Stefan Kurt

Biography

Stefan Kurt, born October 22, 1959, in Bern (Switzerland), attended Bern's Konservatorium für Musik und Theater (today: Hochschule der Künste). In 1985, he became a cast member of Hamburg's Thalia Theater and stayed until 1993. At Thalia Theater, Kurt worked with top-class directors such as Robert Wilson and Jürgen Flimm. Kurt played the part of Silvio in Flimm's production of "The Servant of Two Masters", a performance that won him the famous Boy Gobert award. In 1993, Kurt made his movie debut in the "Gehirnwäsche" episode of the ARD crime film series "Tatort".

Since then, Kurt appeared in leading and supporting roles in numerous TV productions, among them Vivian Naefe's "Eine ungehorsame Frau", Dieter Wedel's sophisticated multi-part crime series "Der Schattenmann", that features Kurt as an undercover cop, or the highly praised post-war drama "Gegen Ende der Nacht" ("Daybreak") by Oliver Storz that features Kurt as an officer of the US military intelligence service. Kurt won the 1997 and the 1999 Grimme award for his respective performances in the last two films.

Since his debut on the cinema screen in Peter Liechti's "Marthas Garten" ("Martha's Garden"), Kurt has returned to the cinema on several occasions – in the beginning most often in key supporting roles, for instance in the successful comedy "Frau2 sucht Happy End" ("Female2 seeks Happy End", 2001), in Chris Kraus' award-winning drama "Vier Minuten" ("Four Minutes", 2006), that features Kurt as a warden and caused a stir with critics and moviegoers alike, or as architect Albert Speer in Dani Levy's Hitler satire "Mein Führer" ("Mein Führer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler"). In 2007, Kurt played his first leading role in a movie in the comedy "Bis zum Ellenbogen" directed by Justus von Dohnanyi.

Following leading roles in ambitious TV dramas like Andreas Kleinert's "Hurenkinder" and "Haus und Kind" and a significant supporting part in Christoph Schaub's feature film "Giulias Verschwinden", Kurt starred in the comedy "Mensch Kotschie": In it, he plays a successful architect who approaches his 50th birthday and suffers from a severe midlife crisis.

In 2011, he played a convicted murderer in the exceptional TV project "Dreileben", which consists of three intertwining films directed by Christoph Hochhäusler, Dominik Graf and Christian Petzold. The same year, he appeared in the tragicomedy "Ein Tick anders" ("Alive and Ticking") and in Markus Imboden's drama "Der Verdingbub" ("The Foster Boy"). Kurt then joined the cast of "Ruhm" ("Glory: A Tale of Mistaken Identities"), an adaptation of Daniel Kehlmann's eponymous novel. In the 2012 release, he plays a successful author who is having a falling out with his romantic partner during a lecture tour through South America.

In 2013, Kurt had leading roles in the drama "Traumland" (CH) and in Bettina Oberli's "Lovely Louise" (CH/D). He next played the role of Paul Grüninger, a man who in 1939 rescued over 3.000 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria, in Alain Gsponer's TV biopic "Akte Grüninger" (CH/AT 2014). For his performance in the film, Kurt got nominated for a Swiss Film Award. This was followed by memorable roles in the thriller "Die letzte Flucht" (TV 2014) and Dani Levy's TV comedy "Der Liebling des Himmels" (2015).

Stefan Kurt returned to the big screen with the 2015 release "Desaster" ("Disaster"), in which he starred opposite Justus von Dohnányi, who also directed the comedy about a botched heist. The same year, he joined Daniel Brühl, Jesper Christensen and Geraldine Chaplin in the illustrious cast of Wolfgang Becker's highly anticipated screen adaptation of Daniel Kehlmann's novel "Ich & Kaminski". He was also a cast member of Dani Levy's satirical TV comedy "Der Liebling des Himmels" (2015), in which he appeared alongside Mario Adorf and Axel Milberg. 

For "Pettersson und Findus II - Das schönste Weihnachten überhaupt" (2018) and "Pettersson und Findus - Findus zieht um" (2018) Kurt - as successor to Ulrich Noethen - takes on the role of the odd farmer Pettersson. In between the two films, he played the title role in the children's film "Papa Moll und die Entführung des fliegenden Hundes" ("Mr. Moll and the Chocolate Factory", CH/DE 2017), based on the stories of the famous Swiss comic character "Papa Moll". For this role Kurt was nominated for Best Actor at the Swiss Film Award 2018. 

A more serious role was that of an SED official loyal to the party line in Bernd Böhlich's GDR drama "Und der Zukunft zugewandt" ("Sealed Lips", 2019). Also in 2019 he was standing in front of the camera for Uli Edel's international co-production "Ostende - 1936" and for Sabine Boss' economy thriller "Jagdzeit" ("Open Season", CH), both of which will be released in cinemas in 2020.