[7] Still in her studies, 21-year-old Wokalek made her professional stage debut during the 1996 Wiener Festwochen in Joshua Sobol's play Alma, directed by Paulus Manker.

[3][9][10] Soon after, she played Polly in Brecht's The Threepenny Opera (also directed by Paulus Manker and with costumes by Vivienne Westwood), shown in Vienna's Burgtheater, one of the best-known stage theaters in the world.

[10][11] In 1997, during the third year of her study at the Reinhardt-Seminar, she played the maid Ilse in Max Färberböck's critically acclaimed drama Aimée und Jaguar, her first feature film.

[3][9] Wokalek played Anna in the sci-fi thriller Silent Resident, which premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival,[1][2][7] and starred as the young journalist Luise Fellner in Phillip Stölzl's North Face.

Wokalek was cast as the Red Army Faction terrorist Gudrun Ensslin in Uli Edel's 2008 film The Baader Meinhof Complex,[2][5] an adaptation of the non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust.

[30][31][32] As of 2009[ref] Wokalek continues to star in plays in the Burgtheater, including the title role in Andrea Breth's 2003 production of Emilia Galotti,[8][9][13] and Queen Margaret in Shakespeare's The War of the Roses in 2008, directed by Stephan Kimmig.

[33][34][35] On 28 July 2014 Wokalek made her operatic debut (in a speaking role with a small bit of singing) in the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie's opera Charlotte Salomon given at the Salzburg Festival.

Wokalek has also appeared in Lars Kraume’s Die kommenden Tage (The Coming Days)[36] and Sherry Hormann’s comedy Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein (The Pursuit of Unhappiness [de]) (2012).

[37] In 2017 she took part in Matthias Glasner’s two-part drama for German television, Redemption Road,[38] and in Jan Speckenbach’s cinema release, Freedom, which was shown at the Locarno Festival.