Biography

Benno Fürmann was born on 17 January 1972 in Berlin, Germany and worked as a waiter, bouncer and drifter before attending acting lessons at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York. After returning to Germany, he played several minor parts in movie and television projects until his breakthrough performance in Die Bubi Scholz Story (1998). In recent years, he appeared in critically acclaimed TV movies (Wolfsburg (2003)) as well as international productions such as Joyeux Noel (2005).

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His mother died when he was seven years old and his father died just a year later. He then grew up with foster parents. He finished school at the age of 15 with a secondary school leaving certificate. He then made ends meet with odd jobs. As a rebellious teenager, Benno Fürmann had further fateful experiences - he surfed on an S-Bahn and almost lost his life. The skull fracture he suffered had to be treated in hospital for many weeks. His interest in acting has been with him since his youth. As a teenager, he took private acting lessons and worked toward his goal of going to New York. At the age of 19, he was finally accepted at the renowned Lee Strassberg Theater Institute in New York, where he received professional acting training.

Contacts made in New York helped Fürmann land his first role, which he had in Edgar Reitz's TV production "The Second Home" in 1991. In 1992 he finally returned to his native Berlin and was able to assert himself in a few television films before he gained greater popularity through the RTL series "Und Tschüss" (1994). Fürmann was able to draw further attention to himself through the two-part television drama "The Bubi Scholz Story", which Roland Suso Richter filmed in 1998 - he played the young Bubi Scholz. He was awarded the "German Television Prize" for his performance. A little later he was seen in Til Schweiger's directorial debut "Der Eisbär". Another successful production was Doris Dörrie's relationship comedy "Nackt" from 2002, in which Fürmann played alongside Heike Makatsch and Nina Hoss. American producers also became aware of the German actor's talent and cast him alongside Heath Ledger in the fantasy thriller "Sin Eater".

Another large, international production followed in 2005 with "Merry Christmas". Alongside Diane Kruger and Daniel Brühl, he impressed as a First World War soldier who tries to have a humane Christmas despite the adverse circumstances. Meanwhile, he was "Ambassador of the World AIDS Day Campaign 2006". In addition to his TV and cinema work, Benno Fürmann was also active as a voice actor and as such was also involved in the animated films in the "Shrek series". In 2009 he was awarded the speaker prize at the Stuttgart Animated Film Festival. Since the same year, Fürmann has also been supporting the US development policy organization ONE. In 2014 he appeared in front of the camera for the TV film "No Escape" and "Nonsense and the Coatis".

Benno Fürmann is the father of a daughter named Zoe and lives in Berlin.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth