Leonie Benesch
Birthday: Born in 1991-04-22 in Hamburg, Germany
Deathday: Alive
Leonie Benesch (born April 22, 1991) is a German actress who has played roles in major productions including Babylon Berlin and The Crown, as well as Around the World in 80 Days. She is currently based in London. In 2009, Benesch played the role of Eva in the film The White Ribbon, which won the Golden Palm. Film critics singled out her performance as "a discovery". She received the American "Young Artist Award" for her work, as well as a "New Faces Award". In 2010, she performed in Philip Koch's drama Picco and in Sophie Heldman's film Colors in the Dark (Satte Farben vor Schwarz), where she worked alongside Senta Berger and Bruno Ganz. In 2017, Benesch performed in Babylon Berlin as Greta Overbeck, winning the "German Acting Prize". Benesch also performed in The Crown as the sister of Prince Philip, Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark. In 2020, she was cast in the BBC miniseries Around the World in 80 Days, alongside David Tennant as Phileas Fogg and Ibrahim Koma as Passepartout. Benesch grew up in Tübingen, and attended the Freie Waldorfschule. She also attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She is of French and Transylvanian descent.
TV Credits
Howards End
Character: Frieda Mosenbach
The social and class divisions in early 20th century England through the intersection of three families - the wealthy Wilcoxes, the gentle and idealistic Schlegels and the lower-middle class Basts....
Der Kriminalist
Character: Clarissa von Tannenhof
Der Kriminalist is a German television series produced by Monaco Film Hamburg, subsidiary of Odeon Film. Directors during the first season were Sherry Hormann and Torsten C. Fischer, during the second: Thomas Jahn, Jobst Oetzmann and Torsten C. Fischer....
Heiter bis tödlich - Morden im Norden
Character: Gaby Zinke
Morden im Norden is a German Police that has been broadcast by Das Erste. The show is set in Lübeck, Germany Morden im Norden is part of a series of commonly branded shows with similar themes called "Heiter bis tödlich"....
Tatort
Character: Julia
Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss, crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland....
Babylon Berlin
Character: Greta Overbeck
Beneath the decadence of 1929 Berlin, lies an underworld city of sin. Police investigator Gereon Rath has been transferred from Cologne to the epicenter of political and social changes in the Golden Twenties....
SOKO Köln
Character: Nadia Winkowski
The SOKO Köln investigates the cathedral city with humor and often with hard work. Their cases take them into a variety of environments, from the Cologne clique to the terraced housing estates on the outskirts of the city....
The Crown
Character: Princess Cecilie
The gripping, decades-spanning inside story of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Prime Ministers who shaped Britain's post-war destiny. The Crown tells the inside story of two of the most famous addresses in the world – Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street – and the intrigues, love lives and machinations behind the great events that shaped the second half of the 20th century. Two houses, two courts, one Crown....
Moresnet
Character:
Ben returns to his mysterious hometown of Moresnet after the death of his father. Together with his childhood friends, he digs up an old time capsule and discovers the diary of his psychologically disturbed brother containing a lurid prophecy: a list of names with dates of death. Within two weeks, each of them will die. Or won't they?...
Der Schwarm
Character: Charlie Wagner
Across the globe, strange happenings, borne out of the oceans, are mystifying and imperiling the world’s population. A group of scientists undertakes a terrifying mission to the depths of the Arctic Ocean to confront a deadly intelligent life force bent on human extinction....
Brecht
Character: Young Elisabeth Hauptmann
East Berlin, 1956. Bertolt Brecht, revolutionary of the theater and poet of the state, looks back: his exploits as a teenager during the World War I; his romantic adventures during the twenties; the escape of the Nazi regime; the return from exile. The life of a timeless classic, a class fighter, an indefatigable free spirit, a committed artist....
Zeit der Geheimnisse
Character:
A Christmas reunion becomes a gateway to the past in this three-part series that explores the intimate complexities of one family's history....
Der Überläufer
Character: Hildegard Roth
Summer 1944. Walter Proska is about to return to the Eastern Front when his train is blown up by partisans. Together with a scattered bunch of German soldiers, cut off from the front, he awaits certain death while the commands of his superior Willi Stehauf are becoming more and more senseless and inhuman....
Around the World in 80 Days
Character: Abigail 'Fix' Fortescue
Following an outrageous bet, Fogg and his valet, Passepartout, take on the legendary journey of circumnavigating the globe in just 80 days, swiftly joined by aspiring journalist Abigail Fix, who seizes the chance to report on this extraordinary story....
