Barbara Sukowa

Barbara Sukowa (born 2 February 1950, Bremen, Germany) is a German theatre and film actress. Sukowa's stage debut was in Berlin in 1971, in a production of Peter Handke's Der Ritt über den Bodensee. Günter Beelitz invited her to join the ensemble of the Darmstädter National Theatre in the same year. She also worked in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg, in collaboration with directors such as Luc Bondy and Ivan Nagel. Her roles included Marion in Büchner's Danton's Death and Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Other Shakespeare roles in Europe were Rosalind in As You Like It and Desdemona in Othello. Sukowa also performed in Ibsen's The Master Builder. In English, she has worked in a production of The Cherry Orchard (Princeton, New Jersey, 2000). In addition to her stage work, Sukowa is well known for her performances in films from the New German Cinema. She portrayed Mieze in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), which earned her the German best young actress award. Her performance of the title role in Fassbinder’s Lola earned her a German Film Awards (Gold) award.

Actor