Tim Williams – The Trivago Guy

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“Forget that Dos Equis dude, Trivago Guy is the
Most Interesting Man in the World.” – Rolling Stone

2023 Update
He’s back… in reruns. The Trivago Guy disappeared during the Covid pandemic years. But Tim Williams is now back on television screens in North America in Trivago ads that he first filmed in Germany in 2017.

A Texan in Germany

Born Timothy Leigh Williams on August 16, 1966 in Houston, Texas, Tim Williams is an actor and musician who has been living in Germany since August 2001. In his US homeland he is best known as the “Trivago Guy” who can be seen in a seemingly never-ending series of television commercials for that Düsseldorf-based hotel search engine. (“Hotel? Trivago.”)

But Tim Williams has also appeared in several Hollywood and German feature films, including Valkyrie (2008), Ninja Assassin (2009), and Labyrinth of Lies (“Im Labyrinth des Schweigens,” 2014). In Labyrinth, a German production, the Texas native plays an American major who speaks almost accent-free German. (The film may be available from Netflix in the US.) Williams, however, claims his German isn’t that good. He never took a German course or learned “proper German.” All of his German was gained from daily life, friends, family, and the German scripts he had to memorize. (See the links below for a sample of Williams’ German.)

Tim Williams, the Trivago Guy

Tim Williams, the Trivago Guy, as he appears on his Facebook page.

From 2011 to 2014 Tim Williams also appeared on German television in the popular daily soap opera Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten (GZSZ, “Good times, bad times”) as Kurt LeRoy, a member of the fictional rock band Dark Circle Knights. The vocals were dubbed, but in 2013 Williams recorded his own EP entitled “Temporary Man.”

After developing an interest in acting in high school, Williams went to New York City, where he attended the respected Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. After minor roles in several American TV series (Law & Order and The Sopranos), a German director invited Williams to go to Germany in 2001 to co-star with Katrin Weisser in the romantic comedy Suche impotenten Mann fürs Leben based on a novel by Gaby Hauptmann. During the filming of that German production in Cologne he met and fell in love with a German lady.

A little over a week after his arrival in Germany the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York took place, giving him one more reason to stay in Germany for at least a little longer. Although he and his lady love later separated, he has called Berlin home ever since.

CD Tim Williams - Magnolia City

Tim Williams’ Magnolia City CD. Buy this CD from Amazon.com

Williams first gained true fame in Germany as Stefan Gronewoldt in the ZDF TV series Samt und Seide. In 2008 he played a doctor in the Tom Cruise blockbuster Valkyrie (German: Operation Walküre – Das Stauffenberg Attentat), which was filmed in and around Berlin, including at the Babelsberg Studios in nearby Potsdam. Because of his Trivago spots, which he began filming in 2012, he is now perhaps better known in the United States than in Germany.

Besides film and TV work in Germany, his interests revolve around music. He has recorded several albums, one of the latest being “Magnolia City.” According to his Facebook Page, his “forthcoming album Magnolia City, pays respect to his musical heroes Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.” Although he likes Berlin, Williams has one complaint: the long, grey Berlin winters.

From 1998 to 2001 Williams was married to the American actress Angelica Page, the daughter of actors Rip Torn und Geraldine Page. He has a 14-year-old son (as of 2023) who also lives in Germany.

Filmography (Selected films and TV series)

  • My So-Called Life (1994, US TV series, one episode)
  • Law & Order (1999, US TV series, one episode)
  • The Sopranos (1999, US TV series, one episode)
  • Suche impotenten Mann fürs Leben (2003, Germany)
  • SOKO Köln (2003, German TV series, one episode)
  • Beyond the Sea (2004, USA)
  • Samt und Seide (2004-2005, German TV series) – as Stefan Gronewoldt
  • SOKO Rhein-Main (2007, German TV series, one episode)
  • Valkyrie (2008, USA) – as a doctor
  • Ninja Assassin (2009, USA) – as Europol cell guard
  • Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten (German TV series, 2011–2014) – as bandleader Kurt LeRoy
  • Oh Boy (A Coffee in Berlin, 2012) – as barkeeper
  • The Apparition (2012, USA) – as an office executive
  • The Forbidden Girl (2013, Germany, in English) – as Sheriff Reynolds
  • Labyrinth of Lies (Im Labyrinth des Schweigens, 2014, Germany) – as Major Parker

Some Other US-Americans in Germany

  • Bruce Darnell is an African American who has had success on German television.
  • Ron Williams, the other Williams in Germany, is an African American from Oakland, California who has lived and worked in Germany for decades.
  • Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi (1926-2013) was an African-German, born in Hamburg, who gained success in the US as the editor of Ebony.
  • Black History and Germany – The largely unknown story of African Americans and other black people who have had an influence on German and world history.

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