Shoes

Personal Info

Known For

Acting

Gender

Female

Birthday

1997-06-19

Place of Birth

Tokyo, Japan

Malaya Stern Takeda

Biography

Malaya Stern Takeda (born June 19, 1997 in Tokyo) is an American - Japanese actress. The daughter of an American mother from California and a Japanese father from Tokyo who was passionate about German studies, Takeda grew up in Berlin from 2000 onwards. There, she attended a bilingual school. Although she is fluent in German, she states that English is her native language. Her first name means "free" or "independent" and, like her middle name, "Stern," was chosen by her father. From 2015 to 2016, Takeda attended the private acting school Michael Tschechow Studio Berlin. This was followed by acting studies at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in her hometown from 2017 to 2021. While still studying acting, Takeda took on stage roles, and from 2018 onwards she had her first roles in student films. During her training at the HfS Ernst Busch, she appeared, among others, in the bat-Studiotheater in the title role of Penthesilea (2018, directed by Theresa Thomasberger), in the Schaubühne as Natella Abaschwili in The Caucasian Chalk Circle (2019–2020, directed by Peter Kleinert), in the Volksbühne as Lars in Men's Fantasies (2020, directed by Theresa Thomasberger) and at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus as Gabi in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (2020, directed by David Bösch ). Takeda first attracted the attention of theater critics at the end of 2021 during a solo recital alongside Aram Tafreshian at the Lausitz Festival in Cottbus . At the State Theater there , she interpreted the title role in the 90-minute Shakespeare drama Richard III as man, woman, and child, using contemporary feminist texts. The performance had emerged the previous year from Takeda's 8-minute graduate recital at the Ernst Busch University of Music, where Tafreshian was also her lecturer. She is currently a permanent member of the ensemble at the Nationaltheater Mannheim . In 2022, Takeda took on the lead role alongside Aram Tafreshian in Sarah Miro Fischer's student short film Spit , which received an invitation to compete at the Max Ophüls Prize film festival . For her portrayal of Livia, who is attracted to violent fantasies, she and Tafreshian received a nomination for the Max Ophüls Prize for "Best Young Actress". The short film Girl Who Cried Wolf was also invited to the festival, for which she was also a member of the ensemble. In the same year, she played one of the four main roles as Zoé in the TV series Love Addicts .

Known for

The Trap

The Trap

Follow famous author Lisa Konrad, who has not left her house for a decade after witnessing the murder of her sister. One night she sees who she believes was the murdered on television, and decides to use herself as bait to catch them.

Push

Push

Bursting amniotic bags, babies in a pelvic position, premature contractions: for midwives Nalan, Anna and Greta, a state of emergency is the order of the day.

Naked

Naked

Marie and Luis meet at a costume party and immediately fall for each other. What begins as a dream of true love increasingly turns into a nightmare. Because Luis is addicted to sex. And Marie is addicted to Luis.

The Assessment

The Assessment

In a climate change-ravaged world, a utopian society optimizes life, including parenthood assessments. A successful couple faces scrutiny by an evaluator over seven days to determine their fitness for childbearing.

Wake Up

Wake Up

"Wake Up" tells the story of Emilia, whose world came to a standstill two years ago when her sister Clara fell into a coma following a severe skiing accident. When Emilia participates in a study on anxiety therapy conducted by nanobot researcher Hevi Abdel, something unforeseen happens: Hevi’s consciousness briefly migrates into Emilia’s body. For Emilia, this research becomes her last hope of bringing her sister back to life.

Parallel Me

Parallel Me

Love Addicts

Love Addicts

Dennis can’t manage to separate himself from his possessive girlfriend. Nele chases away even the most perfect guys with her fairy tale fantasies. Mo freezes up when he is about to make an emotional connection. Katrin refrains from love, but makes up for it with throwaway sex.

Interior

Interior

Kasimir uses a hollow couch to infiltrate houses. Once inside, he secretly films the owners’ lives. A few days later the couch is picked up again, with Kasimir inside: “Delivery Error“. He delivers the tapes to the brain surgeon Dr. Liebermann, who is trying to learn how to feel human emotions. While Kasimir provides him with more footage of further break-ins to prove his love, the doctor, unimpressed, prepares an awake surgery in his cellar for a young musician. Broken by unre­quited love, Kasimir begins to deviate from Liebermann‘s dogma: never intervene in what happens in front of the camera. An unforgivable breach of trust for Liebermann and so he de­cides to determine Kasimir’s fate.

Almost Home

Almost Home

When they learn of an outbreak of a dangerous virus shortly before their long-awaited return to Earth, a teenager and his mother struggle to decide whether to land or return to space aboard their confined spaceship.

Distance

Distance

During a global pandemic, Laszlo isolates himself in his apartment. He avoids any kind of human contact. Until one evening the new neighbor Zoe rings at his doorbell with unforeseen consequences for both of them.

Vacazione

Vacazione

Three friends travel to Italy to spend one last summer before entering adulthood, but as their dynamics shift, one of them begins to feel increasingly isolated from the group.

Thanks for Nothing

Thanks for Nothing

Katharina, Ricky, Victoria and Malou live in an assisted living group. There they have built up an anarchic utopia as an alternative to everything they reject: Parents, school, rules. With social worker Ballack as a half-hearted guardian, things go well until their “live and let live” agreement starts to falter.

Ein Fall für Conti - Spieler

Ein Fall für Conti - Spieler

In the second part of the crime series about star lawyer Anna Conti and public prosecutor Henry Mahn, the two women are once again fighting for law and justice on different sides. After Conti has found her way back into professional life with her last case, she now takes on the defense of a dazzling client: Frank Stolpe has led a double life for years and has now committed a bank robbery for which he appears to have no motive. Curious and fascinated at the same time, Conti tries to find out all the facets of this mysterious man with the help of her assistant Carlo. What can she believe about him? Henry Mahn, on the other hand, sees him as a pathological swindler who uses his manipulative skills to plunge others into misfortune.

Where We Belong

Where We Belong

A British-Japanese woman reconnects with her origins through grief, ghosts, and good food.

Conti - My Two Faces

Conti - My Two Faces

After a media storm that turns her life upside down, a famous Hamburg lawyer takes on the defense of a young musician accused of infanticide.