Louis Hofmann stars as Jonas Kahnwald in new Netflix original series DARK, centered around the disappearance of two young children in a German town.
Their going missing leads to double lives and fractured relationships being exposed among four families — with a supernatural twist which links the goings on in the present day to the same town back in 1986.
Despite being just 20 years old, German actor Hofmann already had a number of credits to his name before starring in the German-language thriller, as well as Amazon Original series You Are Wanted.
Here’s five things you didn’t know about the up-and-coming star.
1 He decided to be an actor when he was 11
Louis has previously revealed how he first decided to be an actor when he was just 11 and signed up for representation though an agency. In 2010, Hofmann — who was born in 1997 — started out his career in German language TV movies and TV series.
His first big break came when he starred as Tom Sawyer in a German film adaptation of the Mark Twain novel in 2011, and then as the same character a year later in an adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
2 He won best supporting actor at the ‘Danish Oscars’
One of Louis’s biggest roles to date was as Sebastian Schumann in 2015 Danish historical war movie Land of Mine, which won a string of international film festival awards and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards in early 2017, eventually losing out to Iranian movie The Salesman.
However, Hofmann won the Best Supporting Actor award at the Danish equivalent of the Oscars, the Bodil Awards — the biggest film awards ceremony in Denmark.
3 2017 saw his career really take off
As well as starring in Netflix original DARK as Jonas Kahnwald — which sees him feature in eight episodes of the 10 episode series, 2017 also saw him star Dalton in Amazon original series You Are Wanted as well as two German films and a German crime drama anthology series Shade of Guilt.
4 His favorite actors are Eddie Redmayne and Leonardo DiCaprio
Hofmann previously told Cineuropa that his favorite international actors are Eddie Redmayne and Leonardo DiCaprio, while his favorite German artist is Tom Schilling. He said: “I just adore their way of acting. Eddie has a very sensitive way of acting, and Leonardo is very physical.
5 He is in Ralph Fiennes next film
Hofmann is currently filming alongside Ralph Fiennes in his latest movie The White Crow, which is about Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev’s defection to the West.
The movie is also directed by Fiennes and stars ballet dancer Oleg Ivenko as Nureyev. Hofmann has said he is “extremely excited” to be part of the film, slated for release in 2018.