Kazan was born as Elena Kazan in Moscow, Russia, to German parents. Her mother is a nurse and her father was a primary school teacher. She spent her childhood in Ukraine before moving to Berlin with her family. At the age of 16, she moved to the US for higher studies. Kazan later went to India to work with a volunteer organization in Kolkata and while there taught the German language at Max Mueller Bhavan. She traveled widely in India for the first three years and learned to speak

Kazan worked in Kolkata with the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce as an interpreter. She also worked as a Unit Hand in an Australian short film shot in Kolkata, during which time she got the opportunity to work in a Bengali film. Kazan started her acting career with the 2010 Bengali film 'Clerk' opposite Prosenjit Chatterjee. The next year in 2011, Kazan acted in the drama film Gandhi to Hitler. In 2012, Kazan had a cameo role in the film Agent Vinod. But her first big role came in the 2013 film John Day in which she plays the role of Tabassum Habibi, a chronic alcoholic with a dark and complex past.^[7] In the same year 2013, Kazan played the role of a Czech gypsy girl in Prague, who comes to India in search of her identity. Her next film was AASMA in which she plays the role of a Kashmiri girl.^[5] Her career went international in 2014, when she co-starred in the German-Philippine, English film 'Ruined Heart'.Currently she is doing Bollywood feature film 'Yun Hi' (2018) in Lead co-starred with Rohit Nayyar, Directed by Yogesh Dattatraya Gosavi.

Kazan entered the Colors popular show Bigg Boss 10 as a wild card entrant.^[8][9] She entered along with Jason Shah, Sahil Anand and Priyanka Jagga.^[10] She got evicted a week after staying inside the house.^[11]