Today we’d like to introduce you to Florian Peter Stübchen.
Hi Florian Peter, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Frankfurt (Germany), grew up in a little town called “Oppenheim” and moved to Basel, Switzerland when I was 15 years old. My whole life used to be about soccer. I always lived with the certainty in my head that one day I’d earn my money playing soccer. I eventually managed to earn some money through soccer but at that point, I had lost all of my passion for the sport. At the age of 17, I quit soccer and focused on school. I graduated and started law school. Just one year into law school I realized that my life was drifting into a direction I never wanted it to and remembered a play we had in school. My first contact with acting. I remembered how fun it was. How easy the work on stage came to me and the compliments I received after.
I remember my dad telling me that I should definitely “Do something with that talent”. My dad had always been super strict when it came to careers. I’m talking school, university, well-paying job…” “Do something with that talent” meant a lot for me since it was my dad who told me that.
So I quit law school after just one year and started applying for acting schools in Germany. I had two auditions, got accepted to both schools and decided to go with the one focused on-camera work.
I moved back to Germany, this time to Cologne and started my new life, following my new dream.
In my first year in acting school, I got to be part of a big Hollywood-esque Film called “55 steps”. I spent a whole week working side by side with Helena Bonham Carter and Hilary Swank.
I absolutely adored Helena back then. The kindest person you could imagine. She would memorize all our names on set on the first day, eat lunch with the “small actors” and chitchat in between scenes. Also, she always smelled like ginger which was weird but kind of calming.
While in school I landed a few Jobs on German TV and had a couple of auditions for mostly German feature films. Unfortunately, I ended up in a pretty toxic relationship with another actress, who drove me near suicide by constantly telling me how the world would be a better place without me in it. How my parents would be “so relieved” if I was gone and how my depression makes everybody’s life miserable.
I lost myself completely in the two years this relationship lasted. I didn’t even think about pursuing my dreams and just lived to survive another day. My then-girlfriend eventually became violent, which made me finally snap out of it. I packed my bags while she was gone for the weekend and flew the country. I moved back to Switzerland.
It took me about two years until I managed to get back on track, move back to Cologne and get my priorities straight and in 2020 I was finally at a point where I could start getting back into acting. But we all know what happened in 2020.
The German film industry seemed dead when Covid hit and I, who was ready to finally take off, had to sit back and wait – again. I kept the artistic flow going by working on stage – theater and commercial shoots where what kept me going in the business during covid.
In the following two years, I realized how hard and cold the business can be. It’s unfair. Plain and simple. It’s not about how hard you work or how good you are at what you do.
It’s about knowing the right people and being seen.
Of course, you have to be “good at your work”. That’s a given. That’s what is expected. Everything else is about who sees your work. Who would go out of their way to help you.
I only realized that once I started to “know the right people”. I watched things work out that never worked the years before.
I met a director who liked my work and wondered why I wasn’t being casted. I wasn’t really happy with my agent back then and I had had my eyes on a certain agent for a few years already. I never got through to him though. But then the director called him for me and within a week I had a meeting with the agent.
I am still being represented by that agent today. I’ve been getting many more auditions through him. Especially international auditions for US, UK or other productions.
I spent the whole of August 2022 in LA and worked on my craft by working with the Chubbuck studios in Hollywood and will continue to work on myself, my craft and my network.
Things are looking brighter than ever and I’m proud to have been as enduring as I have been.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not been smooth at all. It’s been and still is a road full of obstacles, especially mental obstacles. Seeing people around you succeed while you struggle to even get an audition. Meeting people who “hate acting but it pays too well to quit” and seeing them apparently “drown in work” all while you would give everything to just get a chance to prove yourself. It took me a long time to stop looking at the people around me and turn that view inwards. I had to learn to focus on myself, not judge a casting director’s decision and basically to not care about everybody else.
Once I realized that, everything became much easier. It’s important to focus on your work and on yourself. You’ll never have the same chances as others, because you’re not them. They won’t have your chances either.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My acting has always been heavy in realism. I love realism, whether it’s in films, music, or video games,… I like films with little to no music. I like observing things without judging them. I like real people with scars, wrinkles,… I like weird faces. I can’t think of anything more boring than “perfect” people. Conventional beauty standards are deadly to realism, deadly to real emotions and true connections between people, which we now need more than ever.
Everything seems to have developed to this super fast-paced, only on the surface kind of competition. We rarely get to take a breath, look at other human beings as they are and connect with one another.
That’s why I have always been focused on creating true human behavior rather than caring how I look while acting. Actually, that’s one of my favorite things about acting. Being “ugly”. Of course, I walk through everyday life with clean clothes, styled hair and a nice pair of sunglasses. But on stage or in front of the camera. I get to be ugly and I love that.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I am always open for every kind of project. I don’t care about your budget, I don’t care about who else is on board. I just want to be creative and work.
I’m always reachable. Be it through my agency “ACTORSgarden”, my Instagram “florian.peter.stuebchen” or through my e-mail address, which can be found on my acting platforms like “spotlight”.
I am always thankful to connect, network and create new things.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.spotlight.com/0818-0165-8398
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/florian.peter.stuebchen/
- Other: https://www.actorsgarden.com/
Image Credits
Stefan Klüter
