Tom Wlaschiha: the actor who plays Dmitri, the Russian guard who became Hopper's ally
Cast · Tom Wlaschiha · Dmitri Antonov
Born in Saxony in 1973, trained in theater, five languages on record and eight episodes on the Russian side. In this article: his childhood in the German Democratic Republic, the exchange year in the United States, his drama training in Leipzig, the five languages that opened his career, the fantasy role that made him known, his European filmography, his entry into the cast in February 2020, the shoot in a real prison in Vilnius, and what he has done since. By the end, you will know who the man behind the uniform is.
A Saxon stage actor, trained on the repertoire in Leipzig, who speaks five languages and who spent a whole season making the audience doubt: ally or trap? Tom Wlaschiha's name enters the Stranger Things cast on February 14, 2020, and the Kamchatka guard is not his first role as a man you cannot pin down: he had already played the assassin Jaqen H'ghar. A portrait of the actor, not of the character.
The essentials
- Born: June 20, 1973, in Dohna, Saxony
- Training: drama at the Leipzig academy of music and theatre, from 1992 to 1996
- Languages: German, English, French, Italian, and Russian
- The role: Dmitri "Enzo" Antonov, in eight of the nine episodes of season four
- Announced in the cast: February 14, 2020; the role named Dmitri on November 20, 2020
- Elsewhere: Jaqen H'ghar in Game of Thrones, Crossing Lines, Das Boot, Jack Ryan
- Since: the film Yunan and the stage of the National Theatre in London, in 2025
Contents
- From Dohna to Leipzig: training a stage actor
- Five languages, and what they opened for him
- Jaqen H'ghar, the role that made him known
- A filmography that runs across twenty-five years
- How he joins the cast
- What he actually plays: eight episodes out of nine
- After Kamchatka: the stage, the screen, and an absence
- Markers
From Dohna to Leipzig: training a stage actor
Tom Wlaschiha is born on June 20, 1973 in Dohna, a small town in Saxony set south of Dresden, then in the German Democratic Republic. He grows up in Neustadt in Sachsen. An artist's trade is not new in the family: his uncle is the baritone Ekkehard Wlaschiha.
At seventeen, shortly after the Wall came down, he leaves for the United States for an exchange year. He works on his English there and goes on stage in the theater productions of his American high school.
Back in Germany, from 1992 to 1996 he takes the drama course at the Leipzig college of music and theater. From 1993 he plays Fred in "Saved", by Edward Bond, on the stage of the Schauspiel Leipzig. Company contracts follow: the Theater Junge Generation in Dresden from 1996 to 1999, then Zurich and Frankfurt. It is a stage path, built on the repertoire, not the trajectory of a face spotted in an open call.
What the American year changesA seventeen-year-old who spends twelve months acting in English does not only learn a language: he learns to practice his craft inside it. That is exactly the skill international productions will ask for, thirty years later.
The police chief's T-shirt, the man Dmitri gets out of his cell.
In the shopWomen's T-shirt Upside Down Nature Reserve39,90 €See the product
Five languages, and what they opened for him
His actor sheet lists five: German, his mother tongue, English, worked during the American exchange year, then French, Italian, and Russian. Three of them are heard directly in his work: the German of his series and his theater stages, the English of his international roles, the Russian of the Kamchatka camp.
The consequence reads in his filmography, which looks less like a national career than a map of Europe: Crossing Lines, a European crime series in which he plays Sebastian Berger for thirty-four episodes between 2013 and 2015; Das Boot, nineteen episodes spread over the first three seasons, between 2018 and 2022; Rose Island, an Italian production, in 2020; and, on the American side, Jack Ryan in 2019 then Mrs. Davis in 2023.
his working language: repertoire theater, German series and film
spoken on screen in season four, where his character serves as interpreter
worked at seventeen, during the high-school year in the United States
one of the five languages he says he speaks
the fifth; he shoots in 2020 in an Italian production
Jaqen H'ghar, the role that made him known
Before he was a Soviet guard, Tom Wlaschiha was an assassin from Braavos. He appears in season two of Game of Thrones, in 2012, then comes back in the fifth and the sixth, in 2015 and 2016. Jaqen H'ghar is a member of the Faceless Men, the order of assassins that trains Arya Stark: a man who speaks of himself in the third person, changes face at will, and whose wants you never know.
