RolfKaniesEnglish

Welcome to the English section of the Rolf Kanies web site. Rolf thanks you for your interest and hopes you find the information you are looking for.

In late November Paul Donovan showed "The Conclave" at a cinema in Berlin. Rolf, Director Mr.Schrewe, and actor James Faulkner were in the audience. Rolf loved it and thought everyone was great in it, especially Brian Downey.

After returning from Halifax, in February 2006 Rolf played the senior consultant in the miniseries "Die Sturmflut" (The Flood Disaster), which was a film about a catastrophe event occurring in Hamburg. Germany in 1962. During that time he also did a speaking part in a modern concert in Cologne and another in Bonn. He also did many small parts in films and then played a part in a famous German crime series called "Tatort" (Scene of Crime)

In the fall of 2005 he worked on "Stoertebeker-das Herz eines Piraten" (Stoertebeker- The Heart of a Pirate) directed by Miguel Alexandre. Stoertebeker was a famous man in Germany in the late 13 th century. The noblemen of those times called him a pirate, but actually he was more like Robin Hood. He took the money from the rich and gave it to the poor. Rolf played a crazy nobleman who caught Stoertebeker. The film was a European production with French, Austrian , Italian, Spanish actors and of course German actors.

After that he was in "Heimliche Liebe- der Schüler und die Postbotin" (Secret Love) about a pupil and a postwoman. Rolf played the father of that 18 year old boy. It was shot in Berlin and Majorca and directed by Franziska Buch.

Rolf's "Der Untergang"("The Downfall") was nominated for the Oscar and a longer television version of this film was recently released on DVD. Rolf played General Krebs in this movie, who was a high General in the Hitler regime.

His film Film "Himmel über Australien"( Sky above Australia) might be shown in the English speaking countries, possibly called "Rapture of the deep". It is the story of a daughter, who lost her father and then later . She finds that he is in Australia. Rolf plays the father who he says is a very strange dude.

Rolf spent Christmas with his father who is nearly 82 years old and doing well. He sends us his kindest regards and best wishes for 2006.

Rolf has updated his IMDB listing. Pretty spiffy picture there, which was of course snagged and popped into his picture gallery.

Rolf reports that he has been working pretty much non-stop since April 2004 and things got so hectic in 2005 that he really didn’t have had the time to spend on anything else, not even his private life. He is of course grateful to be so busy and not have to contend with unemployment that is usually a large part of an actor’s life. However, he thinks he will have to devote a bit more effort towards getting in contact with the real world again. So he is going to take this time in the run-up towards Christmas to re-connect with people.

Rolf reports that he is currently busy (and when is he not?) shooting two parts at the same time. Sadly, he forgot to say what the parts were for. But he dashed off his email while hurrying to catch a plane, and he promises more info will be forthcoming later.

He laments that he has not yet got his own site up, but does promise to think about that. (Ed. Note.... anyone who could assist me with German translations of his information on this site. Do please contact me, your assistance would be most appreciated.)

While he forgot to send the Australian pictures that he promised, he did send two from the Donovan Mini-series The Conclave. One is with Brian Blessed, after he had become Pope. The other is a painted picture of Rolf's Cardinal Bessarion character. Paul Donnovan wanted Rolf painted as this Cardinal and an artist from Halifax, who was working on the show did it. Apparently he is a real portrait artist.

Rolf is back in Germany after spending January in Halifax shooting Paul Donovan's new mini-series called The Conclave. He said the shooting was really great with so many lovely and good actors from Italy, Spain England and Canada! Rolf played a very pious Cardinal Bessarion , who was a greek man, who converted to the Latin Rite. And of course he enjoyed working again with all the guys from the Lexx crew!

He just returned from visiting his father in Frankfurt and will soon have a speaking part in a concert in Cologne.

Rolf has returned to Berlin for the holidays and to rest up for his planned shoot in Halifax in January of 2005. He has been cast in the long awaited Italian Renaissance piece being produced by Paul Donovan and Directed by Christoph Schrew. This movie 'The Conclave' follows the life of of Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI.

Rolf will be Australia (Perth-Fremantle) for two and a half months , being one of the main players in a large TV movie. No word on the name of it. Since last we heard from him he also shot a film in Hamburg and before that he was filming in South Africa. He said to keep a look out for the film "The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich" in cinemas. He plays an Infantry General named Hans Krebs and according to one reviewer it is suppose to be extremely historically accurate.

Rolf recently popped in to the "Berlinale", which is a huge film festival, were he viewed quite a few films and go to quite a few parties... which he found to be quite exhausting, but fun.

The short film he was in called "Falling Grace" (Where he played President Bush talking to an angel) was one of the films which made it into the festival. Apparently this same director had another film called 'Seven Brothers' which was in a San Francisco film festival.

An Indian film were he would have again played Hitler has fallen through for him due to scheduling problems.

Rolf will be in the studio's in March working on dubbing his film "Joe and Max" into German for release there. So he is pretty happy about that.

Other than that he reports that they have only a bit of snow this winter in his local this winter, but that it is still cold. He is looking forward to his upcoming work.. and spring also no doubt.

Rolf recently spoke with a friend of his who was one of the 3D animators on Lexx. This gentleman gave him a few ideas about who and where he might contact to get a manager for a German webpage. So perhaps we will see something on that front soon.

October 12, 2003 - Rolf has been back and forth between Munich and St Petersburg a few time in the last month or two. He stayed at the ASTORIA hotel, a famous hotel there that he seemed to like quite a bit. During one of his German stops, he did play President Bush and has kindly sent us pictures of that to put in the Picture Gallery.

