Daniel Bernhardt was born on the
31st August 1965 in Warblaufen,
Bern in
Switzerland. After finishing high school, he studied architectural design for four years and graduated in Bern. At the same time he opened a martial arts school with his brother. After completing his studies,
Daniel moved to
Paris and started to work as model. He worked for such designers as
Montana,
Mugler,
Boss,Cerruti,
Versace, Jaene
Barnes and was published in the magazines
Vogue,
Elle,
Max,
Interview,
Cosmopolitan and later, he established himself as a international
Top Model.
Later, Bernhardt moved to
New York where he was cast to co-star with
Jean-Claude Van Damme in
Bruce Weber's
TV spot "
Looking for
Kicks" for
Gianni Versace.
Producer Marc Di
Salle who launched
Van Damme's carrier with
Bloodsport and
Kickboxer, discovered Daniel Bernhardt and cast him to star in the sequel Bloodsport II (
1996) which was his debut, opposite such actors as
Pat Morita and
James Hong, including comic relief big guy
Donald Gibb and Taekwondo champion
Philip Tan. The same year, a sequel
Bloodsport III (1996) was released, again with Morita and James Hong, including John-Rhys
Davies, and 9th degree black belt Taekwondo master Hee II Cho.
From that
point, Daniel began his career as action star on low budget films. His next films were
Future War (
1997), opposite
Robert Z'Dar,
Black Sea Raid (1997),
True Vengance (1997), with
Miles O'Keeffe and
Beverly Johnson and
Perfect Target (1997) with
Robert Englund and
Brian Thompson. After these films, Daniel's interest in acting became bigger and he started to study acting in
Los Angeles under
Harry Mastrogeorge. So, he continued with G2 (
1998), again with James Hong, Bloodsport 4:
The Dark Kumite (
1999), the last one in the series, this time against Brazilian JuJutsu champion Stefanos Miltsakakis.
He appeared on
TV series "
Mortal Kombat: Conquest", as Siro, and it was followed by
Global Effect (
2002) and a mega hit "
Matrix" sequel
Matrix Reloaded (
2003), where he appeared as upgraded agent
Johnson, where he had an awesome fighting scene with
Laurence Fishburne on the large truck, he has worked with other great names in this film, such as
Keanu Reeves,
Carrie-Anne Moss,
Hugo Weaving,
Monica Bellucci,
Lambert Willson and
Jada Pinket
Smith. He also lent his voice to agent Johnson in
Enter The Matrix video game.
The same year he filmed an action independent film, titled
The Librarians (2003), where he co-starred with
William Forsythe,
Burt Reynolds,
Erika Eleniak,
Andrew Divoff,
Amaury Nolasco,
Christopher Atkins,
Ed Lauter and
Matthias Hues (whom he had a fight in the film). He worked on
Children of Wax (
2005),
The Cutter (2005), opposite
Chuck Norris and Joana
Pacula,
Ultimate Champion (2009) and
Foodfight! (2009).
- published: 02 Jan 2012
- views: 10592