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Johanna ter Steege was born in Wierden (Netherlands) on 10th of May 1961. From 1979 through 1984 she studied at the Academie voor Drama en Kunst in Kampen, Netherlands, followed by an apprenticeship for stage acting at the School of Acting in Arnhem (until 1988). As a student, she appeared in several stage productions and made her screen debut in 1988 as a kidnap victim in George Sluizer's thriller "Spoorloos" ("The Vanishing", NL), a role for which she won Best Supporting Actress at the European Film Prize. Since then, ter Steege has been appearing in numerous feature films and TV productions, mostly in lead roles or important supporting roles. Stanley Kubrick cast her for his planned holocaust drama "The Aryan Papers", which he then never realized.
Her most important works in the 1990s include her portrayal of the main character Emma in István Szabó's "Süße Emma, liebe Böbe" ("Dear Emma, Sweet Böbe", HU/DE 1992), as well as the lead roles in the film about an amour fou "Tot ziens" ("Goodbye", NL 1995) and in Hark Bohm's "Für immer und immer" (1997) about a custody battle. In "Immortal Beloved" (GB/US 1995), a biopic about Beethoven, Johanna ter Steege portrayed Johanna Reiß, the composer's sister-in-law. In the biopic "Rembrandt" (FR/DE/NL 1999), she starred as Saskia Uylenburgh, the painter's wife and muse.
Director Kai Wessel cast her for his coming-of-age film "Das Jahr der ersten Küsse" ("The Year of the First Kiss", 2002) as the main character’s mother. In Sandra Nettelbeck's children's film "Sergeant Pepper" (2004), she also played the mother of the protagonist. Her performance in the one-person film "Last Conversation" (NL 2009) as a woman who while driving, is left by her married lover over the phone earned her many very positive reviews.
Other important roles in feature films include that of the mother of a girl with leukemia in the award-winning family drama "Achtste-groepers huilen niet" ("Cool Kids Don't Cry", NL 2012) and that of a Holocaust survivor in "À la vie" ("To Life", FR 2014). On TV, she was part of the ensemble of the political series "Brussel" (NL 2017).
In 2018, she worked again with director Sandra Nettelbeck, starring in her ensemble film "Was uns nicht umbringt" ("What Doesn’t Kill Us", 2018) as a gambling addicted foley artist, who falls in love with her therapist.