Samuel Finzi

Born in 1966 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, as son of a Jewish-Bulgarian family. He studied acting at the State Academy for Theatre and Film in Sofia, and began acting in Germany at the beginning of the 1990s. A close working relationship developed between him and the director Dimiter Gotscheff. From 2003–2005 he was engaged at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Since 2006 he has been at the Deutsches Theater, where he works with Dimiter Gotscheff. He has also worked with Benno Besson, Jürgen Gosch, Werner Schröter, Robert Wilson, Frank Castorf, Johan Simons, Michael Thalheimer and Ivan Panteleev. In 1995 Samuel Finzi received the Northrhein-Westphalia Best Actor award, and in 1996 he received the award for Most Promising Young Actor from the City of Düsseldorf. In 2001 he was awarded the Golden Chest for best male actor in the International Television Festival in Plovdiv. He has appeared in various German and Bulgarian film and TV productions. In 2011 he received the theatre award of the Stiftung Preußischer Seehandlung. Samuel Finzi and Wolfram Koch are joint recipients of the Gertrud-Eysoldt-Ring 2014 for their roles in Waiting for Godot. The jury of the magazine Theater heute elected Samuel Finzi as Actor of the Year 2015 for his part in Waiting for Godot. He currently performs at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, the Schauspiel Hannover and the Burgtheater in Vienna.