Armin Mueller-Stahl
Armin Mueller-Stahl is a German film actor, painter and author. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Shine.
Early life
Mueller-Stahl was born in Tilsit, East Prussia. His mother, Editta, was from an upper-class family and became a university professor in Leipzig. His father, Alfred Müller, was a bank teller who changed the family's surname to "Mueller-Stahl". The rest of the family moved to Berlin while his father fought on the Eastern Front in World War II. Mueller-Stahl was a concert violinist while he was a teenager and enrolled at an East Berlin acting school in 1952.Career
Mueller-Stahl was a film and stage actor in East Germany, performing such films as Her Third and Jacob the Liar. For that country's television, he played the main character of the popular series Das unsichtbare Visier from 1973–1979, a spy thriller program designed, in co-operation with the Stasi, as a counterpart to the James Bond films. After protesting against Wolf Biermann's denaturalisation in 1976 he was blacklisted by the government. Emigrating in 1980 to West Germany, he found regular work in films. These included Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Lola and Veronika Voss, Andrzej Wajda's A Love in Germany, Angry Harvest and Colonel Redl, the latter about the scandal surrounding Austro-Hungarian Army Colonel Alfred Redl.Mueller-Stahl made his American film debut as Jessica Lange's character's father in Music Box. He subsequently took character roles in Kafka by Steven Soderbergh and Night on Earth by Jim Jarmusch. He is also remembered for his role as the Soviet general in charge of the occupied United States in the ABC television miniseries Amerika. Mueller-Stahl's performance as a Jewish immigrant to the United States in the 1990 film Avalon is also widely praised.
Mueller-Stahl won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival for his performance in Utz. Mueller-Stahl was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the abusive father of pianist David Helfgott in the 1996 movie Shine. Mueller-Stahl was also in A Pyromaniac's Love Story and the 1997 remake of the movie 12 Angry Men. Conversation with the Beast was his first film as director. In 1998, he played the German scientist and syndicate member, Conrad Strughold, in the feature film The X-Files. In 1999 he played the mastermind of a criminal gang opposite Ray Liotta and Gloria Reuben in Pilgrim, also distributed under the title Inferno.
In the early 2000s, Mueller-Stahl received a positive response for his portrayal of Thomas Mann in a German film about the Mann family called Die Manns - Ein Jahrhundertroman. In 2004, Mueller-Stahl made a foray into American television, guest-starring in four episodes on the television drama series The West Wing as the Prime Minister of Israel. In 2006, he played the role of reclusive Russian artist Nikolai Seroff in Local Color. He had a role in David Cronenberg's crime drama Eastern Promises and the thriller The International, both of which co-starred British-Australian actress Naomi Watts. In 2008, he won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Eastern Promises, and Mueller-Stahl played the role of Cardinal Strauss, Dean of the College of Cardinals and the Papal conclave, in Angels & Demons,
In 2011, he was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival.
Since the creation of the Freya von Moltke Stiftung, working out of Berlin and Krzyżowa, he has been a supporter and linked with their work.
Filmography
- Heimliche Ehen as Norbert
- Five Cartridges as Pierre Gireau
- Star-Crossed Lovers as Michael
- … und deine Liebe auch as Ullrich Settich
- Naked among Wolves as André Höfel
- Christine
- Preludio 11 as Quintana
- Alaskafüchse as Sowjetischer Arzt
- Wolf Among Wolves as Wolfgang Pagel
- Ein Lord am Alexanderplatz as Dr. Achim Engelhardt
- Ways across the Country as Jürgen Leßtorff
- Tödlicher Irrtum as Chris Howard
- Her Third as The Blind Man
- Januskopf as Dr. Brock
- Die Hosen des Ritters von Bredow as Dechantvon Krummensee
- ' as Mr. Slavovitz
- Jacob the Liar as Roman Schtamm
- Nelken in Aspik as Wolfgang Schmidt
- Das unsichtbare Visier as Werner Bredebusch
- Die Flucht as Schmidt
- Lola as Von Bohm
- Collin as Andreas Roth
- Veronika Voss as Max Rehbein
- ' as Harald Liebe
- Die Flügel der Nacht as Goedel
- Glut as François Korb / Andres Korb
- ' as Tetzlav
- ' as The lawyer
- The Wounded Man as Le père d'Henri
- A Love in Germany as Mayer
- Trauma as Sam
- Rita Ritter
- ' as Arnold
- Colonel Redl as Archduke Franz Ferdinand
- Angry Harvest as Leon Wolny
- Die Mitläufer
- Forget Mozart as Graf Pergen
- The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time as Blind Director
- Momo as Chef der Grauen Männer
- Franza, as Jordan
- Amerika as General Petya Samanov
- Lethal Obsession as Axel Baumgartner
- ' Midnight Cop as Inspector Alex Glass
- Spider's Web as Baron von Rastchuk
- Schweinegeld as Maxwell
- A hecc as Marnó, kabinos, Tamás barátja
- Music Box as Mike Laszlo
- Avalon as Sam Krichinsky
- Night on Earth as Helmut Grokenberger
- Kafka as Grubach
- ' as Aaron
- Utz as Baron Kaspar Joachim von Utz
- The Power of One as Doc
- Far from Berlin as Otto Lindner
- Red Hot as Dimitri
- Der Kinoerzähler as Kinoerzähler
- The House of the Spirits as Severo
- Taxandria as Karol / Virgilus
- Holy Matrimony as Wilhelm
- The Last Good Time as Joseph Kopple
- A Pyromaniac's Love Story as Mr. Linzer
- Theodore Rex as Elizar Kane
- Shine as Peter
- Conversation with the Beast as Adolf Hitler
- The Ogre as Count von Kaltenborn
- In the Presence of Mine Enemies as Rabbi Adam Heller
- 12 Angry Men as Juror #4
- The Game as Anson Baer
- The Assistant as Mr. Morris Bober
- The Peacemaker as Dimitri Vertikoff
- The Commissioner as Hans Koenig
- The X-Files as Strughold
- The Thirteenth Floor as Hannon Fuller / Grierson
- The Third Miracle as Werner
- Jakob the Liar as Kirschbaum
- Jesus as Joseph
- Mission to Mars as Ray Beck
- Pilgrim as Mac
- The Long Run as Bertold 'Barry' Bohmer
- Die Manns – Ein Jahrhundertroman as Thomas Mann
- The Story of an African Farm as Otto
- The West Wing as Israeli Prime Minister Efraim 'Eli' Zahavy
- The Dust Factory as Grandpa Randolph
- Local Color as Nicholi Seroff
- ' as Karl Winter
- Eastern Promises as Semyon
- Buddenbrooks as Johann 'Jean' Buddenbrook
- The International as Wilhelm Wexler
- Angels & Demons as Cardinal Strauss
- Attack on Leningrad as von Leeb
- Knight of Cups as Fr. Zeitlinger
Awards
- Berlin Film Festival
- * Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival
- * Berlinale Camera at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival
- * Honorary Golden Bear at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival
- Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
- Honorary citizen of Sovetsk