Lou Strenger was born in 1992 in Ludwigsburg. From 2012 to 2016, she studied acting at the Leipzig University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy." As part of her training, she regularly appeared in productions of the Schauspielstudio at Schauspiel Köln. After graduating, she was a member of the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus ensemble from 2016 to 2019, where she played roles including Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet," Jessica in "The Merchant of Venice," and Polly in "The Threepenny Opera." 

In 2018, she received the Gustaf Audience Award and was named Best Actress in North Rhine-Westphalia in a critics' poll conducted by the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. As a guest actress, she has also appeared at Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Staatstheater Nürnberg, and the Neuköllner Oper.

Strenger made her film debut in a leading role in the youth and romance drama "Das richtige Leben" ("The Real Life," 2015). It was not until 2019, however, that she began to work regularly in film and television. Among her most notable roles are portraying actress Helene Weigel in the biopic "Brecht" (2019) and playing a colleague of the protagonist in the drama "Axiom" (2022). She also starred as a police officer investigating in rural settings in the miniseries "Höllgrund" (2022) and in the TV drama "Wer ohne Schuld ist" (2024).

Her first major cinema role came with the tragicomedy "Seid einfach, wie ihr seid" ("Act Neutral"), in which she played a film student making her graduation project about the reunion of her estranged parents. The film premiered at the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival in 2023 and was released in theaters in fall 2025. Also in 2025, Strenger took on the lead role in the new TV film series "David und Goliath," playing a stressed psychotherapist at a clinic in Essen.