The role brings him international notice and a collective nomination at the 2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards, in the category of best ensemble for a drama series.
A filmography that runs across twenty-five years
The name shows up in very different credits, often in a supporting role, sometimes in a single scene. What comes back are the uniforms and the borders: a German soldier, a signals officer, an Austrian Formula 1 driver, a British prince consort.
| Year | Project | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | No One Sleeps | Stefan Hein, his first lead role |
| 2001 | Enemy at the Gates | a soldier, in a film about Stalingrad |
| 2008 | Valkyrie | a signals officer |
| 2011 | Resistance | Albrecht |
| 2012-2016 | Game of Thrones | Jaqen H'ghar, seasons 2, 5, and 6 |
| 2013 | Rush | Harald Ertl, the Austrian driver and journalist |
| 2013-2015 | Crossing Lines | Sebastian Berger, 34 episodes |
| 2014 | Mr. Turner | Prince Albert |
| 2018-2022 | Das Boot | Hagen Forster, 19 episodes over three seasons |
| 2019 | Jack Ryan | Max Schenkel, 4 episodes |
| 2020 | Rose Island | Wolfgang Rudy Neumann |
| 2022 | Stranger Things | Dmitri "Enzo" Antonov, 8 episodes |
| 2023 | Mrs. Davis | Hans Ziegler, 5 episodes |
| 2025 | Yunan | Karl |
The detail that makes you smile: he plays a soldier in a film about Stalingrad released in 2001, nineteen years before his name showed up on the Soviet side of Hawkins. The other thing this table says is the variety of formats: thirty-four episodes for Crossing Lines, nineteen for Das Boot, five for Mrs. Davis, four for Jack Ryan, and eight out of nine for the Kamchatka camp.
How he joins the cast
His name comes out on February 14, 2020, the day the teaser "From Russia with love" reveals the police chief alive in a Soviet camp: the broadcaster confirms in the same gesture the character's survival, which was the question left hanging by the end of the previous season, and Tom Wlaschiha's hiring in a Russian role. The role itself still has neither a name nor a description. You have to wait for the cast announcement of November 20, 2020, the one that presents the newcomers one by one, to see him named: Dmitri, "a Russian prison guard who becomes friends" with the police chief, "smart, cunning, and charming… but can he be trusted?".
The Soviet sequences are not shot in a studio. They start in Vilnius, Lithuania, in the Lukiškės prison, closed a short time before, and at the Kyviškės airfield. The corridors and yards you see on screen are therefore a real penitentiary, in the center of a European capital — a texture studio sets do not have.
-
February 14, 2020
the teaser "From Russia with love" reveals the police chief alive, and the actor's hiring in a Russian role
-
November 20, 2020
the cast announcement finally names the character: Dmitri, prison guard
-
Vilnius
the shoot sets up in the Lukiškės prison, closed shortly before
-
May 27, 2022
the first seven episodes of season four are put online
-
July 1, 2022
the last two complete a season that counts nine of them
The police chief figure, the other half of the prison duo.
In the shopBuildable mini figure Jim Hopper14,90 €See the product
What he actually plays: eight episodes out of nine
Dmitri Antonov is a guard in a Soviet camp in Kamchatka, at the far east of the USSR. He appears in eight of the nine episodes of the season: for a character brought in along the way, that is a considerable presence. The character's story — the nickname borrowed from a restaurant, the letter sent to Indiana, the arena, the escape — belongs to the file the Journal keeps for him. What concerns us here is the actor's work.
