Axel Prahl

Axel Prahl grew up in Neustadt in Holstein alongside a brother His mother was a sales assistant and his stepfather worked at the employment office At the age of 14 Prahl entered a music competition in Neustadt in Holstein he won the local round thereby qualifying to compete at the state level However fearing that such success might fundamentally alter his life he declined to participate in the state finals He dropped out of a vocational training program in the metalworking trade after just one year spent time living as a street musician in Spain subsequently earned his specialized university entrance qualification and went on to study music and mathematics for five semesters at the College of Education in Kiel Prahl is an accomplished guitarist and counts Pat Metheny among his musical role models though during his youth he also performed Irish folk music Ultimately from 1982 to 1985 he completed a degree in acting in Kiel Prahl began his professional theater career in 1984 subsequently joining the SchleswigHolstein State Theater Prahl has lived in Berlin since 1992 This was followed by engagements at the RenaissanceTheater the GripsTheater and the Kammerspiele chamber theater of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin During his drama school dayswhile holding an apprentice contract at the Theater KielPrahl performed with the band Ougenweide and subsequently founded the band Impuls At that time his musical and acting pursuits ran in parallel until Prahl ultimately decided to focus exclusively on acting Axel Prahl made his television debut in 1992 in Max Färberböcks Schlafende Hunde Also in 1992 he provided the German voice dubbing for Michael Chiklis in an episode of the series Miami Vice In Nachtgestalten 1999Prahls first feature filmhe played a police officer in a supporting role since then he has frequently been cast in similar roles including in Die Polizistin Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt and Der Grenzer und das Mädchen The film Nachtgestalten also marked the beginning of a successful collaboration with director Andreas Dresen for Die Polizistin Halbe Treppe and Willenbrock Axel Prahl was honored with various acting awards including the Adolf Grimme Prize Since 2002 in his role as Chief Inspector Frank Thiel he has teamed up with Jan Josef Liefers to form the investigative duo based in Münster for the WDRs Tatort series In 2007 Prahl also contributed the title songa reinterpretation of a wellknown pop hitto the feature film Du bist nicht allein In the music video for the song Wenn es passiert by the band Wir sind Helden he appears as a traveling salesman Prahl and Andreas Dresen perform together in a band with no name whose repertoire includes cover versions of songs by artists such as Rio Reiser and Gerhard Gundermann On February 27 2009 the audiobook Wo die wilden Maden graben by Thorsten Nagelschmidt was released featuring Axel Prahl as a guest narrator alongside Farin Urlaub Prahl subsequently narrated the audiobook North Western in 2013 Axel Prahl has three daughters and one son He is divorced from his second wife and resides in Berlin