Bastian Pastewka is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 actor and comedian.

He first became known to a wider audience in Germany around 1996 as a regular cast member of the comedy show Die Wochenshow

Die Wochenshow

Die Wochenshow is a German weekly comedy sketch show that is aired on Sat.1 and is produced by Brainpool TV. It started on April 20, 1996 and was cancelled early in 2002...

(engl.: The Weekly Show), essentially a mock news program. His trademarks included quirky, off-beat characters such as fruity sex talk show host Brisko Schneider and Ottmar Zittlau, an unemployed

Unemployment

Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...

, sweatsuit-wearing dimwit.

Pastewka went on to star in various German comedy films, most notably Der Wixxer (2004) and Neues vom Wixxer (2007), a spoof on 1960s Edgar Wallace

Edgar Wallace

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was an English crime writer, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and numerous articles in newspapers and journals....

 crime dramas. He has also worked as a voice-over actor for numerous animated films, such as Madagascar

Madagascar (2005 film)

Madagascar is a 2005 computer-animated film produced by DreamWorks Animation, and released in movie theaters on May 27, 2005. The film tells the story of four Central Park Zoo animals who have spent their lives in blissful captivity and are unexpectedly shipped back to Africa, getting shipwrecked...

.
Since September 2005 Pastewka has been playing himself in the sitcom Pastewka, shown by the German television broadcasting station Sat.1

Sat.1

Sat.1 is a privately owned German television broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television....

.

He already received various highly prestigious awards like Goldene Kamera, Deutscher Fernsehpreis (engl.: German Television Award) or Rose d'Or

Rose d'Or

The Rose d’Or is one of the most important international festivals in entertainment television. It was founded in Montreux in 1961 and has taken place in Lucerne since 2004. Producers, executives from independent and public service broadcasters and heads of production companies from over 40...

.

Private life

Pastewka lives with his girlfriend Heidrun Buchmaier, manager of Martin Schneider

Martin Schneider

Martin Schneider , often just called "Maddin", is a German comedian, cabarettist and actor.- Biography :Martin Schneider grew up in Burgholzhausen, a district of Friedrichsdorf....

, in Berlin-Charlottenburg. When he is working, he lives in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

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