Udo Kier, the German actor whose face and voice became shorthand for strange, intense, and unforgettable screen characters, has died at the age of 81. His partner, artist Delbert McBride, confirmed that Kier passed away on Sunday morning.
A life that already sounded like a movie
Kier’s story began in Cologne near the end of World War II. He was born in a hospital that was bombed shortly after his arrival, and he and his mother were dug out of the rubble. It sounds like a line from one of his films, but it set the tone for a career that leaned into the odd and the extreme rather than away from it.
His breakthrough came in the early 1970s with a pair of films that would follow him for the rest of his life. Working with Andy Warhol and director Paul Morrissey, Kier played the title roles in Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974). Those performances are wild, camp, bloody, and sometimes unexpectedly sad. They cemented him as a European cult figure and made it very clear to filmmakers that here was an actor who would go places most wouldn’t.
From there he moved easily through the European scene. Kier worked with Rainer Werner Fassbinder on titles including The Stationmaster’s Wife, The Third Generation and Lili Marleen. Even when he was only on screen briefly, he had a way of skewing a scene just by being in it. You notice him, even if the plot isn’t about him.
Gus Van Sant, Lars von Trier, and a new wave of fans
A meeting with Gus Van Sant at the Berlin Film Festival steered Kier toward American independent cinema. Van Sant later cast him in My Own Private Idaho (1991), alongside River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. It’s not a huge role, but it’s a sticky one, and for a lot of viewers in the U.S. that film was their introduction to Kier: stylish, unsettling, oddly funny.
Around the same period, Kier began one of his defining creative partnerships with Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. The pair first worked together on Epidemic and Europa, before Kier became a recurring presence in von Trier’s work. He appears across some of the director’s most talked-about projects, including Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac: Vol. II. Sometimes he’s there for a few scenes, sometimes more, and he always feels right at home in von Trier’s mix of cruelty, dark humour, and heightened emotion.
Hollywood villain, festival regular, and a late-career run
Kier never stopped moving between worlds. While he kept working with European auteurs, the 1990s also saw him popping up in Hollywood studio movies. He appeared in comedies, blockbusters, and genre hits such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Armageddon and Blade. The roles were often small, yet he still managed to walk off with moments that lingered: a look, a line, a slightly off-centre energy that cut through the noise.
He carried that presence into his later career. Kier remained a regular on the festival circuit and kept saying yes to projects that tried something a little different. Recent work includes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, which screened at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and earned Wagner Moura the Best Actor award. He also appeared in Mendonça Filho’s earlier film Bacurau, another example of him slotting neatly into politically charged, genre-blending storytelling.
In his later years, Kier made his home in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, surrounding himself with art and mid-century architecture. He was a familiar face at the Palm Springs Film Festival, where fans would find a warmer, more relaxed presence than the villains and oddballs he so often played.
Udo Kier leaves behind more than 275 credits (on his IMDb acting credits alone) and a reputation as one of cinema’s great character actors. Directors called him when they wanted someone fearless, someone who could twist a scene with a single look. Some viewers might not have known his name straight away, but they remembered him. For an actor who lived in the margins of so many films, that’s a remarkable legacy.
