Carlo Ljubek / 22

Carlo Ljubek was born in Bocholt as the son of Croatian immigrants, his mother an operating-room nurse, his father a metalworker and glass roof worker. At a young age, Carlo Ljubek left his family home and at the age of 16 was drafted as a professional soccer player by TSV 1860 Munich. He subsequently changed to Preußen Köln, completed high school there and worked with a series of independent theater companies before he applied to drama schools and was accepted at the renowned ‘Otto Falckenberg School’ in Munich.

Already during his studies, he appeared in several productions at the Munich Kammerspiele. With his very first performances, Carlo Ljubek felt that this was the right medium for his own personal artistic expression. His mentor during his professional training, Gert Pfafferodt, recognized his extraordinary sensitivity and intuition in acting. He encouraged the young actor to view failure an opportunity and to discover himself anew each time, not to remain stationary, to always continue searching, and in so doing, to find and to allow something new to arise.

It is this special sensibility, combined with his own powerful, decisive and passionate acting, the sophisticated way he interprets his roles, that captivates both audiences and critics alike. In the process, with his precise dramatic means, he succeeds in creating rapid shifts between the clarity and the contradiction of existence. Since the beginning of his career, he has sought out the idiosyncratic, the subtleness of his characters. He is always driven to encompass the positive and the negative aspects of human behavior holistically in order to create complex images and counter-images of the characters.

His performances testify to a special dramatic corporeality and an intuitive feeling for the essence of his characters, whose boundaries Carlo Ljubek explores to their limits. In the process, from the outset, he has worked with directors who transcend traditional boundaries and have shaped the theater of today such as Frank Castorf, Jette Steckel, Johan Simons, Karin Beier, Karin Henkel, Michael Thalheimer, and Viktor Bodo. Carlo Ljubek’s transparent performances and his sensitive presence have made him an outstanding film actor alongside his roles in the theater. His intense depictions of the most contradictory emotions are impressive, almost extreme studies of human character and are valued by directors such as Aelrun Goette, Caroline Link, Christian Alvart, David Schalko, Hermine Huntgeburth, Lars Becker, Marco Kreuzpaintner, Philipp Stölzl, Sherry Hormann, Soleen Yussef and Terrence Malick who have consistently engaged him for their complex productions.