Karoline Herfurth

Herfurth was born in East Berlin, East Germany, the daughter of a psychologist mother and a geriatric nurse practitioner father. Her parents divorced when she was two years old. She grew up in Berlin with a brother and five half-brothers and -sisters.^[1] She went to a Waldorf school in Berlin and graduated from Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts.^[2] She learned to play the recorder and studied sociology and political sciences.^[3]

Herfurth had her first role in a TV-series at age ten, and her first part in a movie in 2000, when she was fifteen. She has held several parts as a teenager in German movies such as Mädchen, Mädchen (2001) and Big Girls don't cry (2002), and leading-parts both in TV productions and independent German films. For her part as Lilli Richter in Caroline Link's film A Year ago in Winter, she received the Bavarian Film-Award for best young actress in 2009.^[4]

Herfurth gave her international debut in 2006 in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. In this adaptation of Patrick Süskind's best-selling novel Das Parfum she played the "Plum Girl", the first victim of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. In 2008, she co-starred with Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes in the Academy-Award-Best-Picture-nominee The Reader.^[5]

She directed her first feature-length film SMS für Dich in 2016.

In addition to her acting career, Herfurth featured in the advertising campaigns for Jil Sander's Eve fragrance from 2011 to 2012.^[6] Since 2024, she has been the brand ambassador for cosmetics brand Weleda.^[7]

Herfurth has spoken out opposing the right-wing Pegida movement in Germany.^[8]