Franka Potente

Born: 22 July 1974
Where: Dulmen, Germany

The actress first attracted attention with her pink hair and steel-toed boots pounding the street in the German art house hit Run Lola Run.

Potente began training as an actress at her school in Germany and continued in Houston, Texas, where she went to college.

She then studied at Munich's Otto Falkenberg School of Performing Arts for two years where she earned the Bavarian film award for "Best Newcomer" in 1995's Nach Funf im Urwald.

Potente received critical praise for her work in several subsequent German films, but it was Run Lola Run that cemented her reputation.

The film, written and directed by her boyfriend Tom Tykwer, received a Bambi award in 1998 and in the following year, she received an Audience Award for German Actress of the Year.

Hollywood offers soon came and she finally settled on a role that required her to brush up on her English accent: Barbara, the stewardess/drug courier in Ted Demme's Blow in 2001.

In 2002, Potente began running again, but this time with Matt Damon in as a amnesiac assassin in The Bourne Identity.

Potente - whose surname means powerful in Italian - reprised her role for the excellent sequel, The Bourne Supremacy.

Recent work includes the chiller Creep set in London's Underground system after dark.