André Schneider

At the age of twenty he gave his stage debut in his hometown of Hildesheim Lower Saxony costarring with Michael Demuth in the enormously successful musical Zoff One year later he relocated to Berlin and in 2001 he moved to London Both his first book Life is a Sexually Transmitted Disease and the pop album Lovers Space came out in 2004 and after the release of Deed Poll 2004 which went on to become a cult favorite André worked extensively in Great Britain Ireland France Spain Austria and Belgium In Germany he worked as a writeractor on Ingo J Biermanns illfated drama Glastage 2007 and did Der Mann im Keller 2008 with Nikolaus Firmkranz The latter also became his directorial debut In 2006 André wrote produced and starred in Half Past Ten 2008 based on a Marguerite Duras novel directed by Sascha Bachmann and costarring Kerstin Linnartz Subsequently he was cast in a string of mostly unreleased Spanish student films before he eventually decided to take a hiatus from the movies for almost two years focusing on his theatre work instead Alex und der Löwe 2010 a gay romantic comedy with Marcel Schlutt Sascia Haj and Udo Lutz was Andrés first film as a writerproduceractor in almost three years He played the title role of Alex a 30yearold Berlinbased man who clumsily stumbles from one relationship to the next The movie fared surprisingly well and so André revived his part in what was little more than a cameo in its highly successful multiaward winning successor Men to Kiss 2012 Still working in droll German comedies left him dissatisfied and unhappy It was a deadend career for me I was desperate for new challenges he later recalled In order to revive his movie career with fresh impulses he began shooting his first French feature A Second Chance 2012 in late 2011 A courageous move that proved to be a smart one A Second Chance 2012 became an immediate critical success in France Spain and Greece allowing its writerdirectorstar to continue working in Paris In One Deep Breath 2014 a gloomy thriller costarring Manuel Blanc and Stéphanie Michelini under the direction of Antony Hickling an acclaimed genius of the art house genre André created the part of Thomas Laroppes concerned halfbrother Adrian and in Le cadeau 2013 a poetic short based on poetry by Pablo Neruda he played Anton Between 2015 and 2018 he established himself as a character actor in France with parts in movies like Boulevard Voltaire 2017 Frig 2018 The Ghosts 2018 costarring Judith Magre and Sophie Tellier and On My Mothers Path 2016 In addition to his movie work his biography of Bmovie actress Marisa Mell received rave reviews and became quite a success in 2013 In 2018 he dissolved his company Vivàsvan Pictures and started studying pedagogy and philosophy Still an avid writer André lives in Strasbourg France