Franka Potente

Franka Potente
Franka Potente, October 2005
Born	July 22, 1974 (1974-07-22) (age 35) Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Franka Potente (born July 22, 1974) is a German film actress. She first appeared in the comedy It's a Jungle Out There (1995) and gained critical recognition in the action thriller Lola Rennt (released in English as 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 with Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity (2002). Potente received Germany's highest film and television awards for her performances in Run Lola Run and Opernball. Potente has performed leading and supporting roles in a variety of low-budget and major studio films, ranging from romantic comedies and drama to science fiction and action thrillers.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 1.3 Personal life 2 Filmography 3 References 4 External links

Biography

Early life

The elder of two children, Potente was born in Münster,^[1] North Rhine-Westphalia, and raised in nearby Dülmen.^[2] Her mother, Hildegard, is a medical assistant, and her father, Dieter Potente, is a teacher.^[3] Her Italian surname stems from her great-grandfather, a slate mason who came to Germany from Sicily in the 1800s. At age 17, she spent some months as an exchange student in Texas.^[4]

Career

After finishing high school in Germany, she enrolled at the Otto Falckenberg School of Performing Arts in Munich. 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 (It's a Jungle Out There), 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 then finished 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 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 popular in Europe. Franka Potente also performed on the soundtrack. She made several more German-language films, including the horror film, Anatomy and the romantic thriller, The Princess and the Warrior.

Her first English-language role was that of the narrator in Storytelling in 2001. This was followed by a role in Blow, with Johnny Depp, and the female lead in The Bourne Identity, with Matt Damon, which she reprised in The Bourne Supremacy. In 2006, she starred with Eric Bana in the Australian film Romulus, My Father, for which she was nominated for an Australian Film Industry Award for Best Lead Actress. Also in 2006, she wrote 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.^[5]

Personal life

When not working on location, she lives in Berlin. She has dated American actor Elijah Wood and director Tom Tykwer. In 2008, she got engaged to an American businessman. She told the German tabloid Bild that her fiance's name is Dio and that they plan on having children. ^[6]

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Other notes
1995	It's a Jungle Out There	Anna	Bavarian Film Award - Best Young Actress
1997	Coming In	Nina	Television film
1998	Opernball	Gabrielle Becker	Television film Bavarian TV Award - Best Actress
	Run Lola Run	Lola	Bambi Award - Best Actress
	Bin ich schön?	Linda
2000	Anatomy	Paula Henning
	The Princess and the Warrior	Simone 'Sissi' Schmidt
2001	Blow	Barbara Buckley
	Storytelling	Editor
2002	The Bourne Identity	Marie Helena Kreutz
	All I Want	Jane
2003	I Love Your Work	Mia
	Blueprint	Iris Sellin/Siri Sellin
2004	The Bourne Supremacy	Marie Helena Kreutz
	Creep	Kate
2005	The Elementary Particles	Annabelle
2006	The Shield (TV series)	Diro Kesakhian
2007	Romulus, My Father	Christine Anna Gaita (née Dörr)
2007	The Bourne Ultimatum	Marie Helena Kreutz	Flashback sequences
2008	Guerrilla	Tamara Bunke
	The Argentine	Tamara Bunke
	La traque – Die Hetzjagd	Beate Klarsfeld	Television film
2008	Die Brücke	Elfie Bauer	Television film; remake of Bernhard Wicki's Die Brücke (1959)
2009	Shanghai	TBA	Film; remake of Shanghai (1935)

References

External links

• Franka Potente at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
NAME	Potente, Franka
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Actor
DATE OF BIRTH	1974-7-22
PLACE OF BIRTH	Dülmen, Münsterland, Germany
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH