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| Birth Name(s) : Franka Potente |
Date of Birth: July 22, 1974 |
| Status:
N/A
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| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Franka Potente Biography
Franka Potente was born in the German city of Munster on July 22, 1974, and raised in the nearby small town of Dulmen. Raised with her younger brother Stefan by their schoolteacher father and medical assistant mother, Franka's childhood was a fairly static one: while her father was occasionally relocated to new teaching posts, they were all restricted to the Westphalian region of Germany, involving only moves from one small town to another.
As a high-school student, Franka's personality was indicative of the occupation she would one day take on; an outgoing girl, she is remembered by her classmates today as the class clown, the one who would always be elected as the klassensprecherin, or class spokesperson. It was perhaps due to this aspect of her character that a 17-year-old Franka made the decision to complete her last year of high school as an exchange student in Houston, Texas.
This experience proved to be a powerful one, as Franka went on to immerse herself fully in American culture, even acquiring an American boyfriend who went to Germany with Franka to meet her parents. It was also in America that Franka began to pursue an acting career, one that she had desired since early childhood. Shortly after her arrival home, she enrolled at the Otto Falkenberg School of Performing Arts in Munich, beginning her classes in 1994.
The movie that launched Franka into the international market was an unlikely candidate, a small-budget German film whose initial screenings were restricted, for the most part, to art-house theaters. The movie's director, Tom Twyker, met Franka in a Munich cafe in 1997, and it was through this chance meeting that she was cast in the lead for Run Lola Run, a role that he had in fact written for her. This first encounter also led to a relationship between the young director and actress, one that endured for several years.
After a successful run in Europe, Run Lola Run made its North American premiere at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival before hitting the Sundance Festival in 1999. Dubbed by one critic as "Viagra for the eyes," the fast-paced film was an instant critical hit, and Franka's warm performance in it was particularly well-received.
While Franka has stated in interviews that it is the script above all that dictates whether or not she will take on a role, she has also made it clear that she will not shy away from high-production Hollywood projects. Along with Madonna and Isabella Rossellini, Franka will be appearing in Peter Greenaway's The Tulse Luper Suitcases, which will debut at the Berlin Film Festival in 2003. North American audiences will see her next in the romantic comedy Try Seventeen, co-starring Elijah Wood, who, incidentally, is the rumored latest object of Franka's affections. |
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Additional Franka Potente Biography
Franka Potente (born on July 22, 1974) is a German film actress. She began her career in the comedy It's a Jungle Out There (1995) and gained critical recognition in the action thriller Run Lola Run (1998). After half a decade of critically acclaimed roles in German films, Potente gained Hollywood's attention by playing the role of Barbara Buckley in Blow (2001) and the female lead opposite Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity (2002). An accomplished dramatic actress, Potente received Germany's highest film and television awards for her performances in Run Lola Run and Opernball. Potente performs predominantly in supporting roles in a variety of low-budget and major studio films, ranging from romantic comedies and drama to science fiction and action thrillers.
Potente was born in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, and raised in nearby Dülmen, the elder of two children. Her father, Dieter Potente, is a teacher, and her mother, Hildegard, is a medical assistant. Her family name derives from her great-great-grandfather, who was from Sicily. She spent her last year of high school, at age 17, as an exchange student in Humble, Texas at Humble High School, where she loved to go to dances and sketch her classmates.
When Potente returned to Germany, she enrolled at the Otto Falkenberg School of Performing Arts in Munich. She took acting jobs outside school time and appeared in her first film in 1995, a student film, called Aufbruch. She was spotted by a casting agent and appeared in the film Nach Fünf im Urwald (It's a Jungle Out There), which was directed by her then boyfriend, Hans Christian Schmid. She received the 1995 Bavarian Film Prize for Young Talent for her work in this film. She undertook her last year of training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Manhattan.
Potente returned to Europe and worked in many German and French films. She was cast as the lead in the film Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run) after meeting the director, Tom Tykwer, in a café. The part was written for her and although the film was a small-budget, art house film production, it was a big success in Europe. She also sang the main songs used in the film. She made several more German language films, including the horror film, Anatomy and the romantic thriller, The Princess and the Warrior. Her first film in English was Storytelling in 2001, as the narrator. This was followed by a role in Blow, opposite Johnny Depp, and the female lead in The Bourne Identity, with Matt Damon, which she later reprised in The Bourne Supremacy. She has written and directed Der die Tollkirsche ausgräbt, a silent comedy.
Starting on May 22, 2007, Potente had a three-episode recurring role in FX drama The Shield, where she played Diro Kesakhian, the ruthless Godmother of LA's Armenian Mafia.
When not working on location, she lives in Berlin. She previously dated American actor Elijah Wood and Director Tom Tykwer. |
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