Barbara Sukowa

Barbara Sukowa (; born 2 February 1950) is a German actress of screen and stage and singer. She has received three German Film Awards for Best Actress, three Bavarian Film Awards, Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, Venice Film Festival Award, as well as nominations for European Film Awards, César Awards and Grammy Awards. Sukowa is best known for her work with directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Margarethe von Trotta. She rose to prominence after starring in the West German miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz directed by Fassbinder, and the following year went to star in his drama film Lola, for which she received her first German Film Award for Best Actress. Also in 1981, Sukowa starred in Marianne and Juliane directed by Margarethe von Trotta. They would go on to work on six more films together. For her performance, she also received German Film Award and Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actress. In 1986, she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for performance in the drama film Rosa Luxemburg. In 1990s, Sukowa starred in a number of international films, most notable, Europa (1991) directed by Lars von Trier, Voyager (1991) by Volker Schlöndorff, M. Butterfly by David Cronenberg, and Johnny Mnemonic (1995) by Robert Longo. In later career, she played Hildegard of Bingen in 2009 drama film Vision, and Hannah Arendt in the biographical film Hannah Arendt (2012). She starred in the American television series 12 Monkeys (20152018), a remake of the 1995 film of the same name. In 2019, she starred in French drama film Two of Us, for which she received Lumières Award for Best Actress and César Award for Best Actress nomination. Life and career Sukowa was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1950. She speaks German, English and French. After studying acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, Sukowa's stage debut was in Berlin in 1971, in a production of Peter Handke's Der Ritt über den Bodensee. The same year, Günter Beelitz invited her to join the ensemble of the Darmstädter National Theatre. She also worked in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg, in collaboration with directors such as Luc Bondy, playing Marion in Büchner's Danton's Death and Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Other Shakespeare roles in Europe were Rosalind in As You Like It and Desdemona in Othello. She performed in Ibsen's The Master Builder.