1995–2002: Early work Brühl began acting at a young age despite not having any formal training as an actor. He participated in children's theater at school and first earned money at age 8 doing radio plays, followed by work in a dubbing studio leading to one of the dubbing actors to recommend the teenager to a talent agency. At age 15, Brühl landed a small part in the TV film
Svens Geheimnis, played the street kid Benji in the soap opera
Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love)(1995), and continued to feature in television series in the following years. In 1999, he appeared in his film debut as Checo in
Paradise Mall (
Schlaraffenland) and voiced Kom in the German version of
Le château des singes. In 2000, he starred in his first main role as Markus Baasweiler in
No More School (
Schule), and was cast as Jay in
Deeply. In 2001, he continued to play main roles as the schizophrenic Lukas in
Hans Weingartner's critically acclaimed debut film
Das Weisse Rauschen (The White Sound), as Daniel in
Nichts Bereuen (No Regrets), and as Marek in
Honolulu. In 2002, he starred as Arbo in
Vaya con Dios and as boxer Marko Stemper in
Elefantenherz (Elephant Heart). He won the
German Film Award (2002) for Best Actor, the
Bavarian Film Award (2001) for Best New Actor, and the
New Faces Award (2002) for Best Actor for his performance in
Das Weisse Rauschen,
Nichts Bereuen, and
Vaya con Dios. He won the
German Film Critics Award (2003) for Best Actor for
Das Weisse Rauschen and
Vaya con Dios. For
Das Weisse Rauschen, Brühl insisted on meeting someone with paranoid schizophrenia to avoid the risk of making the character look clichéd. Two decades later, he still considers it his most difficult character to portray and comments that "It was important for me to explore my own madness, to believe in what I was doing and to convince myself that I was suffering from that disease, so it was quite difficult." The film has been widely cited by the academic community in discussing and understanding schizophrenia due to its realistic portrayal.
2003–2008: Breakthrough and early success Brühl's international breakthrough role came in 2003 as Alex Kerner in
Wolfgang Becker's German tragicomedy
Good Bye, Lenin! which tells about a German family that lived during the unification of Germany. The film became one of the most successful German films to date, receiving nominations at the
Golden Globe Awards and the
BAFTA Awards and winning at the
European Film Awards,
German Film Awards,
Cesar Awards, and
London Film Critics' Circle among others. It was sold to more than 65 countries, reaching an estimated six million cinema-goers worldwide. In that year, Brühl won awards including the European Film Awards Peoples's Choice Award for Best European Actor and the
European Film Award for Best Actor for the role. He also won his second German Film Award as Best Actor for both his performance in the film and in
Elefantenherz. He then voiced Kenai in the German version of
Brother Bear. Brühl reached further recognition in 2004 reuniting with filmmaker Hans Weingartner and starring as the anti-capitalist activist Jan in the internationally successful film
The Edukators (Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei). The film became a
cult film as part of a "German New Wave" and received a 10-minute standing ovation at its premier at the 2004
Cannes Film Festival where it was nominated for the
Palme d'Or. Brühl earned a nomination for the
European Film Award for Best Actor for his role. At the same time, he won the European Film Awards Peoples's Choice Award for Best European Actor for his role as Paul in
Love in Thoughts of which plot is based on the Steglitz student tragedy involving two teenagers who created a suicide club. In the same year, Brühl made his English-speaking film debut in
Ladies in Lavender, starring alongside English actresses
Judi Dench and
Maggie Smith as Andrea Marowski, and met
Queen Elizabeth II who attended its premiere. In 2010, he starred as Rupert in ''King's Road
(Kóngavegur 7
) and as Hans Krämer in The Coming Days (Die kommenden Tage
). In 2011, he starred as cybernetics engineer Álex Garel employed by his former university to design robot software in Eva
, a science fiction film set in the year 2041.'' He portrayed English teacher
Konrad Koch who introduced Britain's football to his students in late 19th century Germany in
Lessons of a Dream (
Der ganz große Traum). He played the Oak Fairy in
2 Days in New York and starred as ethnology student Dirk whose thesis is on the aging population in
All Together (
Et si on vivait tous ensemble?) alongside
Jane Fonda and
Geraldine Chaplin. He also co-starred as Father Antonio with
Clive Owen in the horror thriller
Intruders. In 2012, he starred as Iván Pelayo in
Winning Streak (
The Pelayos) and as Leonardo in
7 Days in Havana. in 2015 In 2013, he co-starred in
The Fifth Estate, a film based on the founding of
WikiLeaks in which Brühl played co-founder
Daniel Domscheit-Berg alongside
