Franka Potente

Franka Potente (born 22 July 1974) is a German actress.

She first appeared in the comedy film After Five in the Forest Primeval (1995), for which she won a Bavarian Film Award for Best Young Actress.

Potente took acting jobs outside school time and appeared in her first movie in the 1995 student film Aufbruch.

She was then spotted by a casting agent and appeared in the film Nach Fünf im Urwald (After Five in the Forest Primeval), directed by her then-boyfriend, Hans Christian Schmid.

She played the role of a 17-year-old girl named Anna who, in search of freedom in an urban environment, runs away from home with a boy who has a crush on her.

The film premiered at the 1995 Hof International Film Festival and opened in German theaters on 25 April 1996.

She received the 1996 Bavarian Film Award for Young Talent for her work in this film.

She subsequently finished her last year of training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Manhattan.

Her breakthrough came in 1998, when she portrayed the title role in the acclaimed action thriller Run Lola Run, for which she won a BAMBI Award for Best Actress.

She received further critical acclaim and a Bavarian Television Award nomination for her performance in the television film Opernball (also 1998).

Potente returned to Europe and worked in German and French films; her breakthrough came with 1998's Lola rennt (Run Lola Run) after meeting the director, Tom Tykwer, in a café.

Specifically written for her persona, her role was that of a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 Deutsche Mark in twenty minutes to save her boyfriend's life.

Budgeted at US$1 million, the arthouse thriller was a critical and commercial success, grossing US$14.5 million worldwide.

Variety wrote that her performance was "heroic, fierce, frightened and vulnerable all at once", while eFilmCritic.com called her casting a "smart choice".

Following her newfound success, she starred opposite Teemu Aromaa in Downhill City (1999), a small-scale drama directed by Finnish director Hannu Salonen, and in the romantic comedy Bin ich schön?, about people having trouble with love and identity, which was released on 17 September 1999 in Germany.

Her other notable films include Anatomy (2000), The Princess and the Warrior (2000), Creep (2004), Romulus, My Father (2007), Eichmann (2007), and Muse (2017).

In the German-language horror film Anatomy (2000), she starred as a medical student who wins a place at an exclusive Heidelberg medical school, where she uncovers a gruesome conspiracy by a secret Anti-Hippocratic society.

The film was a box office success in Germany, grossing US$10.5 million domestically, and Variety, in its review for the film, remarked: "Boasting a gutsy performance from sturdy young German star Franka Potente (Run Lola Run), Anatomy is creepy, sometimes gruesome, widescreen fun that pushes all the right buttons. Out-performing Scream at the local [box office] and the biggest German pic of the year so far, this is natural latenight/fantasy fest fare that could become a cult item on half-inch and possibly even theatrically".

Also in 2000, she had the starring role in the romantic drama The Princess and the Warrior, directed by Tykwer, her Run Lola Run director.

In the film, she portrayed a psychiatric hospital nurse who, after a near-death experience, enters into a relationship with an anguished former soldier (Benno Fürmann, also her co-star in Anatomy) who lapses into criminality.

The independent film was favorably received by critics; eFilmCritic stated that Potente "proves her versatility as an actress here with a much more subdued character, but is still capable of delivering powerhouse emotional scenes", while the consensus of review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes was: "More slow-moving than Run Lola Run, this film nonetheless offers an intriguing storyline about love and fate".

She received nominations for the European Film Award and the German Film Award for Best Actress.

Potente's first English-language role was that of a flight attendant who becomes engaged to cocaine smuggler George Jung in the biographical crime film Blow, alongside Johnny Depp.

The film received mixed reviews, while it grossed US$83.2 million worldwide.

After half a decade of well-received roles in German productions, Potente made the transition into Hollywood with her role in the biographical crime film Blow (2001), and achieved wider recognition for her appearances in The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004).

She played a film editor in the controversial independent drama Storytelling (2001), with Leo Fitzpatrick and Selma Blair.

It premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, and received a limited release in most international markets.

Potente next found a much wider recognition from audiences for her performance in The Bourne Identity (2002), co-starring Matt Damon.

In the film, she played a European woman who grows closer to the title character, a man suffering from extreme memory loss and attempting to discover his true identity amidst a clandestine conspiracy within the Central Intelligence Agency.

A positive critical reception greeted the film upon its release, and budgeted at US$60 million, it grossed US$214 million globally.

After her role in the film, she starred in the American films All I Want (2002) and I Love Your Work (2003), and in the German production Blueprint (2003).

She reprised past roles with the German horror sequel Anatomy 2 (2003) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004), the latter which grossed US$288.5 million worldwide.

She portrayed communist revolutionary Tamara Bunke in Che (2008), and psychologist Anita Gregory in The Conjuring 2 (2016).

Potente has starred in the television series Copper (2012–2013), Taboo (2017) and currently, Claws and Titans and Echo 3 in 2022.

She also played recurring roles in the second seasons of American Horror Story (2012) and The Bridge (2014).

The elder of two children, Potente was born in Münster, West Germany, and raised in nearby Dülmen.

Her mother, Hildegard, is a medical assistant, and her father, Dieter Potente, is a teacher.

Her Italian surname stems from her great-grandfather, a Sicilian slater who migrated to Germany during the 19th century.

When she was 17 years old, Potente spent a few months as an exchange student in Humble, a suburb of Houston, Texas.

After finishing high school in Germany, Potente enrolled at the Otto Falckenberg School of Performing Arts in Munich.