Daniel César Martín Brühl González Domingo (listen (help·info); born June 16, 1978) is a German actor. Brühl was born in Barcelona, Spain, the son of German stage director Hanno Brühl and a Catalan professor mother. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Cologne, Germany, where he grew up. He was raised in a fully bilingual home, and so speaks both German and Spanish fluently as well as Catalan. Brühl recently separated from his long-time girlfriend, actress Jessica Schwarz, to whom he was engaged. Brühl began acting at a young age, and made his international breakthrough role in 2003 as Alex Kerner in the Golden Globe-nominated film Good Bye Lenin!, which reached an estimated six million cinema-goers world-wide.
In 2003, Brühl won the European Film Academy award trophies for Best Actor (Critics/Audience Awards) for the role. Brühl made his English-speaking film debut in 2004's Ladies in Lavender, starring alongside British acting legends Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. The same year, he won the Peoples Choice trophy for Best Actor in the same award giving body for the film Love in Thoughts while at the same time, he was nominated for Best Actor (critics) for The Edukators. In 2006, he was invited as one of the short film and Cinéfondation juries in the Cannes Film Festival. In September 2006, his Cannes-nominated film Salvador (Puig Antich) premiered in Spain. In the film, he played Salvador Puig Antich, a Catalan anarchist executed in the Franco era.
Brühl's upcoming projects include the Anglo-Russian production In Transit where he will be playing a young Nazi soldier opposite John Malkovich. In June 2006, he filmed Two Days in Paris, a romantic comedy film which was directed by French actress Julie Delpy who also stars in the film. Brühl has been offered many projects. He has just finished filming Krabat, based on a popular German children's story, which will premiere in German cinemas in early 2008. Also, last August, he finished filming the vampire motion picture After Dark, a vampire love story film also starring Canadian actress Elisha Cuthbert and English actor Robert Pattinson.