Benedict Cumberbatch as
Julian Assange. In the same year, Brühl portrayed former Formula 1 driver
Niki Lauda in the
Ron Howard biographical film
Rush opposite
Chris Hemsworth. After he was cast, he took
Formula Three lessons and later more lessons with Hemsworth. He came to Vienna to meet Lauda who also flew him to the Brazilian Grand Prix to feel the racing atmosphere where he watched in the pit with the
Mercedes team, putting on an earpiece to listen to conversations, and spoke to Formula 1 drivers. He had to endure seven hours of prosthetics daily during taping as his face structure was altered to take on Lauda's features. Brühl added layers that are different from Lauda to find the right balance of not just imitating the person, but also being creative. The film was a commercial and critical success. For his authentic portrayal of Lauda in terms of accent and mannerisms, he received multiple award nominations including the
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, the
Critic's Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, the
Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor and the
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In 2014, he starred in
A Most Wanted Man as Maximilian alongside
Philip Seymour Hoffman and
Rachel McAdams, in
The Face of an Angel as Thomas, and in the series
The Trip as a patron at Terrace Bar. In 2015, Brühl was part of the
Berlinale jury along with
Darren Aronofsky,
Audrey Tautou, and
Bong Joon-ho among others. He reunited with director Wolfang Becker in one of his best performances as young writer Sebastian Zöllner in
Me and Kaminski and played Austrian investigative journalist
Hubertus Czernin in the biographical drama
Woman in Gold alongside
Helen Mirren and
Ryan Reynolds. He co-starred with
Emma Watson and
Michael Nyqvist in
Colonia. He also played
maître d'hôtel Tony Balerdi in
Burnt alongside
Bradley Cooper. In preparation for the role, he was trained as a maître d' in
Marcus Wareing's
Michelin-star restaurant in London. Brühl said that since he has done the film, he has much more respect and appreciation for food, taking his time while eating and tasting, imagining the incredible effort behind it. In the same year, Brühl became a partner at Berlin- and Hamburg-based production company Amusement Park Film as a producer.
2016–present: Marvel Cinematic Universe and continued acclaim In 2016, Brühl starred as Escherich in
Alone in Berlin, and convicted murderer
Jens Söring in
Killing for Love. Brühl played the
Marvel Comics supervillain
Helmut Zemo alongside
Chris Evans and
Robert Downey Jr. in one of the most critically acclaimed films in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe,
Captain America: Civil War (2016). In
Niki Caro's World War II film ''
The Zookeeper's Wife (2017) about a married couple who saved hundreds of Jews, Brühl played Nazi zoologist Lutz Heck, who forced Jan and Antonina Żabiński to abandon the Warsaw Zoo. He starred as Ernst Schmidt in The Cloverfield Paradox,
an installment in the Cloverfield franchise, and as Wilfried Böse, a founding member of the German organization Revolutionary Cells, in the action thriller Entebbe
(7 Days in Entebbe)'' which recounts the story of
Operation Entebbe. From 2018 to 2020, he played the title role as Dr. Laszlo Kreizler in
The Alienist, an American period crime drama series based on the 1994 novel by
Caleb Carr, alongside
Luke Evans and
Dakota Fanning. In his preparation, Brühl read about famous pioneering psychologists of the time (
Sigmund Freud,
Josef Breuer, and
Carl Jung) and went to psychotherapy in Budapest just to get an understanding of the way they worked and thought. His wife Felicitas, a practicing psychotherapist, also put him in touch with criminal psychologists. In 2019, he received nominations for the
Golden Globe Award as Best Actor in a Television Motion Picture and the
Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film for his role in the series which was nominated at the
Primetime Emmy Awards as Outstanding Limited Series and the
Golden Globe Awards as Best Television Motion Picture. In the same year, he played fertility physician Thomas in
My Zoe (2019) which was his first foray into executive production. 2021 marked Brühl's directorial debut through his dark comedy film
Next Door (
Nebenan), which premiered in the
Berlinale Competition section at the
Berlin International Film Festival as a
Golden Bear nominee, wherein he also acted as Daniel, a vain and mean version of himself. The film won as Best Film and Brühl won as Best Actor in the
Taormina Film Festival. He reprised his role as Helmut Zemo in the
Disney+ series
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. His dancing which he improvised in
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier became viral and was released in the
Zemo Cut. He also starred in the Academy Award-nominated Netflix film
All Quiet on the Western Front in which he played
Matthias Erzberger. == Reception and acting style ==