David Kross

David Kross
Kross in August 2015.
Born	David Kroß (1990-07-04) 4 July 1990 (age 26) Henstedt-Ulzburg, Germany
Residence	Berlin-Mitte, Germany
Other names	David Kross
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2002–present

David Kross, or David Kroß, (born 4 July 1990) is a German actor. He began his career at a young age with a small role in the 2002 film Hilfe, ich bin ein Junge and worked sporadically, mainly focusing on his school work. In 2008, he won the starring role of Michael Berg in critically acclaimed film The Reader. For his part, he was nominated for various awards and went on to win the Sierra Award at the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards for Youth in Film.

Kross has since worked in both German and English speaking film roles, including War Horse, Race and Into the White.

Kross was born in Henstedt-Ulzburg, 20 miles north of Hamburg. He grew up in Bargteheide, where he attended Eckhorst High School until 2007. He has two brothers and one sister. He played basketball at the professional TSV between 2004 and 2006.

His career started with a small appearance in the 2002 film Hilfe, ich bin ein Junge (English: Help, I'm a Boy!). In December 2003, he joined Blaues Wölkchen, a small group from a children's theatre in Bargteheide. His first major theatrical appearance was in Hilfe, die Herdmanns kommen.

In 2005, Kross came to the attention of Detlev Buck through his daughter, Bernadette, and he auditioned for Tough Enough; Buck hired Kross to play the lead, a 15-year-old boy who moves with his mother from a rich neighborhood of Berlin (Zehlendorf) to the Neukoelln area, known at the time for its high number of Turkish immigrants and high crime level. Kross not only won praise at Berlinale in 2006, but also won Best Actor in Nuremberg at the 11th Filmfestival Deutschland/Tuerkei.

In 2006, Kross worked again with Buck in the film Hands Off Mississippi (Hände weg von Mississippi in German), playing a baker apprentice. In the fall of the same year, he started shooting a film by Marco Kreuzpaintner, Krabat (The Satanic Mill in English). In this version of Otfried Preußler's children's book, Kross plays the title role, one of the apprentices of magic, with co-stars Daniel Brühl and Robert Stadlober. The film was released on 19 September 2007 in movie festivals and in October 2008 in theatres.