Moritz Bleibtreu

Moritz Bleibtreu
Bleibtreu in 2014
Born	Moritz Johann Bleibtreu (1971-08-13) 13 August 1971 Munich, Bavaria, West Germany
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1977–present

Moritz Johann Bleibtreu (German: [ˈmoːʁɪts ˈblaɪptʁɔʏ] ^ⓘ is a German film actor, voice actor, and film director. After coming to prominence with his role in the 1997 gangster film Knockin' on Heaven's Door, he went on to appear in films such as Run Lola Run, Das Experiment, The Baader Meinhof Complex, and Elementary Particles.

Moritz Bleibtreu was born in 1971 and was raised in the St. Georg district of Hamburg. His parents, Monica Bleibtreu, (1944–2009) and, Hans Brenner, (1938–1998) were both actors. Well-known writer Renato Attilio Bleibtreu is Moritz's grandfather. Many of his ancestors were actors also, such as his great-grandmother Maximiliane Bleibtreu, her sister Hedwig Bleibtreu and their parents Amalie and Sigmund Bleibtreu. Actress Cilli Drexel is the half-sister of Moritz. The Bleibtreustrasse, a street in Berlin, was originally named after Georg Bleibtreu who was a battle painter and a distant ancestor of Moritz. Moritz was in the spotlight from an early age, starring in childrens' series Neues aus Uhlenbusch (News From Uhlenbusch) written by Rainer Boldt, Bleibtreu's mother Monica and her then-husband Hans Peter Korff. Bleibtreu's career continued to grow as he got a role in Boldt's I Had a Dream, and then in 1986 in With My Hot Tears, a television series he acted in alongside his mother.

Bleibtreu grew up attending the Jahnschule, now known as the Ida-Ehre-School, in Hamburg-Harvestehude. There he studied until he got his secondary school certificate in the eleventh grade. Bleibtreu then moved to Paris to work as an au pair for almost two years, during which he learned French. He moved to Italy afterwards for a year and then on to New York, where he attended acting school. He auditioned for the Actors Studio, which did not result in a job but he was able to get on as a factotum, which let him observe the actors' rehearsals.

Bleibtreu had a son in November 2008 with his then wife Annika in Reinbek, Germany.^[1][2] He married Saskia de Tschaschell in Reinbek at the Maria-Magdelenen Church on 21 July 2022.^[3]

After 4 years of studying abroad, Bleibtreu began working at the Thalia Theater and the Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, Germany. He began getting smaller roles in television series, beginning in 1993 with a role in the series Schulz & Schulz. Bleibtreu took a role in The Little Innocent (1994) as Thorsten, a gay bartender in the Hamburg prostitute scene. In the show, he helps a 16-year-old boy prove his father's innocence after he is convicted of killing a young man who lived in Hamburg's red-light district. Bleibtreu also starred in romantic comedy Talk of the Town (1995), playing the role of Karl, a naive homosexual carpenter.

In 1998, Moritz began to step away from acting in TV series and began to focus on film. He said, "cinema is an active form of watching, while television is a passive one".^[4] Bleibtreu has appeared in many well-known films such as Run Lola Run, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, The Baader Meinhof Complex, and The Experiment.

He also worked on many other films such as Solino, im Juli, Chiko, and Soul Kitchen in which he worked with filmmaker Fatih Akin. Moritz won the German Film Award for best leading actor in the films im Juli and The Experiment. He was a member of the jury at the 25th Moscow International Film Festival.^[5]

Bleibtreu worked as a voice actor in films such as Disney's Brother Bear (2004) and Brother Bear 2 (2006). He was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actor in 2006 for his role in Elementary Particles directed by Oskar Roehler. He enjoys taking smaller supporting roles in international co-productions such as Sam Barbarski's Vijay and I, Danish film Der Fakir (2004), and Johannes Naber's film adaptation of Wilhelm Hauff's Heart of Stone (2016).

In 2015, he stepped back into the TV production spotlight after 17 years, starring for three seasons of the ZDF crime series called Schuld. The TV series was based on Ferdinand von Schriach; Bleibtreu played the role of Friedrich Kronberg, a criminal defense lawyer. Following encouragement by his fans for a sequel to the 2001 classic German stoner film Lammbock, Bleibtreu announced in November 2015 that the sequel would be titled Lommbock, which was released in 2017.^[6][7]

He played a leading role in the musical adaptation "I've Never Been to New York" (2019). He worked alongside a couple other famous actors and actresses such as Katharina Thalbach, Heike Makatsch, and Uwe Ochsenknecht in films such as I've Never Been to New York and Love Your Neighbour. Bleibtreu took on the role of director for the first time with "Cortex", which premiered at Filmfest Hamburg in October 2020. The following year he worked in a six-part RTL drama series called "Faking Hitler".

Bleibtreu began his career in directing in 2019 with his psychological thriller Cortex, which he described as "very personal to him".^[8] He cited as his motivation for directing the film that "... he believed he wanted to watch a film like this himself".^[8] He also said that "directing was not an escape from acting, but rather just another challenge for his journey".^[8] Bleibtreu also played the lead role of security officer Hagen. According to IMDb with 540 viewer ratings, Cortex received a 5.3 out of 10 stars. ^[9] German film critic Christopher Diekhaus said in a review that "Bleibtreu finds his own way to challenge and captivate the audience" and that the film "creates an abysmal pull and makes you want to watch it several times to better understand the dance between dream and reality".^[10]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Moritz Bleibtreu.

• Moritz Bleibtreu at IMDb
• Moritz Bleibtreu in the German National Library catalogue