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Robert Gwisdek was born in Berlin on January 19th 1984 as the son of actors Corinna Harfouch and Michael Gwisdek. He debuted at the age of four as an extra in his father's film "Treffen in Travers" (1988), and at the age of ten he appeared in the staging of Bertolt Brecht's "Galileo Galilei" at the Berliner Ensemble. Afer a supporting role in the comedy "Irren ist männlich" (1996), Robert Gwisdek played his first lead as a cancer-stricken outsider in Anno Saul's award-winning coming.of-age drama "Grüne Wüste".
After graduating from school, he studied acting at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen Konrad Wolf in Potsdam-Babelsberg. For his portrayal of the titular hero in the school's staging "Macbeth", he was awarded the Actor's Prize of the German drama schools. In 2005, he won another renowned award for emerging talents. Around the same time, he appeared in Leander Haußmann's comedy "NVA" (2005) and the TV thriller "Donna Leon – Verschwiegene Kanäle" (2005). For his starring role in the TV production "Väter – denn sie wissen nicht, was sich tut" (2006), he received the Günter Strack Award for new talents. Gwisdek also had prominent supporting roles in Adnan Köse's drama "Lauf um dein Leben – vom Junkie zum Ironman" (2008) and Frieder Wittich's comedy "13 Semester" (2009). In 2010, he starred alongside Jacob Matschenz and Anna Brüggemann in the drama "Renn, wenn Du kannst", playing a wheelchair-bound man caught in a love triangle with his male-nurse and a music student. After that, he starred in several TV productions, among them Hermine Huntgeburth’s successful adaptation of Sven Regener's novel "Neue Vahr Süd" (2010).
In 2012, he returned to the big screen in Dietrich Brüggemann's comedy "3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad" ("move"). The year after, he received a nomination as Best supporting actor at the Deutscher Filmpreis for his role in Nina Grosse's drama "Das Wochenende" ("The Weekend"). Also in 2013, Aron Lehmann's "Kohlhaas oder die Verhältnismäßigkeit der Mittel" ("Kohlhaas Or The Proportionality Of Means") had its theatrical release with Gwisdek playing the lead role of a director about to despair over his filmic adaptation of "Michael-Kohlhaas".
At the Max Ophüls Preis film festival 2014, Gwisdek presented his short film "Circuit", which he wrote, produced, directed, edited and played the lead role in. "Circuit" won the Best short film award at the achtung berlin festival in 2014. That same year, he could be seen in the TV production "Weiter als der Ozean" as a marine biologist and in Sönke Wortmann's adaptation of Charlotte Roche's novel "Schoßgebete" ("Wrecked") playing the main character’s ex-husband.
He then starred in smaller and in bigger roles in Dietrich Brüggemann's "Heil" (2015), in "Die Glasbläserin" ("The Glassblower", 2016, TV) as well as in several German mumblecore films like "Alki Alki" ("Alky, Alky", 2015), "Tiger Girl" (2015-2017) und "Blind & Hässlich" (2015-2017).
Director Emily Atef cast him for her drama "3 Tage in Quiberon" ("3 Days in Quiberon", DE/AT/FR 2017) in the role of journalist Michael Jürgs, who in 1981, conducted a legendary interview of several days' duration with actress Romy Schneider (Marie Bäumer). The film premiered in the Berlinale Competition in 2018.
In the time that followed, Robert Gwisdek hardly appeared as an actor and instead devoted himself to his other activities: He has also been active as a musician since the 2000s and released several alternative hip-hop albums with his band Käptn Peng & Die Tentakel von Delphi. He also published his debut novel "The Invisible Apple" in 2014 and the children's book "The Hawk and the Rooster" in 2021.
In 2022, Gwisdek directed the two music videos "Zeit" and "Angst" for the band Rammstein. The following year, both his surreal short film "The Alchemist" and his feature film debut "Der Junge, dem die Welt gehört" ("The Boy Who Owns the World") with Denis Lavant and the Swiss singer-songwriter Faber premiered at the Hof Film Festival. He was also active again as an actor: after a brief appearance in "Die Känguru-Verschwörung" (2022), he played a central role as the depressive best friend of Lars Eidinger's main character in Matthias Glasner's "Sterben" ("Dying"). "Sterben" premiered in the competition of the 2024 Berlinale and received the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay, among other awards. For his performance, Gwisdek was nominated for German Film Award as Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role.