Max Riemelt

Max Riemelt is a German actor who was born on 7 January 1984 in Mitte, East Berlin. Internationally, he is recognized for his role as Wolfgang Bogdanow in the Netflix series Sense8. Within Germany, he is known for extensive work across television and film, including roles in Before the Fall, Free Fall, and the 2023 series Bonn.

Riemelt spent his early childhood in East Germany until the age of six and grew up in Berlin. He completed his schooling with a high school diploma and later refused military service. He currently lives in Berlin and is the father of a daughter.

His acting career began in 1997 at the age of 13 with roles in the television productions Eine Familie zum Küssen and Praxis Bülowbogen. The following year, he secured his first leading role in the ZDF Christmas series Zwei allein, directed by Matthias Steurer, and made a cameo appearance in the music video for the song Two of a Kind by the Hamburg duo R & B.

Riemelt gained significant attention in Germany in 2004 for his performance in the World War II drama Before the Fall, directed by Dennis Gansel. He subsequently starred in all of Gansel's feature films between Mädchen, Mädchen in 2004 and The Fourth State in 2012. Additionally, Riemelt has established a frequent collaboration with director Dominik Graf, starring in Graf's 2010 TV crime series In the Face of Crime (Im Angesicht des Verbrechens).

In 2013, Riemelt starred alongside Hanno Koffler in the romantic drama Free Fall, portraying a police officer in training named Kay. From 2015 to 2018, he played German safe cracker Wolfgang Bogdanow in the Wachowskis' Netflix series Sense8. He also starred alongside Teresa Palmer in the 2017 psychological thriller Berlin Syndrome, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

In 2020, Riemelt joined the cast of the feature film The Matrix Resurrections. More recently, in 2023, he played a leading role in Bonn – Alte Freunde, neue Feinde, a television political drama set in 1954 post-war West Germany.

Over the course of his career, Riemelt has received several accolades for his performances. He won Best Actor at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2004 for Before the Fall. In 2006, he earned the Best Newcomer Actor award at the Bavarian Film Awards and the Best Performance by an Actor award at the Marrakech International Film Festival for his work in The Red Cockatoo.