Valerie Pachner

Valerie Pachner (born 26 June 1987 in Wels, Austria) is an acclaimed Austrian actress known for both her compelling screen presence and her powerful stage work. She spent her childhood in the small town of Bad Schallerbach, where an early fascination with performance led her to pursue formal training at the prestigious Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, studying there from 2009 until 2013. While still a student she earned her first public recognition in 2004 with the YOUKI Best Performance by a Young Actress award, marking the informal start of a career that would span more than a decade. After completing her studies, Pachner joined the ensemble of the Residenztheater in Munich under artistic director Martin Kušej, remaining with the company until 2017 and collecting two additional theater honors in 2016, including the Förderpreis der Freunde des Residenztheaters and the Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis for Performing Arts. Her film breakthrough arrived in 2015 when she head‑lined Thomas Woschitz’s drama Bad Luck, a picture that earned a nomination for the Max‑Ophüls‑Preis. The following year she appeared in Maria Scharang’s Jack and in Maria Schrader’s biopic Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe, portraying the writer’s stepdaughter alongside veterans Barbara Sukowa and Josef Hader. Pachner’s portrayal of the iconic model Wally Neuzil in Dieter Berner’s Egon Schiele: Death and the Maiden brought her the Austrian Film Award for Best Actress and a Romy for Most Popular Shooting Star. In 2019 she delivered a career‑defining performance as Anna in Marie Kreutzer’s The Ground Beneath My Feet, a film that competed for the Golden Bear at Berlin, earned her the German Acting Award for Best Actress, and secured a place on Vanity Fair’s “10 Best Movies of 2019” list. The same year she starred opposite Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life, playing Franziska Jägerstätter; the role was highlighted by IndieWire as one of the year’s finest female performances. Most recently, Pachner entered the fantasy franchise world as Henrietta Fischer in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022), further demonstrating her versatile talent across genre and medium.