- Thomas Kretschmann was born in East Germany. Before becoming an actor, he was a swimmer. He has acted in several popular American movies, such as Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Le pianiste (2002), U-571 (2000), Entre les mains de l'ennemi (2004), etc. He has three children, Nicolas, Stella and Sascha with his ex-girlfriend Lena.- IMDb mini biography by: Juliana Motte Tamayose <juliana_2016@hotmail.com>
- ChildrenNicolas KretschmannAlexander KretschmannStella Kretschmann
- Aged 19, he began a month-long trek from East to West Germany to escape Communism, during which he lost part of his finger to frostbite. He crossed 4 borders with nothing other than a passport and the equivalent of $100 in his possession.
- Has played a German nazi officer in 11 different, completely unrelated films: Le coeur du guerrier (1992), Stalingrad (1993), U-571 (2000), Le pianiste (2002), Entre les mains de l'ennemi (2004), La Chute (2004), Nous étions libres (2004), Eichmann (2007), Walkyrie (2008), Le naufrage du Laconia (2010) and Stalingrad (2013).
- Started working as an actor at the age of 25, after being trained to be an Olympic swimmer.
- Collaborated again with his Le pianiste (2002) co-star Adrien Brody in King Kong (2005). Incidentally, both of Kretschmann's roles with Brody are as captains, albeit of a very different type. In Le pianiste (2002), he played a Nazi officer with a conscience; in King Kong (2005) he plays a tough boat captain guiding a film crew.
- Now living and working in Los Angeles
- Leaving [home] is kind of a strange thing - the world opens up but, at the same time, it gets smaller. The more you see of the world, the smaller it seems. After I did the film Stalingrad (1993), I left Germany, and I did a couple of films in France and lived there for about three years, and a couple of films in Italy, and lived there for two years. Then I came over here. The more you get familiar with different countries, the more you think, "Where am I going to live for the rest of my life?" You think, "OK, Germany sucks - don't want to live there; France, no; Italy - the food is nice, but I don't want to live there". In the end, you have nowhere to go anymore.
- [on his title role in Eichmann (2007)] I was born long after the war but I still carry this collective guilt around. It's not as much fun for a German to play a part like this than it would be for, say, Ralph Fiennes. It's a very juicy part, but I couldn't get myself excited to go and play Eichmann. Strangely, I have lots of Jewish friends in LA. My wife is Jewish. They were all excited that I play him, so I wanted to do it for them.
- I don't let anyone tell me to shut up, but I have never brawled.
- [on fleeing the GDR] I ran until I could run no more. It was midnight, I've been running for six hours straight.
- Well, I only auditioned at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts because I didn't know what else to do with my life. I actually wanted to do architecture and design and something like that and then a friend had asked me if I'm stupid, what I would want to design *here*. That was while I was still living in the GDR.
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