Urs Rechn

Urs Rechn is a German actor, most famous for his appearance in the 2015 Cannes Grand Prix-winning Holocaust drama Son of Saul. Biography Urs Günther Rechn was born on January 18, 1978, in Halle an der Saale, then German Democratic Republic, now Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, to Günther Rechn (a renowned painter and graphic artist from East Germany) and his wife Beate Rechn, the second of their three children. From 1987 onwards, Rechn attended the Special Grammar School for Music "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Halle, where he excelled in violoncello, French horn, and singing. After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the family relocated to Cottbus, Brandenburg, where Rechn attended the 1. Heinrich Heine Academic High School for Music and Fine Arts and the Konservatorium Cottbus, where he gained an outstanding reputation as junior conductor of the youth symphony orchestra and brass band. Despite having received no formal previous training in acting, Rechn segued into an acting career, encouraged by the honoured and renowned East German director and impresario Christoph Schroth. He appeared on the stage plays Hamlet (1995), The Beaver Coat (1996), and Steig'in das Traumboot der Liebe (1996) and as a chorister in the opera The Magic Flute (1995) at the State Theater Cottbus.