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Frank Pätzold, born in 1989 in Dresden, gained his first stage experience at a young age through the Youth Art School in Dresden and his school's theater club. From 2007 to 2011, he trained as an actor at the Leipzig University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy."
While still a student, Pätzold joined the Schauspielstudio at the neues theater Halle for the 2009/10 season. His performance as John Tate/Adam in the play "DANN" earned him the solo performance award at the 2010 Theatertreffen of German-speaking Acting Schools. During this time, he also took on voice roles in productions at the Halle Opera House, including the Fool in "Macbeth" (2009) and the Devil in the dance piece "L'Histoire du soldat" (2010).
After graduating, Pätzold became a permanent ensemble member at the Residenztheater in Munich for the 2011/12 season. Notable roles included the young lover Lucentio in "The Taming of the Shrew" (2012), Ekart in "Baal" (2015, directed by Frank Castorf), and Karl Moor in Schiller's "The Robbers" (2016/17). He received the Kurt Meisel Prize in 2013 for his portrayal of Anton in "Dot and Anton," and in 2014 he was honored with the Bavarian Arts Promotion Prize.
Beginning in 2013, Pätzold also appeared regularly in television productions. He played a suicidal teenager who witnesses a murder in "Blutsbrüder" (2013), part of the crime series "Stubbe – Von Fall zu Fall." Other standout roles included a neo-Nazi in the "Tatort" crime drama "Hydra" (2014), an accomplice to a radical environmental activist in the "Tatort" episode "Der hundertste Affe" (2016), and the wayward son of a Munich "brewery king" in the two-part drama "Bier Royal" (2018).
His performance in the "Tatort" episode "Das perfekte Verbrechen" (2020) as the leader of an elite secret society earned widespread acclaim. The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote: "And then there's Frank Pätzold as Theodor Quembach, with a voice like a Shakespearean villain's—so powerful it roars around your ears and makes you wish the Tatort were an audiobook."
For the 2019/20 season, Pätzold joined Vienna's prestigious Burgtheater. In 2020, he was awarded the Nestroy Theatre Prize for his performance as Dionysus in "The Bacchae."
Even while working on stage, Pätzold continued to take on film and television roles, including in David Schalko's six-part streaming series "Ich und die Anderen" ("Me and the Others", 2021), and as a far-right politician in the "Tatort" crime drama "Heile Welt" (2021).
In the 2022/23 season, Pätzold left the Burgtheater to focus more intensively on screen work. He played a key role as the criminal brother in the gritty social drama "Frisch" ("Fresh"), which premiered at the Munich Film Festival in 2024 and was released in cinemas in June 2025. That same year, he starred in the TV drama "Bis es blutet," which follows a young journalist pressured to create sensational headlines for a right-wing news outlet.