Matthias Habich was born January 12, 1940, in Gdansk, Poland, and grew up in Hamburg. From 1961 to 1964, he studied at Hamburg"s Hochschule für Musik und Drama and attended acting workshops at Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen in New York. After finishing actor"s training, Habich performed at numerous theatres, for instance in Zürich, Munich, and Berlin, and starred in several productions of classic plays. He also became a famous TV actor with his title roles in the multi-part TV movies "Die merkwürdige Lebensgeschichte des Friedrich Freiherrn von der Trenck" (1973) and "Des Christoffel von Grimmelhausen abenteuerlicher Simplicissimus" (1975).

In 1976, Habich made his movie debut as stone-cold Prussian officer in Volker Schlöndorff"s "Der Fangschuß" ("Coup de grâce"). He made a name as an impressive character actor with roles in the family drama "Der Mädchenkrieg" ("Maiden"s War", 1977) or in the Eichendorff adaptation "Taugenichts" ("Good-for-Nothing", 1978). But despite his movie success, Habich mainly focused on his theatre career and was only sporadically seen on the movie screen during the following years, for instance in Robert van Ackeren"s controversial drama "Die Reinheit des Herzens" ("Purity of Heart").

Towards the end of the 1980s, Habich more and more turned to film and TV productions and starred in ambitious productions such as Rainer Simon"s "Der Fall Ö.", Caroline Link"s "Jenseits der Stille" ("Beyond Silence", 1996), Oliver Hirschbiegel"s TV crime film "Das Urteil" (1997; winner of a Grimme award), Margarethe von Trotta"s "Jahrestage" (2000; winner of the German TV award), or the TV series "Klemperer – ein Leben in Deutschland" (1998) – thus becoming one of the most prominent German character actors.

In 2001, Habich received rave reviews as well as a German film award for his performance in Caroline Link"s multiple award-winning drama "Nirgendwo in Afrika" ("Nowhere in Africa"). On the movie screen, Habich who often works for TV productions, was most recently seen in the adaptation of Günter Grass" story "Unkenrufe" ("Call of the Toad", 2005). In 2008/09, Habich plays a key supporting role in "Der Vorleser" ("The Reader"), an international production starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.