Michael Maertens

Michael Maertens was born in Hamburg in 1963. He studied at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich and joined Hamburg’s Thalia Theatre in 1989, where he received the Boy Gobert Prize in his first season and was voted Young Actor of the Year. He went on to work at the Schillertheater and the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, the Münchner Kammerspiele and the Berliner Ensemble. From 2001 to 2005 he was engaged at the Schauspielhaus Bochum, moving to the Schauspielhaus Zürich for the 2005/06 season.
He has been a permanent member of the ensemble at Vienna’s Burgtheater since 2009. In Vienna, where he was awarded the title of Kammerschauspieler in March 2017, he could be seen in Miller’s Hexenjagd (director: Martin Kušej), among others. He has also appeared in The Tempest (directed by Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson), Accomplices (directed by Simon Stone), The Fall of the House of Usher, The Far Country, Automatenbüffet (directed by Barbara Frey) and Der Leichenverbrenner (directed by Nikolaus Habjan). For the latter two performances, he was awarded the Nestroy Theatre Prize for Best Actor in 2021, for which he was also nominated in 2016 for his role as Mistingue in Eugène Marin Labiche’s Die Affäre Rue de Lourcine (director: Barbara Frey). In November 2023, he was once again awarded the Nestroy Theater Prize for his portrayal of Friedrich Hofreiter in The Far Country.
He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in 1993 in Luc Bondy’s production of the world premiere of Botho Strauss’ Das Gleichgewicht. This was followed a year later by Shakespeare’s Antonius and Cleopatra (directed by Peter Stein), two different versions of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (directed by Christian Weise/Leander Haußmann) in 1996 and 2007, Henry Purcell’s King Arthur (directed by Jürgen Flimm) in 2004 and Franz Grillparzer’s König Ottokars Glück und Ende (directed by Martin Kušej) in 2005, for which Michael Maertens received the Nestroy Theatre Prize for the role of Rudolf von Habsburg. This was followed in 2013 by Johann Nepomuk Nestroy’s Lumpazivagabundus (director: Matthias Hartmann), in 2016 by Samuel Beckett’s Endspiel (director: Dieter Dorn), and in 2017 by the Fool in Aribert Reimann’s Lear (director: Simon Stone) at the Felsenreitschule. Most recently, he played the role of Everyman (director: Michael Sturminger) on the Domplatz in 2023 and returned to Salzburg in 2024 for Hello, This Is Navalny Speaking.
For the title role in Richard II, directed by Claus Peymann at the Berliner Ensemble, and his Bochum debut in Turrini’s Die Eröffnung, he was named Actor of the Year 2000 in the critics’ poll conducted by the magazine Theater heute. He was awarded the Gertrud Eysoldt Ring for his portrayal of the title role in Arthur Schnitzler’s Anatol (directed by Luc Bondy) at the Vienna Festival in 2002.
Michael Maertens has appeared as a guest at the Hamburg Schauspielhaus and the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. He has worked with directors such as Peter Stein, Luc Bondy, Jürgen Flimm, Dieter Dorn, Claus Peymann, Matthias Hartmann, Thomas Langhoff, Benno Besson, Leander Haußmann, Jürgen Gosch, Katharina Thalbach, Dieter Giesing, Alexander Lang and Ruth Berghaus. In 2016, he was also honoured with the Gordana Kosanović Acting Award for special acting achievements and the German Comedy Award in the category ‘Best TV Comedy’ (Vorsicht vor Leuten). In 2014, he was honoured with the German Actor Award at the Berlinale and nominated for the German Film Award (Lola); this was followed by a nomination for the Golden Camera in 2016.
Michael Maertens can regularly be seen in cinema and television films. Most recently, he starred in the films Girl You Know It’s True (2022, directed by Simon Verhoeven), Tausend Zeilen (2021, directed by Michael Bully Herbig), Das Beste kommt noch! (2021, directed by Til Schweiger), Die Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (2020, directed by Detlev Buck).