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Michael Thomas was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1962. Through his actor parents Tilla Hohenfels and Fred Weis, he came into contact with the theater as a young child. He was often present when his parents went on tour with their cabaret group 'Wiener Werkel': "I [was] always on the road as a child, a touring car kid," he later told the Austrian magazine 'Rokkos Adventures', "I slept there and got my cocoa. I was in Germany, in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland - and that was incredibly far out for those days!". At times, Thomas also grew up with his conservative grandparents on a farm in the Waldviertel. After frequent changes of school and numerous conflicts with teachers and classmates, Thomas left school at the age of 15 and went on a trip around the world: "That's when I took off, became a sailor and adventurer, wanted to see the world," said Thomas in 'Rokko's Adventures', "I lived in America for two and a half years, was in Africa, Asia, Europe, worked on fishing boats, as a lumberjack, drug dealer, whoremonger, played in a Danish and a German porn movie. "
In between, he returned to Vienna, where he irregularly attended the acting school Krauss. One of his first roles on stage was in Balzac's "Le Faiseur" alongside Horst Tappert. Thomas' stage breakthrough came in 1987/88 in a production of Nigel Williams' "Class Enemy" at Vienna's Theater beim Auersperg, alongside Georg Friedrich, also a newcomer at the time. The play was a great success, Thomas became famous practically overnight. Starting in 1988, he played Old Shatterhand at the Karl May Festival in Austria for 20 summer seasons; the role of Winnetou was given to his close friend Gerhard Rühmkorf. As part of this engagement, Thomas completed special stuntman training for brawls and learned karate, boxing and fencing. In boxing, by his own account, he twice became vice state heavyweight champion. In addition to plays, he has appeared in musicals and gala shows - although he has no vocal training - and even in an opera production of "The Magic Flute" at La Scala in Milan in 1995.
As a film and television actor, Michael Thomas only took on a few smaller roles from the mid-1990s. Among other roles, he played a transvestite in the Mickey Rourke film "Love in Paris" (US/FR/GB 1997) and a mover in an episode of the series "Die Neue - Eine Frau mit Kaliber" (1999). His breakout role was that of a crude stepfather in Ulrich Seidl's "Import/Export" (AT/DE/FR, 2007). While the role was not originally in the script, Seidl was so impressed with Thomas during casting that he rewrote the script for him. The film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, was highly praised by critics. Since then, Thomas has mainly appeared in feature films and TV productions.
He made his directorial debut in 2010 with the short film "Glück". Together with Renate Woltron, he wrote the screenplay for the urban character study "Randgänger" ("Life Off Limits", AT 2012), in which he also took on a leading role. The two co-directed the socially critical youth drama "Across the Mile" (AT 2012). Also as a director, Thomas made the documentary "Für Oswald," an affectionate tribute to the Austrian actor Oswald Fuchs, between 2013 and 2016.
At the same time, he remained active as an actor. In the road movie "Let me try again" (AT 2012) he had a leading role as a vagabond singer, in the series "Braunschlag" (AT 2012) the supporting role of Leo. Ulrich Seidl cast him in "Paradise: Hoffnung" ("Paradise: Hope", AT/DE/FR 2013) as the young main character's sports coach, and in the Austrian series "CopStories" he had a recurring role as a resident of Vienna's Ottakring district between 2013 and 2018.
Thomas played a leading role in the Hamburg "Tatort" episode "Die goldene Zeit" (2019), as an employee of a brothel owner who wants to convict the murderers of his boss. In the gritty social drama "Baby Bitchka" (2020), he was a 60-year-old alcoholic who enters into an increasingly destructive relationship with a drifter almost 40 years his junior.
Again directed by Ulrich Seidl, Michael Thomas starred in the character and milieu study "Rimini," which premiered in competition at Cannes in May 2022. In it, he played a washed-up pop singer who gets by more poorly than well by performing in wintry Rimini. In the same year, he was part of the main ensemble of the highly acclaimed Austrian true-crime thriller "Taktik," about three prison inmates who take three female employees of the prison cafeteria into their power.