The problem set for the actor is simple to state and hard to hold for eight hours: for half the season, the viewer must not know which side this man is on. A guard who takes money to get an American prisoner out can be an ally, a blackmailer, or bait. Tom Wlaschiha plays all three hypotheses at once, without favoring any: you watch a face trying to read an intention that is not there.
A language constraint is added to that: the character serves as interpreter between his superiors and a prisoner who understands nothing of what is said around him. Two registers in the same scene, then: Russian for some, an accented English for the other. Russian stops being a line on an actor's sheet: it is the language you hear him speak on screen.
- The guardfirst hypothesis: a man in uniform whom nothing obliges to help anyone
- The blackmailersecond hypothesis: he takes the money, and the money changes hands without him
- The allythird hypothesis, which only takes hold once the cell is open
- The interpreterthe utility role, which gives him a place in every scene at the camp
After Kamchatka: the stage, the screen, and an absence
The character comes out of his season alive, but his actor is not in the season-five cast: the Soviet thread stops with the escape.
The actor, for his part, has not slowed down. In 2025 he plays Karl in the film Yunan and goes on stage at the Dorfman Theatre, at the National Theatre in London, in "The Land of the Living", a play by David Lan directed by Stephen Daldry, alongside Juliet Stevenson, from September 9 to November 1. He plays Thomas, a man taken as a child in Eastern Europe during the war, who became a pianist: it is through music that the character says what he does not put into words.
He dubs as well: in 2022, it is his voice you hear in the German version of the film Lightyear. He reads audiobooks, lives in Berlin, and keeps alternating sets and stages.
Markers
| Year | Step |
|---|---|
| 1973 | birth in Dohna, in Saxony, in the German Democratic Republic |
| 1992-1996 | drama studies at the college of music and theater in Leipzig |
| 1993 | first professional scene, at the Schauspiel Leipzig |
| 2000 | first lead role in film, in No One Sleeps |
| 2012 | Jaqen H'ghar, and international recognition |
| 2013-2015 | Crossing Lines, thirty-four episodes |
| 2016 | collective nomination at the Screen Actors Guild Awards |
| 2020 | his name enters the cast of season four |
| 2022 | Dmitri "Enzo" Antonov, eight episodes |
| 2025 | the National Theatre in London, and the film Yunan |
Between his first professional scene and the Kamchatka camp, twenty-nine years of work have gone by: the guard discovered in 2022 had long been a repertoire actor.
The poster to hang above the desk, Indiana version.
In the shopAdhesive poster Max pink stickers16,90 €See the product
Frequently asked questions
Who plays Dmitri in Stranger Things?
Tom Wlaschiha, a German actor born on June 20, 1973 in Dohna, Saxony. He plays Dmitri "Enzo" Antonov in eight of the nine episodes of season four.
In how many episodes does he appear?
Eight, of the nine that season four contains. It is a recurring role, brought in during the series, but present from the first to the last chapter of his thread.
Does Tom Wlaschiha really speak Russian?
Yes: it really is his voice you hear in Russian on screen. Russian is one of the five languages he says he speaks, along with German, English, French, and Italian; English, for its part, was worked during an exchange year in the United States.
Where have we seen him before?
Jaqen H'ghar in Game of Thrones, in seasons 2, 5, and 6, Sebastian Berger in Crossing Lines, Hagen Forster in Das Boot, and Max Schenkel in Jack Ryan.
Does he come back in season five?
No. His name is not in the cast of the last season: his character comes out of it alive, but the Soviet thread closes with the escape.
When was he announced in the cast?
On February 14, 2020, the day of the teaser "From Russia with love" that reveals the police chief alive in the Soviet Union. The character is named Dmitri only on November 20, 2020, in the season-four cast announcement.
Where was the Soviet prison filmed?
In Vilnius, Lithuania, in the Lukiškės prison, closed a short time before, and also at the Kyviškės airfield, near the town.
What is the difference between Dmitri and Enzo?
None: it is the same man, and a single actor. The character and his nickname have their own page in the Journal; this one is devoted to the actor who plays him.