Géza Röhrig


Géza Röhrig is a Hungarian actor and poet. He is best known for his role in the 2015 film Son of Saul, which won the Grand Prix at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Life and career

Géza Röhrig was born on May 11, 1967, in Budapest, Hungary. His mother left the family after he was born, and his father died when he was four, so Röhrig spent his childhood in foster care. From the age of 12 he was raised by a Jewish family. In the 1980s, he was the frontman of an underground music band called Huckleberry, whose concerts were almost always interrupted by the communist authorities. At university he studied Hungarian and Polish, and after a visit to Auschwitz during a study tour in Poland, he decided to become a Hasidic Jew in Brooklyn. He portrayed poet Attila József in a film by József Madaras. He studied filmmaking under István Szabó.
He published two collections of poems on the theme of the Shoah, Hamvasztókönyv and Fogság. He graduated from the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest with a degree in filmmaking. He has lived in the Bronx borough of New York City since 2000 where he received a degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary and has been a kindergarten teacher at Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Brooklyn, NY He is married, and has four children. He has published many collections of poetry.

Work

Prose

Poetry

Filmography

Film