The six-part miniseries “House of Glass” tells of the strong influences that traumatizing childhood experiences can have. “Even if we have the same parents, it doesn’t mean we had the same childhood,” is one of the truths expressed several years later in the family drama with thriller elements. Or: “Why is everything so tense?” – “Because Emily has to be compensated for the rest of her life for the fact that a terrible misfortune happened to her,” answers the older sister of a former kidnap victim when asked by her partner.
The four adult siblings come together in their parents’ house for the wedding of Chris (Aram Arami) and Emily (Sarah Mahita), the youngest daughter of the foundry entrepreneur Richard Schwarz (Götz Schubert) and his wife Barbara (Juliane Köhler). When an alarm turns the living room into a panic room, Emily is caught up in her old trauma: she was kidnapped as a child and locked in a box while the ransom was handed over.
Family conflicts and old wounds also open up among the others when Richard wants to talk about the future of the company. The hard-working Eva (Stefanie Reinsperger), Felix (Merlin Rose), who emigrated to Canada, and the single mother Leo (Morgane Ferru) resist his plans. The next day, a family member disappears under mysterious circumstances and Richard is convinced that the kidnappers from back then have struck again…
The fact that the story of a rather unworldly family, which at times seems a bit aloof, is still fascinating is clearly due to the cast. And the less well-known faces are in no way inferior to the well-known members of this ensemble of actors. These are the artists behind the roles.
Actress Sarah Mahita was born in Filderstadt, Baden-Württemberg in 1997. She played the lead role Rebekah in the film drama “Nightmareers,” which received much attention at award ceremonies. Mahita herself was nominated for the Braunschweig Film Prize for this. Before “House of Glass” she was seen in “Munich Laim – Laim and the Sleeping Dogs”. She had recurring supporting roles in the TV series “Dr. Klein” as the film’s daughter of the title character and in “Die Eifelpraxis” as the daughter of the rector.
The German actor of Kurdish descent Aram Arami was born in 1993. Most viewers will probably recognize him from the popular TV series “The Three from the Garbage Collection”. Alongside Uwe Ochsenknecht and Jörn Hentschel, he plays the third eponymous Berlin garbage man, Tarik Büyüktürk. Arami has also been part of the extremely successful “Fack ju Göhte” films.
Actor Merlin Rose was born in Berlin in 1993. He caused a stir with the lead role in the Austrian-German coming-of-age film “Aus der Haut”. Rose was awarded the Günter Strack Television Prize for his portrayal of 17-year-old Milan Schultze, who is almost destroyed by his homosexuality. He was last seen in the cinema in “When will things finally go back to the way they never were?”
The French actress Morgane Ferru was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1991. Since 2017 she has been a permanent member of the cast of the television series “Praxis mit Meerblick” as medical assistant Mandy. In the Swiss hostage drama based on a true story, “And tomorrow you’ll be dead”, she played the main female character who, along with her boyfriend, is kidnapped by a criminal gang in Pakistan and sold to the Taliban. She was also seen in Munich’s “Tatort: Der Wüstensohn”.
Speaking of Sunday thrillers, Stefanie Reinsperger also comes into play here. The Austrian actress, born in 1988, has been part of the Dortmund team since 2021, of which only Jörg Hartmann as Peter Faber will soon be left from the original cast. But Reinsperger has long since established herself as Chief Inspector Rosa Herzog. She is also a celebrated theater star. In addition to numerous awards for her stage art, she has also won a Romy in the “Most Popular Actress Series” category since 2022, which she received, among other things, for the country crime thriller “Flammenmaid”.
The head of the family is also portrayed by a well-known face on the German television landscape. Götz Schubert was born in Pirna, Saxony, in 1963. He also started his career primarily on the boards that mean the world. As part of the crime series “KDD-Kriminaldauerdienst” he and the ensemble were awarded the German Television Prize in 2007 and the Adolf Grimme Prize in 2008. In 2012 he received the audience Bambi for “The Tower”. His most recent professional conquest comes in 2023: the Askania Award in the Best Actor category. Schubert has been playing in the crime series “Kolleginnen” since 2022 and as Chief Inspector Burkhard “Butsch” Schulz in “Wolfsland” since 2016.
His film wife Juliane Köhler is a real film star. The artist, born in Göttingen in 1965, fell for the first time – and then really – in “Aimée
The six episodes of the miniseries “House of Glass” will be shown in double episodes on January 9th and 10th from 8:15 p.m. on Erste. The last two episodes air on January 12th at 10:20 p.m.