Der Club der singenden Metzger
Character:
A young man and his wife struggling to create a good life for themselves in a new country. Based on Louise Erdrich's novel 'The Master Butchers Singing Club'....
Vienna Blood
Character: Helena Rieger
Max Liebermann, a student of Sigmund Freud, helps Detective Rheinhardt in the investigation of a series of disturbing murders around the grand cafes and opera houses of 1900s Vienna....
Spy City
Character: Eliza Hahn
After a defector is murdered, British agent Fielding Scott is assigned to track down a mole in his own ranks in 1961 Berlin. His investigation leads him into a deadly web of crime, betrayal and paranoia. Who can Scott trust in the city of spies?...
Movie Credits
The White Ribbon
Character: Eva
An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI....
Picco
Character: Kevins Girlfriend
Kevin is new in youth prison. Due to over-occupancy he has to share a cell with Tommy, Andy and Marc. A partnership of convenience in a system where only the strong prevail and which is dominated by violence and latent aggression. Oppression and beatings are a daily occurence. It is hard for Kevin to establish himself. Especially Marc and Andy are after him. He's afraid of not sticking it out. Only Tommy gives him an amicable advice: In this system, you're either a victim or a culprit. If he doe...
George
Character: Margot Hanke
...
Das Jerusalem-Syndrom
Character: Maria
A young pregnant woman who lives in Jerusalem believes she is going to bring the son of God into the world. Her older sister tries to convince her to return with her to Germany. Then the young woman disappears....
Die Flut ist pünktlich
Character: Mia Halbach
A corpse is washed up on the beach of the North Sea. The deceased is Alexander, husband of the beautiful Bettina. They have been coming to the island for a long time and possess a cottage there. At first no one doubts that Alexander died of an accident, but the young policewoman Maike, who has known the family since her childhood, thinks that Alexander should have been familiar with the mudflat. Did he kill himself?...
The Teachers' Lounge
Character: Carla Nowak
When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her....
Beautiful Bitch
Character: Gitti
The story opens with Bica, a solvent abusing waif, trying in vain to evade the Romanian police with her infant brother in tow. Separated from her sibling she is taken to Germany, concealed in the trunk of a car. There she is trained as a thief, picking the pockets of strangers to fill those of her patron. One of her victims is the separated father of Milka, a brat with razor sharp tongue. From this unlikely start a friendship forms and Bica gets a glimpse into a world of material security, if no...
September 5
Character: Marianne Gebhardt
During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American broadcasting team is thrust from covering sports to reporting a dramatic hostage situation involving Israeli athletes. A young producer, unexpectedly leading the live broadcast, faces difficult decisions as time runs out, rumors spread, and the hostages' lives hang in the balance....
8 Seconds
Character: Helen
Esra leads two parallel lives. In her daily life the vivacious and spirited Esra adores her family but feels caged in her relationships. In her dream life, she yearns to discover the identity of the man who visits her dreams. While in waking life she struggles in vain, in her dream life she evolves in secret. But what if waking and dreaming were never separate and the real secret is shored by all?...
Colors in the Dark
Character: Yvonne
Anita and Fred have been a couple for 50 years, and happily married for nearly as long. They have two grown children, and their grandchildren are finishing school. Both can look back at a fulfilling past, but their lives are still rich and vibrant. The fact that Fred is terribly ill has been hidden from the family. For the first time in all these years, Fred takes some liberties, which his wife interprets as an affront. Never before has she felt so abandoned. Although she starts to question her ...
Persian Lessons
Character: Elsa
Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching th...
The Master Butcher
Character: Eva
After his return from World War I, there is no more work for Fidelis in his parents' butcher shop in Swabia, Germany. To make a better life for himself and Eva, the former fiancée of a friend who fell in battle, he emigrates to Argus, a town in North Dakota, in the United States. The artist Delphine, in whom Eva will find a friend, also moves there. To relieve Eva's homesickness, Fidelis founds a singing club....
Phoenix
Character:
Anton is about to lose the two most important women in his life but it takes the story of the king's son to make him face his fate....
Late Shift
Character: Floria Lind
An entirely ordinary day on the beds ward of a surgical department. The nursing team is understaffed due to a shortage of personnel. Despite the hectic environment, Floria cares for her patients with expertise and full dedication. Although she gives her all, the shift gradually spirals out of control – until it eventually leads to a dramatic outburst....