Biography:

After an apprenticeship as a typesetter, Heidemarie Schneider trained as an actor at the Academy for Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg from 1964 to 1968. She started her career as a stage actress, working at theaters in Potsdam, Dresden, Meiningen, Erfurt, and Schwerin. From 1976-1994, she appeared as a guest performer at prestigious theaters, such as the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, and the Deutsches Theater and Schaubühne in Berlin.

Though mainly known as a stage actress, Schneider also worked in the film industry. She took supporting roles, until she got the chance to play the lead – a thirty-year-old, single mother in Evelyn Schmidt’s Das Fahrrad. Since then, she has performed in many television productions and has worked with two of Germany’s most successful film directors, Andreas Dresen (in Die Polizistin) and Andreas Kleinert (in Neben der Zeit).

Heidemarie Schneider teaches acting at the private Drama School in Berlin-Charlottenburg, where she also directed The Human Circle 3.1, by Sweden's most prominent contemporary playwright, Lars Norén.