May 24, 2003 - Rolf is major, major busy.!!!! But he is not complaining when where so many actors are without work. He says that It might be quite possible that we will see him in a movie in America next year. It is about the the last 10 days of Hitler, but Rolf will not be playing him again, he will be playing a famous General in his army. the movie will be shot in St.Petersburg, which he is very happy to visit. But... because this General has to speak Russian in one scene of the movie, he is very busy trying to re-learn in learning Russian again.

He may do a crime series with Mr. Schrewe in June and after that he will play President Bush in a cinema project by a University Film Student in Berlin.

March 12, 2003 - Rolf hopes we will all soon be over the Mega Con Plague. He loved the pictures of Brian and Patricia that he received from Mega Con. They reminded him of Patricia and Brian and all the lovely times they had.

Apparently the remodeling on his flat was not as finished as he had hoped it would be. He used the word 'disaster', and the phrase 'they must come back' which of course would put a damper on anyone's day. But he claims he will manage. I know I am not alone in wishing him good luck with his contractors.

The names of the two films he mentioned last week that he was working on are "Tatort" , which is a famous German crime film and the other is "Komissar Rex" which is an episode of an Austrian crime series.

March 8, 2003 Rolf has two big parts he is working on; one in a series ; a doctor, who might be a murderer and a second one in a film, where he will definitely will be the murderer.

The work on these two parts is the reason he can't play a part in an American scifi film , done by Christoph Schrewe that is being filmed in Bulgaria; Sofia. He is very sorry about that, since he likes working with him.

He heard about the Mega Con convention from Patricia, and hoped we all had a great time there. (Pics from Mega Con for Rolf 1 2 )

December 19, 2002 - Rolf is very busy at the moment, and has lots of stuff happening. Tomorrow he will leave for a small trip through Germany, meeting with his father, and then will return Home on the 7th of January. He got a chance to meet with Paul Donnovan when he was in Berlin, and has been playing a lot of different parts in the last months and other things that happened. I wish all Lexxians a wonderful Christmas time and a happy New Year full of luck, health and all the things you wish to get !!!! So Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

September 10, 2002 - Rolf is currently playing a small part as a Professor of Fine Art in a movie this week. No word on the title, but I will update this when I find out.

He is happy to report that none of his friends or family were affected by the terrible floods that they have had in Germany in the past several weeks.

August 9, 2002 - Rolf is having problems with his main internet account. If you wrote him anytime in the last six or seven weeks, your email is in unreachable. Please resend it to his hotmail account.

Rolf has just returned from Italy and went right to work on his new show reel. Which meant he had to rewatch all the Lexx-eps that he was in to pick the scenes he wants to be on the new tape. (Note: Rolf thought that Italy was an amazing country filled with wonderful people. He also was really moved while re-watching "Yo way Yo" which he thought was just brilliant.)

July 10, 2002 - Awww, Rolf is working and will not be able to make it to UnCon in Halifax this year. But he will be thinking of us and has sent a big stack of autographed stuff to be given away to the lucky attendees.

June 9, 2002 - Well, Rolf has been busy lately. He has been working non-stop in various film and movie projects since shortly after Christmas. This March, the United States was able to catch his performance as Hitler in the Starz movie ‘Joe and Max’, while those lucky people in Germany will get to see him in several other projects coming up soon. In April he wrote that he had a main part playing a Turkish lawyer in one episode of a crime series . Then he has another film coming up with Christoph Schrewe called 'Alibi'. It’s German tile is, ‘Nacht, in der ganz ehrlich überhaupt niemand Sex hatte, Die'. Try saying that in a hurry.

Rolf has been able to keep in touch with some of his Lexx co-workers, as several of the crew on his recent projects have also worked with him on Lexx. Also he received a visit a few weeks ago from producer Paul Donovan, who stopped by on his way back from Italy .

From his childhood days, Rolf Kanies wanted to be an actor and between the age of four and fourteen created a Punch and Judy show in a small German village, where he was brought up, with almost one hundred hand puppets.

He studied acting at the Westphalian Actor`s School, Bochum and the Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin. When he finished actor school, he was not at all interested in film or television. His only aim was to be a theatre actor. Engagements have led him from the Hebbel-Theater Berlin, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Staatstheater Kassel through to Krefeld, Cologne, Neuss, Weimar , Graz ( Austria) and Basel in Switzerland, where roles have included Hamlet, Faust, Romeo, Mercutio, Macbeth, Theseus/Oberon (A Midsummer Night`s Dream), Sir Toby (Twelfth Night), Dromio of Ephesus (A Comedy of Errors) , Lucio (Measure for Measure) , Biff (Death of a Salesman) and Orest (Iphigenia). He also played several main parts in musicals.

After nearly 20 years of stage acting he decided to start to work in cinema and television and has worked, in the last five years, on quite a few German series, features and three films for cinema. Two years ago Christoph Schrewe asked him, if he would like to play in a SciFi series from Canada, called 'Lexx' . He agreed, flew over and worked on the episode, 'The Battle', as Priest. One year after that, producer Paul Donovan invited him to play the President of the United States of America , but again, as Priest. In between shooting the fourth season of Lexx, he worked on several films in Germany and played Adolf Hitler in the American production 'Joe and Max', with Till Schweiger and Peta Wilson, which was broadcasted in America in March.

Important Note: If you are requesting a reply or autograph, please remember to add a self addressed envelope with your request. Also the return envelope should have the proper type of stamp on it for the country you are sending it to. So, if you don't live in Germany, you will need to use an international reply coupon. You can pick one up at your local post office.