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Renée Soutendijk was born on May 21, 1957 in The Hague, Netherlands. From 1973 to 1976, she trained in singing, dancing and acting at the Dutch Academy of Performing Arts (DAPA) in The Hague. From 1978 she appeared in first big screen and television productions. She became known for her leading role in Paul Verhoeven's cult film "Spetters" (NL 1980), about three young motocross riders whose lives are turned upside down by a seductive woman. Her big breakthrough came the following year with the lead role in "Het Meisje met het Rode Haar" ("The Girl with the Red Hair", NL 1981), in which she played the Nazi resistance fighter Hannie Schaft. Conversely, she played Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler's wife, in the American television film "Inside the Third Reich" (1982). Paul Verhoeven's erotic thriller "De vierde man" ("The Fourth Man", NL 1983), in which Soutendijk played a lead role, was also a great success.
In Germany, Soutendijk became known for her role in Carl Schenkel's claustrophobic thriller "Abwärts" ("Out of Order", 1984), as a mysterious woman stuck in an elevator with three men. Her role in the Third Reich drama "De ijssalon" ("Private Resistance", NL 1985), as a Dutch woman who falls in love with a German major, won her the Best Actress award at the Nederlands Film Festival and the Taormina International Film Festival.
In the following years Soutendijk was seen in Dutch, American and German productions. Hans-Christoph Blumenberg cast her as a femme fatale alongside Marius Müller-Westernhagen in "Der Madonna-Mann" (1987), and in Krzysztof Zanussi's World War II drama "Wo immer Du bist" ("Wherever You Are...", PL/DE 1988) she was a Polish diplomat's wife, in the sci-fi action film "Eve of Destruction" (US 1989) a killer robot, and in "Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story" (US/GB/HU 1989), she portrayed the Holocaust survivor and wife of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, Cyla Wiesenthal.
In the 1990s, her most important works included the romantic comedy "De zevende hemel" (NL 1993), Ben Verbong's award-winning thriller "De Flat" (NL 1994) and Connie Walther's highly acclaimed cancer drama "Hauptsache Leben" (1998, TV). For "Hauptsache Leben" she received a prestigious Grimme Award in Germany. Renée Soutendijk was also regularly seen in stage productions.
From the end of the 1990s, she appeared primarily in German and Dutch television productions. Among them, the "Tatort" episode "Sehnsucht" (1999), the romantic comedy "Hochzeit zu viert" (2001), the romantic drama "Eine Liebe in Afrika" ("A Love in Africa", 2003) and the Dutch series "Meiden van de Wit" (2002-2005) and "S1ngle" (2008). In the film biography about former German chancellor Helmut Kohl "Der Mann aus der Pfalz" (2009, TV) she played the elderly Hannelore Kohl.
Soutendijk also appeared sporadically on the big screen again in the 2010s. She had supporting roles in the American relationship drama "A Perfect Man" (2013), the science fiction thriller "Boy 7" (NL/HU/BE 2015) and the knight film "Redbad" ("The Rise of the Viking," NL 2018). She played an important part as a ballet teacher in the highly acclaimed horror film "Suspiria" (IT/US 2018), which won the Robert Altman Award for Best Ensemble at the Independent Spirit Awards. In 2020, Soutendijk, now 63, played a grandmother in the Dutch Christmas film "De Familie Claus," which was followed by a sequel a year later.