After completing his actor training at the Ernst Busch University of Theatre Arts Berlin, Charly Hübner worked only on the stage until 2003 – including at Schauspiel Frankfurt and Theater am Turm, both in Frankfurt am Main, and in guest appearances at the Schaubühne in Berlin. In 1996 he was awarded the Friedrich-Luft-Preis for his role in Christmas at the Ivanovs’ and the best actor award at the national drama school competition in Chemnitz. 

His career in television began in 2003, when he appeared in shows such as Wenn Weihnachten wahr wird, directed by Sherry Hormann, who also directed Hübner’s cinema debut that same year: Guys and Balls. Further movie roles followed in Eoin Moore’s No Sweat (2005), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Oscar-winning East German secret police drama The Lives of Others (2006), and Bastian Günther’s Autopilots (2007). From 2007, Hübner was back on stage in Zurich, Cologne and Hamburg. From 2008 to 2013 he teamed up with Anke Engelke, appearing in sketches in her TV comedy series Ladykracher, which won several awards including a German Comedy Award and a German Television Award. From 2010 to 2022 he played detective Alexander Bukow, alongside partner Anneke Kim Sarnau, in the Rostock edition of long-running police drama Police Call 110. For that role, in 2013 he received a Bavarian Film Award and a Metropolis award from the German Directors Guild, and in 2014 a Jupiter Award.

In 2013 Hübner received a Goldene Kamera award for his role in the critically acclaimed psychological thriller The Good Neighbour. That same year, the multifaceted actor starred in the drama Eltern alongside Christiane Paul, as the father of two children. Next came Alexandre Powelz’s Ohne Dich (2014); the first in Detlev Buck’s film series Bibi & Tina (2014-2022); and award-winning tragicomic TV series Open the Wall, directed by Christian Schwochow, for which Hübner received the best actor award at the Baden-Baden television festival in 2014 and a Grimme Award in 2015. Open the Wall also won a Bambi award for TV Event of the Year. In 2015 Hübner appeared in the TV movies Vorsicht vor Leuten, Anderst schön and The Lost Brother, and received a German Comedy Award as best actor. Now a resident of Hamburg, Hübner returned to the stage, in plays including The Idiot, Uncle Vanya, and Crime and Punishment. For his roles in the latter two at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, Hübner was awarded the Gertrud-Eysoldt-Ring in 2015. Additional movie roles followed in, for example, Adolf Winkelmann’s Young Light (2016), set in the Ruhr industrial region; Maria Schrader’s Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2016); and Andreas Dresen’s The Legend of Timm Thaler or The Boy Who Sold His Laughter (2017).

He had subsequent movie roles in Arne Feldhusen’s Magical Mystery or The Return of Karl Schmidt (2017), based on the novel by Sven Regener; Lars Jessen’s TV comedy Lonely Knights, which won a Goldene Kamera in 2018; Lola Randl’s Do You Sometimes Feel Burned Out and Empty?; and Emily Atef’s 3 Days in Quibéron (2018). In 2018 his directorial debut, Wildes Herz, appeared in cinemas – a documentary about popular German punk band Feine Sahne Fischfilet and its frontman Jan “Monchi” Gorkow. In 2019 he appeared in the WDR film and miniseries Klassentreffen; in 2020 in Matti Geschonneck’s miniseries Unterleuten: The Torn Village, adapted from the Juli Zeh novel, and in Hermine Huntgeburth’s film adaptation of the life of German musician Udo Lindenberg, Lindenberg! Mach Dein Ding. He also starred in the Sky series Hausen; the ZDF film Das Verhör in der Nacht; Jan Georg Schütte’s improv film Für immer Sommer 90 (Grimme Award 2021); the TV shows Das Begräbnis and Kranitz; Andreas Dresen’s prizewinning Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush (2022); and the book adaptations Mittagsstunde (2022) and Dark Satellites (2022). 

Hübner has also worked as a voice actor, for example in the German dub of Asterix: The Secret of The Magic Potion (2018). He is also the author of the book Motörhead oder Warum ich James Last dankbar sein sollte (Kiepenhauer & Witsch). In 2023 he appeared in Lars Jessen’s RTL+ series Legend of Wacken; celebrated the premiere of his first full-length feature film as a director, Sophia, Death and Me; and was part of the cast of ARD improv series Das Fest der Liebe. In 2024 he played the leading role in Micha Thinks Big by Lars Jessen and Jan Georg Schütte, before shooting a documentary that accompanies the band Element of Crime, whose music has provided its listeners with comfort and insight for nearly 40 years now. Also in 2024, Hübner published another book, Wenn du wüsstest, was ich weiß... Der Autor meines Lebens (Suhrkamp), an homage to East German writer Uwe Johnson and a declaration of love to reading. Most recently, he played the main character in an episode of David Schalko’s ARD series Warum ich? and in Wolfgang Becker’s final film Berlin Hero.

