"play the lead" in German to play the lead die Hauptrolle spielen Detailed translations for "play the lead" to play the lead to play the lead(also: to play the leading role, to play the main part, to star) die Hauptrolle spielen See, she was going to play the lead in Vertigo. Source: opensubtitles.org Corpus by OPUS Request review Sie sollte die Hauptrolle spielen in Vertigo.