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Niels Bormann was born on April 28, 1973, in Bremen. As a young man, he moved to Berlin-Kreuzberg, where he launched a security company called "Garderoben-Bormann" and a cake production business for cafés. Over time, he discovered his talent for acting and began studying Performing Arts at the Hochschule der Künste (HdK) Berlin in 1996. After graduating in 2000, he completed a six-month advanced course in choral speaking with Einar Schleef at the Deutsches Theater Berlin.
In the following years, Bormann had numerous engagements at theaters, including at the Hamburg Schauspielhaus, Schauspiel Dresden, and Berlin stages such as Hebbel am Ufer (HAU). At the same time, he took on smaller roles in cinema and television, appearing in "Die Ritterinnen" ("Gallant Girls", 2003), "Mondkalb" (2007), and various episodes of the popular "Tatort" series.
From the 2009/10 season until 2013, Bormann was a member of the Berliner Schaubühne ensemble. Under director Yael Ronen, he developed a persona described by theater critic Christine Wahl as "his signature role of the insensitive and intrusive Germansplainer." In 2010, he also began teaching at the Universität der Künste. In 2014, he guest-starred at the Maxim-Gorki-Theater in Berlin. For the 2015/16 season, he joined the Münchner Kammerspiele as a permanent ensemble member alongside new artistic director Matthias Lilienthal, gaining recognition as an extroverted performer. However, he left the ensemble a year later "for personal reasons."
Since then, Bormann has focused primarily on screen acting. He had a small role as a delivery man in "Toni Erdmann" and appeared as a new colleague of investigator Hanns von Meuffels in the "Polizeiruf 110" episode "Sumpfgebiete" (2016). He was part of the cast in the award-winning escape story "Whatever Happens Next" (DE/PL 2018) and played a significant role as an executor in the tragicomic road movie "Wenn Fliegen träumen" ("When Flies Are Dreaming ", 2018). In the series "Deutschland 83" (2015) and its sequels "Deutschland 86" (2018) and "Deutschland 89" (2020), Bormann portrayed a member of the East German foreign intelligence service. He also played a psychopathic killer in "Nord bei Nordwest – Ein Killer und ein Halber" (2020).
In February 2021, Bormann came out as part of the #actout initiative in the SZ-Magazin, alongside 185 other lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, non-binary, and trans* actors. That same year, he starred as an aristocratic lawyer in the eight-part series "Legal Affairs" (2021). He also played a central role in the Frankfurt "Tatort" episode "Erbarmen. Zu spät." (2023) as a dubious informant from the far-right scene. On the big screen, he appeared in the award-winning family drama "Sonnenplätze" ("Places in the Sun", 2024) as a former bestselling author and father of a less successful writer.