Ulrich Tukur

Ulrich Tukur, born Ulrich Gerhard Scheurlen on 29 July 1957, is a German actor and musician. He is best known for his roles in Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, the docudrama North Face based on the 1936 Eiger climbing disaster in Switzerland, and his portrayal of Wilhelm Uhde in Martin Provost's biopic Séraphine. Tukur spent his youth near Hannover, where he completed his secondary school examinations in 1977. During a student exchange in Boston, Massachusetts, he earned a high school diploma and met his first wife, Amber Wood, with whom he has two daughters, Marlene and Lilian.

After completing his service with the army, Tukur studied German, English, and history at the University of Tübingen. He worked as a musician to earn extra money, and after being invited to appear in a play by someone who saw him perform, he became interested in acting. In 1980, he began studying acting at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart. While still a student, he made his film debut playing Willi Graf in Michael Verhoeven's Die Weiße Rose.

After finishing his acting studies in 1983, Tukur performed at a theatre in Heidelberg. He achieved a breakthrough in 1984 when director Peter Zadek cast him in Joshua Sobol's play Ghetto at the Freie Volksbühne Berlin. From 1985 to 1995, he worked as a staff actor under Zadek at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, starring in plays such as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar as Marc Anton, Hamlet, and Frank Wedekind's Lulu. Between 1995 and 2003, Tukur served as director of the Hamburger Kammerspiele theatre alongside Ulrich Waller.

In addition to his theatrical career, Tukur has recorded music and toured as a musician since 1989. In 1995, he formed the dance band Ulrich Tukur & the Rhythmus Boys with drummer Kalle Mews, guitarist and vocalist Ulrich Mayer, and contrabassist, guitarist, and vocalist Günther Märtens. On screen, Tukur played the title role in the Sino-German co-production John Rabe about the Nanjing massacre, portrayed the psychopath Kurt Hauff in Kommissar Rex who killed police officer Richard Moser, and starred in the title role of the 1999 documentary Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace.

Over his career, Tukur has received numerous awards. German theater critics elected him actor of the year in 1986. His early accolades include the O.E. Hasse Preis in 1984, the Boy-Gobert-Preis in 1985, and a Goldener Bär at the Berlinale for the film Stammheim in 1986. He won the Goldene Kamera and Insel-Kunstpreis Hamburg in 1996, an Adolf Grimme Award in 2000, and a Deutscher Fernsehpreis for Best Actor in 2004 for his role in the Tatort episode Das Böse. He won a Deutscher Filmpreis for Best Male Supporting Actor in 2006 for The Lives of Others, and in 2009 received the Deutscher Filmpreis for Best Leading Actor, the Bayerischer Filmpreis, and the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Films for John Rabe.

Tukur has been married twice. From 1999 to 2019, he lived on Giudecca in Venice, Italy, with his second wife, photographer Katharina John. Since 2019, he has lived in Berlin-Schöneberg.