Christiane Paul was born in East Berlin in 1974 and is one of the most successful and prolific female German actors of her generation. She was discovered as a model shortly after the fall of the Wall and had her movie debut aged 17 in Niklaus Schilling’s Reunification satire Deutschfieber (1991). Alongside her acting career, Paul finished high school and studied medicine, graduating as a doctor in 2002. She has dedicated herself entirely to acting since 2004.

In 1993 Paul starred in her first leading role, alongside Götz George, in Ich und Christine. She attracted more attention in Mark Schlichter’s 1996 thriller Ex, receiving the Max-Ophüls-Preis for best up-and-coming actress. That same year, she received a Bavarian Film Award for her starring role alongside Tobias Moretti and Ralf Bauer in Sharon von Wietersheim’s romantic comedy Workaholic. After playing a supporting role in Til Schweiger’s Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (1997), she then experienced her greatest success to date, starring alongside Jürgen Vogel in Wolfgang Becker’s critically acclaimed tragicomedy Life is All You Get (1997). A year later she again worked with Jürgen Vogel, in Bernd Schadewald’s TV drama Der Pirat. She had her big cinematic breakthrough as the heroine of Fatih Akin’s road movie In July (2000). 

Her other cinema credits include Dani Levy’s I’m the Father (2002); Eoin Moore’s No Sweat (2005); Ralf Huettner’s A Mere Formality (2006); Thomas Heinemann’s Vorne ist verdammt weit weg (2007); Dennis Gansel’s multi-award-winning parable of fascism The Wave (2008), again alongside Jürgen Vogel; and Ben Verbong’s tragicomedy Ob ihr wollt oder nicht (2009). She portrayed the mother of two cheeky young vampires in the three-part children’s film series Vampire Sisters (2012, 2014, 2016), based on the novels by Franziska Gehm. In 2017 she was nominated for a German Film Award for her role in Dani Levy’s Wunderlich’s World (2016). Florian Koerner von Gustorf’s What Might Have Been had its world premiere at the 2019 Munich International Film Festival. In it, Paul played the film’s main character – a former citizen of the defunct German Democratic Republic who unexpectedly re-encounters her first great love. Subsequent movie roles included multi-award-winning migration drama Borga (2020); the comedy It’s Just a Phase, Honeybunny (2021), based on a book by Jochen Gutsch and Maxim Leo; and a remake of The Robber Hotzenplotz (2022), based on the children’s book of the same name. Paul was also part of the large ensemble cast of Rolf Peter Kahl’s The Investigation (2024), appearing as a witness in the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. She can currently be seen in American movie theatres alongside Lili Reinhart in the thriller American Sweatshop.

Paul has acted in numerous top-level television shows and movies, including the thriller Under the Radar, for which she received the Best Actress International Emmy Award in 2016, and the drama Der Fall Bruckner, which received the Grimme Award. From 2018 to 2019 she played ambitious detective Ann Kathrin Klaasen in the ZDF Saturday crime series Ostfriesenblut. The director was Sven Bohse, who she also worked with on the Tatort episode “Borowski und das Land zwischen den Meeren”. She starred in the eight-part Sky apocalyptic drama 8 Days, which premiered at the 2019 Berlinale, and was among the cast of the first season of Franco-German series Parlement and American series FBI: International. In 2026 she will be appearing in the second season of the successful Apple TV+ series Hijack. 

Paul has also worked in the theatre. In 2004, for example, she appeared in a production of Heiner Müller’s The Mission at Haus der Berliner Festspiele, and in 2008 she was in Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. She is currently appearing in Franz Kafka’s The Trial at Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater. 

Born in Hamburg in 1983, Leon Ullrich initially read media culture and German studies in his home city before moving on to study acting at the Berlin University of the Arts. From 2008 to 2010 he was a member of the Maxim Gorki Theater ensemble, before being hired by Schauspielhaus Graz. After that he had guest appearances at, for example, Theater Bremen and the Schaubühne in Berlin, and he performed in his own documentary theatre series at Berlin’s Ballhaus Ost.

Ullrich has worked in film and television since 2013. For example, he appeared in Simon Verhoeven’s comedy Nightlife (2020) and Luis Schubert’s short Blind Spots, which premiered at the Hof International Film Festival. He has also acted in a large number of TV series, with recurring roles in the Dresden edition of Tatort, the ZDFneo sitcom Doppelhaushälfte, Dustin Loose’s crime drama Divided We Stand; and Other People’s Money. For his appearance in the second season of ZDF’s political sitcom Eichwald, MdB, directed by Fabian Möhrke, in 2020 Ullrich received the Deutscher Schauspielpreis for best actor in a comedy role. In 2023 he was part of the ensemble in David Wnendt’s Sun and Concrete, which was also awarded a Deutscher Schauspielpreis. The film also received multiple nominations for a German Film Award. Most recently, Ullrich was in Hamburg shooting the feature film "Sommer auf Asphalt" (working title) with Mala Emde and Christoph-Maria Herbst.