Seyneb Saleh is a German actress. She has many stage credits as well as numerous appearances in TV series and films. In 2026 she has a leading role as Julika Ritter in the Netflix / Gaumont spy thriller series Unfamiliar. As of 2026 she has won two German Acting Awards (Deutscher Schauspielpreis).
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Early life and education
Seyneb Saleh was born in Aalen, Baden-Württemberg. Her mother is a German pharmacist, and her father is Iraqi. She was mainly raised in Solingen, Germany, but also spent some time in Morocco.
She studied acting from 2008 to 2012 at the Berlin University of the Arts in Berlin and received a scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes in 2010.
Career
After graduating Saleh performed in over 26 theater productions at the Maxim Gorki Theater, the Schauspielhaus Graz, the Volkstheater Wien, the Schauspiel Hannover, and the Deutsches Theater Berlin. She was engaged at the Schauspielhaus Graz until 2015, moving with theatre director Anna Badora to the Vienna Volkstheater. Among her performances there were roles in Yael Ronen's Niemandsland; Narrenschiff; and, in 2018, Die zehn Gebote.
In addition to her theater engagements, she has regularly worked for film, TV and streaming platforms. Saleh was introduced to a wider international audience in 2018 in Duncan Jones' neo-noir science fiction film Mute, in which she played the female lead character Naadirah alongside Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Rudd & Justin Theroux. She also had roles in the TV series Dogs of Berlin (2018); Deutschland 86 (as an Arabic speaker); the ZDF series Jenseits der Spree (2021); the award-winning German anthology series Uncivilized (2024); the German adaptation of the French cult series Call my Agent - Berlin (2025) as well as in feature films such as Toubab (2021); Was von der Liebe bleibt (2022); and Sabbatical (2023).
In 2022 her leading role in the multilingual German-Israeli Sky spy thriller series Munich Games further gained her much praise from international critics.
She plays a prominent character, BND intelligence analyst Julika Ritter, in the Netflix / Gaumont spy thriller series Unfamiliar, which is set in Berlin.
Recognition and awards
In 2022 Saleh won her first German Acting Award (Deutscher Schauspielpreis) as Best Supporting Role for her performance in Toubab and a second one followed for her performance in the episode 9/11 of the German anthology series Uncivilized as Best Episodic Role in 2025.
At the 2024 Filmfestival Türkei/Deutschland, she was nominated for Best Actress, for her performance in Was von der Liebe bleibt.