Gérard Rudolf was born in Pretoria, South Africa on 20 April 1966. After completing high school in 1983 he did two years of compulsory military service. In 1987 he joined the Drama school at the University of Pretoria where he graduated in 1989. He then joined the CAPAB drama company for a year performing on stage in Shakespeare plays, comedies and dramas. He left the company in 1991 to start his own theater company called Makeshift Moon, specializing in original South African works. It was also in 1991 that he started developing an interest in film and appeared in numerous leads and supports over the next decade. In 1998 he became the head of drama at CityVarsity in Cape Town until 2002.

He has worked with prolific actors such as Dennis Hopper(The Piano Player), Peter Weller(Styx) and Bryan Brown(Styx).

His mother tongue is Afrikaans,^[3] but he is also fluent in English.