Corinna Harfouch: Acting star celebrates 70th birthday

She is often described as aloof. And: cool, brittle, distant. Almost all of Corinna Harfouch’s (70) descriptions sound like disappointments in the first impression, which only perceives the surface, the external. But be careful, the woman is an actress, and one of the best in the German-speaking world!

Back in 1996, the legendary film critic Michael Althen (1962-2011) saw her as a “sphinx behind the cat’s face”, seemingly enigmatic, but it is so clear what this woman stands for: against everything conformist, against every cliché.

That hasn’t changed, it’s just become clearer and clearer: She is a great actress, but also the opposite of a star with the industry’s usual everyone’s darling attitude. She will be 70 years old on October 16th.

Over 100 cinema and TV films

“Corinna Harfouch: a name that comes across the lips like a cool breeze, that can be whispered and yet has a certain angularity, which one would call exotic if her appearance didn’t prohibit it…”, clairvoyantly and described her “rather strong nose in her broad-cheeked, almost sharp-edged face; the pale blue gaze that seems to miss nothing and which can reflect pretty much everything from astonishment to contempt; the quiet smile that plays at the corners of her mouth, sometimes mildly, sometimes mockingly and always challengingly “I’m not someone to be trifled with,” her expression says. “It’s all the more surprising how much fun she has in her films.”

That remains the case today, even though her work has nothing to do with conventional entertainment fare à la Rosamunde Pilcher. One of the last of her more than 110 cinema and TV films was entitled “Die”. It’s about a completely broken family, mother Lissy (Corinna Harfouch) is terminally ill and tells her son Tom (Lars Eidinger), who works as a conductor on the musical piece “Die”, after the death of his father, who suffers from dementia, that she never loved him . He replies that he can’t stand her because he’s like her: cold.

This touching and award-winning drama, in which the family members ultimately find each other despite illness and death, has some funny moments. A critic from NDR found that it could also be understood as a hymn to life. At the premiere in Berlin, the audience laughed heartily at times. Corinna Harfouch thought it was “so beautiful”. The film also has the subtitle “A Comedy” that cites Chekhov’s “Seagull.” “Just like life is always a comedy”, .

She doesn’t like to play stereotypes anymore

She was awarded the German Film Prize 2024 for her role. It is just one of countless recognitions and awards that have gone to Corinna Harfouch. This doesn’t seem to be particularly important to her, it’s all about being able to work properly. And by that she means: depicting life in all its facets. The pain and the well-being, the sadness and the joy, the crying and the laughter, the good and the bad.

She only gets involved in roles that deal with real life and has told her agency to reject all requests that boil down to the cliché “Wife, abandoned by husband, children out of the house, therefore no meaning in life anymore and terribly sad “, as she told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. She doesn’t like to play these stereotypes anymore.

She finds this image of women “terribly old-fashioned,” and her observation of life is “completely different,” she says. That has nothing to do with our lives. Life writes such exciting stories, she has “no idea why authors keep falling back on these stereotypes.”

She was initially rejected at drama school

She always came up with something herself. Born in Suhl in Thuringia and raised in the small town of Großenhain near Dresden, the daughter of a kindergarten teacher and a teacher definitely wanted to become an actress after graduating from high school. The people in charge at the drama school rejected her because they didn’t have enough passion.

The young woman did not quarrel with fate, but instead trained to become a nurse. She then began studying textile engineering in 1975, which she gave up in 1978 in favor of acting training at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin.

Both sons are artists

In Dresden she met the Syrian computer scientist Nabil Harfouch from Damascus; he became her first husband (a daughter). After the separation, a relationship followed with the guitarist and lute player Stefan Maass, which resulted in a son. The great actor and director Michael Gwisdek (1942-2020) became husband number two in 1985, separated in 1999, divorced in 2007. Son Robert Gwisdek was born in 1984. His father also adopted Johannes Gwisdek from Harfouch’s connection with Stefan Maass. Both sons work as musicians and actors, Robert appeared in front of the camera with his mother in “Die”.

After separating from Michael Gwisdek, Corinna Harfouch lived with the unforgettable producer and screenwriter Bernd Eichinger (1949-2011) for five years. Under his direction she played the main role in the film “The Great Bagarozy”. The Leipzig actor, director and author Wolfgang Krause Zwieback (73) has been in a relationship with her since 2004; the couple lives in Schorfheide near Berlin.

Corinna Harfouch shines in all areas

The actress Corinna Harfouch has already caused a stir in the GDR, including at the Volksbühne Berlin. She remains connected to the theater to this day, most recently appearing on stage at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin. Her first leading film role in “The Actress” (1988) was extremely critically acclaimed.

Today Corinna Harfouch is considered the most versatile actress in German film. She shines in comedies (“Now or never – time is money”, “What you can see from here”) as well as in children’s films (“Bibi Blocksberg and the Secret of the Blue Owls”), and the tragicomedy (“Whiskey with Vodka “, “Who actually invented love?”) as well as the highlights as well as the drama (“Lara”, “This Is Love”).

Her dramatic female characters are particularly impressive, for example in the two-part TV series “Vera Brühne” (2001), in which she plays the convicted murderer. In “Downfall” (2004) she portrays Magda Goebbels, wife of Nazi chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels, who poisons her six children before committing suicide. “I try to give all my love to these cold, nasty or cruel women,” she said a few weeks ago at an event where she was awarded the 2024 Hannelore Elsner Prize for her role in “Die”.

Actress likes “heavy food”

She sees her cool charisma as “a kind of prison that I find myself in. I’m just interested in brittle figures.” According to the “Augsburger Allgemeine”, she also prefers “heavy food. If a film doesn’t move me or concern me, then I’m not interested in it. I’m someone who doesn’t just want to be entertained by laughing all the time and just spending the time I don’t like the term pastime. It’s like a marshmallow that you stuff into yourself: you don’t get anything out of it, you’re not nourished.”

If there really is a lull or the roles on offer are no longer suitable – that’s fine too: “I don’t live this job in complete dependence on my offers for cinema and television. I play theater even if I don’t have a role in the theater or a film offer “I just do readings, and if there aren’t any of those, I do something else, for example I go to a retirement home and read there.”

Don’t be afraid of dying

Corinna Harfouch has been a “crime scene” detective since 2023; she is investigating as former crime lecturer Susanne Bonard. She signed for six episodes, two have already run, then it’s over. “It would also be absurd if, at 75, I were still a crime scene detective and hunted down criminals in a wheelchair,” she tells the “Augsburger Allgemeine.”

She is calm about the fact that she is now turning 70: aging is a given. “I’m not afraid of dying. Like every person, I’m afraid of suffering and serious illnesses.” She makes sure to stay mobile, mentally and physically. However, she has to do something so that she can continue to get off her feet well. Her 100-year-old father is her role model: “He doesn’t think about dying. I asked him: ‘Father, what are your next plans?’ And he said: ‘First get older.'”