Cornelius Obonya

Cornelius Obonya (*1969) comes from a dynasty of actors: his parents are Elisabeth Orth and Hanns Obonya (died 1978), and his maternal grandparents were Paula Wessely and Attila Hörbiger.

At the age of 17, he went to the Max Reinhardt Seminar to study acting but left after a year and trained with the cabaret artist Gerhard Bronner. Bronner was one of the most important encounters in his career, as were Emmy Werner, the former director of the Volkstheater Wien, and Andrea Breth, with whom he worked for many years at the Schaubühne Berlin and at the Burgtheater Wien. His career path then took him to the Salzburg Festival as ‘Jedermann’ and to numerous German and Austrian film and television productions. These included “Tatort” and ‘Adults In The Room’, directed by Costa-Gavras, at the Venice Film Festival. Cornelius Obonya is also known as a narrator of documentaries and as a reader of audio books, etc. He has received numerous awards, including the Ferdinand Raimund Ring and the German Audio Book Prize. In 2024, he was appointed “Kammerschauspieler”. Cornelius Obonya is married to director Carolin Pienkos and is the father of their son Attila.