisa Essig was born in Erbach in 1997. From 2010 on, the daughter of a pianist and a singer was a member of the childrens' theatre troupe at the Hoftheater Tromm and occasionally also appeared in productions of the Heimatbühne in Grasellenbach. Her break into movies was rather unplanned: In 2010, she auditioned as an extra for the film "Festung", and due to her visible talent, she was eventually cast in a leading role. The film about a teenage girl who falls in love for the first time while dealing with the return of her violent prone father premiered at the 2012 Max-Ophüls-Preis Film Festival and was released in November that same year.