Manuel Santiago Renken was born in 1980 in Bogotá, Colombia, and grew up in Kirchheim unter Teck. Between 1990 and 1998 he attended the Odenwaldschule Oberhambach, where he discovered his love for theater and film - especially acting.

After training as a retail salesman, he moved to Munich in 2002 to study the art of acting, at the stately approved drama studio Gmelin. He successfully completed his studies in 2005 and has been working as a freelance actor ever since.
In April 2006 he made his debut with the Junge Münchner Schauspiel Ensemble in the staging of Seneca's "Medea". Since then he has appeared in many plays. Among others in "Nora", an Elfriede Jelinek adaptation in Mühlheim an der Ruhr, "Men's Talks" in Neu-Ulm and most recently in the award-winning play "And Trumpets Praise the Manslaughter" in Munich. In addition to his theatrical work Manuel Santiago Renken also played in numerous short films, commercials and television films.
Most recently in the feature film "Schmucklos", which premiered at 2019's Filmfest München.
When his daughter was born in 2010, he shifted his focus to scriptwriting to spend more time with his family. In 2013 he founded the "BIBERBAU - Film and Media Production Manuel Renken" in order to realize his own projects.

Manuel Santiago Renken lives with his wife and three children in Munich