Rick Okon

Rick Okon was born in Bielefeld in 1989, but his face is forever tied to the cold metal of a submarine. In 2018 he took command as Captain Klaus Hoffmann in the series Das Boot. That role forced him to carry a heavy dramatic weight that few actors of his generation could have handled without slipping into caricature or overacting. The actor worked from absolute restraint to bring to life a man consumed by responsibility.

And he pulled it off without fuss.

His training at the prestigious Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin gave him the tools to understand that silence communicates more than a scream. Before that, he had already drawn critical attention in 2011 with Romeos. In that film, he played a trans boy with a naturalness that avoided the clichés of European social cinema of the time.

The weight of the uniform in Dortmund

In 2018, he joined the world of Tatort, the police institution of German television. Playing detective Jan Pawlak at the Dortmund station for six years gave him massive visibility in homes across the country. But long-running roles can sometimes smother the creative hunger of an actor who seeks risk.

German television is an industry with an industrial rhythm.

In 2024, he decided to hang up his badge and leave the series to pursue other roles outside the comfort of Sunday prime time. Because Okon prefers the uncertain terrain of independent film. In 2017, he took part in Die Unsichtbaren, a film that explored Jewish survival in Nazi Berlin, where his gaze drove a constant inner tension.

Behind the camera

He doesn't just wait for calls from his agent or read other people's scripts at his home in Berlin. In 2020 he founded his own production company, Achtung Panda! Media, together with other partners in the audiovisual industry. The goal was clear. They wanted to fund stories that moved away from the most worn-out commercial formats of public television and bet on narratives with a distinct visual identity.

So he alternates between the set and spreadsheets.

In 2023, he shot the film Stella. Ein Leben. directed by Kilian Riedhof. The project focused on the life of Stella Goldschlag, and the actor had to immerse himself once again in the historical darkness of World War II. Throughout his career, he has maintained a strict policy of discretion about his private life so that his public persona does not consume the artist.

His departure from Tatort in February 2024 left a hard-to-fill gap on the Dortmund investigative team. The actor closed his chapter in police fiction with the episode titled Cash. After that broadcast, his contract with the broadcaster WDR ended permanently.