Born in Vlădești, Argeș County, he graduated high school in Câmpulung in 1967 and Bucharest's Caragiale Academy of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography in 1971.
He made his theatrical debut a year before graduating, at the Bulandra Theater, in Truman Capote's The Grass Harp.
His screen debut came in Dan Pița's Nunta de piatră (1972); he would later appear in the same director's Filip cel Bun (1975).
Other directors with whom he has worked include Alexandru Tatos (Mere roșii, 1975; Secvențe, 1982; and Secretul armei secrete, 1988), Virgil Calotescu (Buletin de București, 1982; and Căsătorie cu repetiție, 1985), Nae Caranfil (Asfalt Tango, 1996; and Filantropica, 2002) and Cătălin Mitulescu (The Way I Spent the End of the World, 2006).
In all, he has appeared in more than sixty films.
Diaconu worked with Lucian Pintilie both in film (the 1981 De ce trag clopotele, Mitică?) and in theater: Gogol's The Government Inspector at Bulandra, and Shakespeare's As You Like It at the Nottara Theater.
Liviu Ciulei hired him at Bulandra in 1972, and he remained there for a decade, before moving on to Nottara.
At Bulandra, he appeared in Twelfth Night and The Tempest, both under Ciulei's direction; and in Marin Sorescu's Răceala, directed by Dan Micu.
At Nottara, he appeared in Alexander Ostrovsky's The Forest; Ultimul bal, after Liviu Rebreanu's Forest of the Hanged; and Mihai Ispirescu's Într-o dimineață.
He became the director of Nottara Theater in 2004, working as such until his resignation in 2011.
In the history of Romanian cinema, Sergiu Nicolaescu's name stands for "prolific, highly commercial and professional". At the age of 80, the director launched his latest production, which is also his second comedy in a long row of action and historic films. "Poker" is a cinema adaptation of Adrian Lustig's theatre play with the same name, and focuses on four male friends, representatives for the social canvas: a doctor without a moral conscience, an unscrupulous politician, a chief of the local mafia, and a businessman who made a fortune in America. Made by MediaPro Pictures, 'Poker' looks at immorality and intrigues in politics, hinting at the fact that contemporary Romania is a day to day jungle where strings are pulled by those in power, so everything turns into a poker round, where those who have the right aces in their sleeve can win.
Tacke, an old graveyard digger, finds out he has only two months left to live. This is the moment he discovers he does want something out of life: a glamorous funeral service in the cemetery's « downtown » area, where he had spotted for a long time an splendidly situated burial site. Everything goes smoothly, especially that the town's luxury funeral home has just acquired Lady Di's hearth. Tacke has some money for the funeral ceremony, he also has some friends who would mourn for him, but he is out of luck: the funeral site he was hoping to acquire was just given to somebody else.
Bucharest 1989 - the last year of Ceausecu's dictatorship. Eva lives with her parents and her 7 year old brother, Lalalilu. One day at school, Eva and her boyfriend accidentally break a bust of Ceausescu. They are forced to confess their crime before a disciplinary committee and Eva is expelled from school and transferred to a reformatory establishment. There she meets Andrei, and decides to escape Romania with him. Lalalilu becomes convinced that Ceausescu is the main reason for Eva's decision to leave. So with his friends from school he devises a plan to kill the dictator.
Love. It just happens. No rules. It may look sick, but it's deep and it hurts. For everyone, Alex and Kiki are just good friends. They happen to be two girls experiencing another kind of love. For their family, Kiki and Sandu are sister and brother who sometimes fight. They happen to be lovers. Love Sick is about their stories.
In 21st century Bucharest, to go out in the city on Saturday evening on the arm of a beautiful woman is a risky financial investment. Ovidiu, an unassuming high school teacher, never could afford it. Looking for a source of income more substantial than a teacher's salary, Ovidiu plunges into a fabulous world – the beggar mob.
Deep in the Transylvanian Alps, the Archangels gold mine is the stage for an epic battle of characters. The arrogant owner is struggling with perceptions of ghosts in the mind of the miners. A maverick free-lance miner is helping him to find the source of terrifying noises that frightened his workers.
Two peasants from Transylvania go to America in order to meet their brother who had left Romania ten years earlier. They meet a prophet in the American state of Utah and eventually help the cause of justice in the villages where the prophet proves to be a dictator and exploiter of the coal miners over there.
When a huge fire erupts at an oil field in the wilds of the Sahara Desert, an American who specializes in fighting oil-field fires and his team are called in to put it out. As the fire rages out of control, the expert finds that he not only has to battle the fire but greed and political corruption as well.