Matthias Schweighöfer German Actor Known for Heart of Stone

Early life

Matthias Schweighöfer was born on 11 March 1981 in Anklam, Germany. Both of his parents were actors. He trained at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin and went on to work as an actor, voice actor, director and producer.

Career

His first role in a feature film came in Changing Skins in 1997, directed by Andreas Dresen. Through the early 2000s he appeared in Soloalbum (2003), Off Beat (2004) and Eight Miles High (2007), and he also worked on stage in Berlin, at the Hebbel Theatre in 2004 and at the Volksbühne in 2007. He recorded audiobooks as well, including a 2008 edition of a novella by Arthur Schnitzler.

Two comedies made with Til Schweiger, Keinohrhasen (2007) and its sequel Zweiohrküken (2009), brought him a wide domestic audience. In 2008 he played Lieutenant Franz Herber in the Hollywood film Valkyrie, whose international cast helped him become known outside Germany, and the same year he appeared in The Red Baron. In 2009 he led the cast as Gottfried Michaelsen in 12 Paces Without a Head. That year he also co-founded the fashion label German Garment with the television presenter Joko Winterscheidt.

Schweighöfer began directing in the early 2010s. His credits behind the camera include What a Man, Break Up Man (2013), Joy of Fatherhood (2014) and The Manny (2015), the last of which he also wrote. In 2017 he directed, produced and starred in You Are Wanted, which was the first non-English-language series made by Amazon Studios.

His international work continued with Kursk (2018), Resistance (2020), in which he played Klaus Barbie, and The Swimmers (2022). In 2021 he appeared as Ludwig Dieter in Zack Snyder's Netflix film Army of the Dead, then returned to the character in the prequel Army of Thieves, which he directed. He played the music producer Frank Farian in Girl You Know It's True, released in cinemas in December 2023, and in 2023 also took the role of the physicist Werner Heisenberg in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Heart of Stone, in which he had a leading supporting part, came out the same year. More recent credits include Amrum and The Life of Wishes, both from 2025. His filmography runs to more than fifty titles.

Recognition

Schweighöfer received the Berliner Bär in 2013 and has also won a Romy. Earlier in his career he collected a series of prizes for younger actors and newcomers, among them the Golden Camera for best newcomer in 2003 and the Bavarian Film Award for best young actor in 2004. He won a Bambi in 2007, and in 2009 the Golden Camera for best German actor for his performance as the critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki in The Author of Himself. The Jupiter Award for that same role followed in 2010, and in 2011 GQ named him its national film man of the year.

Personal life

Schweighöfer lives in Berlin. He has two children.