Early life

Born in Bucharest, Lara is the only child of Valentin Plătăreanu, a Bucharest actor, and his wife, Doina. When she was four (in 1983) her family decided to flee to West Germany to escape Nicolae Ceauşescu's regime in Communist Romania. Although the family had originally planned to emigrate to Canada, they settled down in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, before eventually moving to Berlin.

After graduating at the Französisches Gymnasium Berlin in 1997, Lara went on studying acting under the management of her father, co-founder of the Theaterwerkstatt Charlottenburg, until 2000. Lara is multilingual. In addition to her native Romanian, she is fluent in German, English and French.

Career

By sixteen, she was already playing lead roles in various television dramas; since then her career has developed and she has become a respected film actress. Her most famous role to date, which has resulted in international recognition, is Traudl Junge, Adolf Hitler's secretary, in the Academy Award-nominated 2004 film Downfall; following this, Francis Ford Coppola wrote her a letter and gave her a leading role in Youth Without Youth (2007).

Other

• In 2007 she also appeared as journalist Annik Honoré in the film Control, the Ian Curtis biopic.
• In 2008, she served as a member of the Cannes Film Festival jury.
• She played a lead role in Greek director Theo Angelopoulos's 2008 film The Dust of Time, opposite Irène Jacob and Bruno Ganz.
• She has also appeared in several French productions, including Napoléon and L'Affaire Farewell.
• More recently, she appeared in The Reader and Der Baader Meinhof Komplex which were both nominated for the 81st Academy Awards (best picture and best foreign language film, respectively).

Personal life

In August 2009, she married English actor Sam Riley, with whom she acted in the films Control and Suite Française. In January 2014, she gave birth to their first child, a boy.

Filmography

• Stella Stellaris (1994, TV miniseries)
• Ich begehre dich (1995)
• Mensch, Pia! (1996, TV series, breakthrough role)
• Das Vorsprechen (1997, Short)
• Faust: Tote weinen nicht (1997, TV)
• Die Bubb Scholz Story (1998, TV Movie)
• Tatort: Fürstenschüler (1998,TV)
• Die Mädchenfalle - Der Tod kommt online (1998, TV Movie)
• Südsee, eigene Insel (1999)
• Polizeiruf 110: Sumpf (1999, TV)
• Sperling (Sperling und der falsche Freund) (1999, TV)
• Luftpiraten - 113 Passagiere in Todesangst (2000,TV Movie)
• Crazy (2000)
• Just Messing About (2000)
• Lady Cop(ep. Die Geliebte des Killers) (2000,TV)
• Vertrauen ist alles (2000, TV film)
• Fisimatenten (2000)
• Der Tunnel (TV film, 2001)
• Honolulu (2001)
• Leo und Claire (2001)
• Liebe und Verrat (2002, TV film)
• Was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht (2002)
• 99 Euro Films (2002)
• Napoléon (2002, TV miniseries)
• Doctor Zhivago (2002, TV film)
• Schleudertrauma (2002, TV film)
• Nackt (2002)
• Trenck (2003, TV film)
• Der Wunschbaum (2004, TV miniseries)
• Leise Krieger (2004, Short)
• Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel)
• Cowgirl (2004)
• Offset (2005)
• Der Fischer und seine Frau (2005)
• Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe (2005)
• Wo ist Fred? (2006)
• I Really Hate My Job (2007)
• Control (2007, directed by Anton Corbijn)
• The Company (2007, TV miniseries)
• Youth Without Youth (2007, directed by Francis Ford Coppola)
• The City of Your Final Destination (2008, directed by James Ivory)
• Miracle at St. Anna (2008, directed by Spike Lee)
• Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (2008, directed by Uli Edel)
• The Dust of Time (2008)
• The Reader (2008, directed by Stephen Daldry)
• Hinter Kaifeck (Kaifeck Murder) (2009)
• L'affaire Farewell (2009)
• City of Life (2009)
• The Nazi Officer's Wife (2010)
• Quartier lointain (2010)
• Je n'ai rien oublié (2010)
• Rubbeldiekatz (2011, directed by Detlev Buck)
• Imagine (2012, directed by Andrzej Jakimowski)
• Move On (2012)
• Nachtlärm (2012)
• Rush (2013, directed by Ron Howard)
• Suite Française (2015, directed by Saul Dibb)
• Vier gegen die Bank (2016, directed by Wolfgang Petersen)
• Geostorm (2016, directed by Dean Devlin)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]