Michael Mendl Dies: Charming Man One Moment, Bad Boy the Next

Michael Mendl arrived in film late, after 25 years as a stage actor, but he quickly established a face and voice that audiences remembered. His film debut came in the early 1990s with “Leise Schatten,” a beginning he later attributed to extraordinary luck.

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I play the difficult roles, including the evil ones.

He often played the charming man, yet Mendl described himself more precisely as a character actor. “I play the difficult roles, including the evil ones,” he once said. Crime dramas became a recurring part of his work. He appeared in “Der Alte” alongside Hannelore Hoger and in a 1989 episode of “Tatort,” where he played Koslowski, a suspect in a case involving the young detective Lena Odenthal.

Mendl also reached audiences beyond Germany through the Netflix series “Dark,” playing Bernd Doppler, the former head of the local nuclear power plant. His most important role for German viewers, however, may have been Willy Brandt in the ARD two-part film “Im Schatten der Macht.” The production also featured Matthias Brandt as Günter Guillaume. DER SPIEGEL wrote that Mendl increasingly became Willy Brandt as the film progressed, while praising him for not overdoing the imitation. Mendl himself called it the role of his life.

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The role of my life.

Historical figures and events formed another major strand of his career. In “Downfall” (2004), he played artillery general Helmuth Weidling. He portrayed Pope John Paul II in “Karol Wojtyła: Secrets of a Pope” (2006), and Captain Johannsen in Joseph Vilsmaier’s “The Gustloff” (2007), a television film about the sinking of the ship in 1945. His work earned him several honors, including the Goldene Kamera for “Im Schatten der Macht” and an award for “14 Days to Life.”

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Mendl increasingly becomes Willy Brandt as the film progresses.