Bruno Ganz Biography

Fast Facts

• Wanted to be an actor since childhood, and as a young adult studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Zurich
• At 19, made his film debut in The Man in the Black Derby (1960)
• A committed stage performer for decades whose roles included Shakespeare's Hamlet and Goethe's Faust, was also a cofounder of the theater company Berliner Schaubühne in 1970
• Won a Donatello Award, Italy's Academy Award equivalent, for Best Actor for Bread and Tulips (2000)
• Attracted considerable attention—and no small amount of controversy—for playing Adolf Hitler in Downfall (2004), a role he spent four months researching
• From 1996 until his death, was in possession of the Iffland-Ring, an honor bestowed upon an estimable thespian of the German-speaking theater that dates to the 19th century