Alexander Scheer

Alexander Scheer
Scheer at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival, 2022
Born	(1976-06-01) 1 June 1976 (age 48) East Berlin, East Germany
Occupations	Actor musician
Years active	1999–present
Partner	Esther Perbandt [de] (former)

Alexander Scheer (born 1 June 1976 in East Berlin) is a German actor and musician. He has won several national awards for his performances in film and theater, including one German Film Award for "Best Actor in a Leading Role" and one Bavarian Film Award for "Best Actor", both in the year 2019.

Scheer studied at Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gymnasium [de] in Berlin with main focus on music. In addition to the singing, he played piano and drums in different bands. He left school after the 11th grade and then took up various occupations.^[1] He also performed in commercials during this period and turned their own amateur films with his friends. The film series "American Showdown" by André Jagusch, when Scheer stood in front of the camera, became a small festival hit and was shown, for example, at the Werkstatt der Jungen Filmszene [de] (Workshop of the young film scene) and at the Open Air Filmfest Weiterstadt [de] (Weiterstadt Open Air Film Festival). During a casting, he was discovered by the director Leander Haussmann, who cast him in his 1999 film Sonnenallee. After the shooting, Scheer and Haußmann followed to the Schauspiel Bochum theater. There he played among other things in various plays such as Much Ado About Nothing, Leonce and Lena, and The Tempest.

As a result, he worked with the directors like Christoph Marthaler, Frank Castorf, and Stefan Pucher [de], played in theaters such as "Berlin Alexanderplatz", "the idiot" at the Volksbühne Berlin, and "The Seagull" at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. For his acting performances, he was awarded the Ulrich-Wildgruber-Preis [de] (the Ulrich Wildgruber prize). For the personification of the English Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean in Frank Castorf's production of the same name in 2009, Scheer was voted Actor of the Year by the theater magazine Theater heute. In addition to his theater engagements, he was also in the national and international productions such as Viktor Vogel – Commercial Man, Eight Miles High, Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution, and Carlos (miniseries) which its full 5½-hour version was shown out of competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

To prepare for the portrayal of Keith Richards in the film Eight Miles High, Scheer founded the band The Rockboys which played concerts for one summer. In 2007 he joined Jan Opoczynski as guitarist in his band Der Internationale Wettbewerb [de]. In the following year, he became the front man of the Viennese band Gruppe Pegel. In 2009 he toured Europe as a percussionist with The Whitest Boy Alive. In 2012 he appeared as Mephistopheles in the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's tragedy play Faust, Part One.

Scheer played a total of 16 years under the direction of Frank Castorf at the Volksbühne Berlin. The decision of the secretary for cultural affairs of Berlin, Tim Renner, caused Castorf's contract as director not to be extended and Scheer was critical of it. He then asked Tim Renner not to enter the theater again, and when Scheer met Renner there in 2018 after a film screening, he poured a glass of beer over his head.^[2]

In the Andreas Dresen's 2018 biographical film Gundermann about the East German songwriter, rock musician, and skilled excavator operator Gerhard Gundermann, Scheer played the title role and sang all the songs himself.^[3] For this role, he was awarded German Film Award (Deutscher Filmpreis) the most important cinema awards in Germany and the most highly endowed German cultural awards, for the Best Actor in a Leading Role in 2019.

In the television series Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo [de], he embodied the British musician David Bowie.

Scheer was in a long-term relationship with the fashion designer Esther Perbandt [de].^[4]

• 2006: Der Faust (a German theater prize), the best performer of a drama performance (nomination)
• 2008: Ulrich-Wildgruber-Preis [de] (a German theater prize), originality and best actor
• 2009: Schauspieler des Jahres [de], honorary title by the German magazine Theater heute, for Kean
• 2018: Günter-Rohrbach-Filmpreis [de] (a German film awards), best actor for his role in Gundermann^[5]
• 2019: Bavarian Film Awards, best actor for Gundermann^[6]
• 2019: Berliner Kunstpreis (Berlin Art Prize) for performing arts (Darstellende Kunst)^[7]
• 2019: German Film Award – "Best Actor in a Leading Role" for Gundermann

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexander Scheer.

• Alexander Scheer at IMDb
• Literature by and about Alexander Scheer in the German National Library catalogue