Jarreth Merz is a Swiss born actor, director and producer. He grew up in Ghana, Germany and Switzerland. He speaks five languages fluently. Merz studied acting and directing in Zurich and in New York. He is known for his portrayal of Simon of Cyrene in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and his recurring role as Charles Baruani in ER.

At the age of 20 Jarreth Merz decided to become an actor. He was inspired by the work of members of the Moscow Art Theater. Never before had he experienced such realistic and yet dramatic performances. He decided that was what he wanted to do. Merz went on to study with the renowned actress Uta Hagen and Salem Ludwig in New York, who he claims gave him an understanding of how to recreate life on stage/film and to seduce the audience into experiencing a fictitious world through his eyes.

Merz has worked extensively in Film, Television and Theater.

Merz about acting: "It’s the only work where I never think of retiring, so there must be something to it".

Merz has been featured in successful films such as The Passion of the Christ. He received excellent reviews for his gripping performance as Simon of Cyrene, an innocent bystander who is forced to help Jesus carry the cross, and for his command of the Aramaic language. He took on a recurring role in the award winning TV series ER (Kisangani, Lost and Makemba). Merz took very special care of his portrayal of Charles Baruani to ensure that mannerisms, speech, and accents closely resemble those of a Belgian Congolese aid worker in a war torn Congo.

In 1997 Merz portrayed Karl Marx in the reincarnation of Jimmy Hendrix in Robert Longo's experimental film Heinrich Heine - A Birthday Video, on the occasion of Heine's 200th birthday, which creates a highly romantic "phantasmagorie" around the origin and publication of the acidic satire Deutschland, ein Wintermärchen alongside Cindy Sherman and Barbara Sukowa. Beginning with Proppellerblume in 1996, Merz has also played gay or bisexual characters in Chill Out and Alpha Team. In 2004, the actor lent his vocal talent to the successful recording of Neuromancer by acclaimed novelist William Gibson. Merz provided the voice of Case, an out-of-work computer hacker, thief and junky in the high-tech dystopian future hired by an unknown patron to participate in a seemingly impossible crime.

Additionally, Merz guest starred opposite Steve Coogan in Lies and Alibis. He then appeared in Sleeper Cell and The Unit as a guest star, both succesful TV shows.

In theater, he starred in the Actor’s Gang production of Drums in the Night by Berthold Brecht in Los Angeles. He played the lead role of Andreas Kragler, a soldier returning home from prison camp after World War I, only to find that his love Anna is to marry another man.

"Merz offers a haunting portrayal of a near-dead soul that is slowly emerging." Variety. "Some terrific elements roam through this Actors' Gang production: the grounded battle fatigue of Merz's Kragler." Los Angeles Times.