Seyneb Saleh

Biography

Seyneb Saleh was born on December 25, 1987, in Aalen, a town in southern Germany, and grew up in several places, including Casablanca (Morocco) and Bremen in northern Germany. After completing her secondary education in 2007, she took singing lessons and went on to study acting from 2008 to 2012 at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), one of Germany's leading performing arts schools. In 2010, she received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation, Germany's most prestigious program for supporting academically and artistically gifted students.

From 2008 onward, including as part of her formal training, Saleh appeared on stage in numerous staged readings and theater productions. In 2011, she was awarded the Second Ensemble Prize at the Schauspielschultreffen in Hamburg, an annual festival bringing together German-speaking drama schools from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Her early film work included small roles in Joya Thome's short film "Diesmal ist es anders" (2009) and Tatjana Turanskyj's feature "Eine flexible Frau" ("The Drifter," 2009). Director Rudolf Thome cast her in a leading role in his relationship drama "Das rote Zimmer" ("The Red Room"), which premiered at the Viennale, Vienna's international film festival, in 2010. The following year, she appeared in another feature film role in the road movie "Offroad", released in German cinemas in early 2012.

After graduating, Saleh received her first permanent stage engagement in 2012 at Schauspielhaus Graz, a major repertory theater in Austria. From 2015 to 2017, she was a full-time ensemble member at Vienna's Volkstheater, one of the city's most important public theaters.

Alongside her stage work, she continued to appear in film, television, and streaming productions. Among other projects, she appeared in the feature film "umsonst" ("for nothing"), which premiered in the Forum Expanded section of the Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival, in 2014. In 2018, she played a leading role opposite Alexander Skarsgård and Paul Rudd in the British-German neo-noir science fiction film "Mute", directed by Duncan Jones.

In 2019, Saleh returned from Austria to Germany and became a permanent ensemble member at Schauspiel Hannover theater, where she remained until 2022. She then appeared as a guest performer at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, one of Germany's leading spoken-word theaters, until 2025.

At the same time, she took on a leading role in the first season of the crime series "Jenseits der Spree" (2021), playing a police commissioner. Also in 2021, she appeared in the feature film "Toubab", a tragicomedy about a young Senegalese man who enters a sham marriage with his best German friend in order to avoid deportation. Saleh played a lesbian Arab woman with whom the protagonist falls in love. For this performance, she received the German Acting Award for Best Supporting Actress (Dramatic Role), one of the country's most important acting prizes, despite the film's predominantly comic tone.

In 2022, the streaming thriller series "Munich Games" was released, with Saleh in the female lead as a German-Lebanese investigator working for Bavaria's State Criminal Police Office. Together with her co-star Yousef Sweid, she received another nomination for the German Acting Award, this time in the category Best Duo. She also starred in a leading role in the feature drama "Was von der Liebe bleibt" (2023), playing a German-Turkish woman who becomes the victim of a mysterious murder attempt. In the award-winning anthology series "Uncivilized" (2024), Saleh played a leading role in the episode "9/11," which explores the long-term impact of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. For this performance, she was honored with the German Acting Award for Best Episodic Role.

Saleh also starred in the feature film "Sabbatical" (2024), a family and relationship drama set in Greece and directed by Judith Angerbauer. The film was released in German cinemas in early 2026.