- Aside from her native German, she was fluent in English, French and Spanish.
- Her father was a physician.
- Carstensen, who enjoyed cult status in the theater and film scene, was always open to experiments and new things.
- Member of the ensemble of the Hamburger Schauspielhaus from 1965 to 1969, noted for her leading roles in plays by John Osborne and the Lope de Vega.
- Discovered for the screen by Rainer Werner Fassbinder while engaged at the Theater am Goetheplatz in Bremen. Her best known role under Fassbinder's direction was as the titular narcissistic fashion designer in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972).
- Studied acting at the Academy for Music and Theatre in Hamburg.
- In 2008, she appeared in the Schauspielhaus Bochum (Playhouse Bochum), in Shakespeare's As You Like It.
- In 1969, she gained a local profile for her work in the Theater am Goetheplatz in Bremen, where she first met director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. She then worked under his direction in a comedy by the 18th-century Venetian Carlo Goldoni, The Coffee Shop (which was recorded for television in 1970), bringing her national attention in West Germany.[9] She subsequently played the role of serial murderess Geesche Gottfried in the premiere of Fassbinder's own play Bremen Freedom (also televised, in 1972), and then in the title role of his Henrik Ibsen adaptation Nora Helmer (televised in 1974) derived from A Doll's House.
- From 1973 to 1976, Carstensen held a steady acting engagement in Darmstadt.
- In 1965, Carstensen began a four-year engagement with the Deutsches Schauspielhaus (German Playhouse) in Hamburg. There she played leading roles in plays by John Osborne and the classical Spanish playwright Lope de Vega.
- Upon graduation from the local high school in 1958 (Abitur), she studied acting at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. This education led to her first stage appearances in Kleve, Heilbronn, Münster, and Braunschweig.
- By the late 1980s, she had developed ongoing working relationships with German directors Werner Schroeter, Christoph Schlingensief, and Leander Haußmann. In 1995 she followed Haußmann to Bochum, in order to work with him there.
- She played leading roles in the Fassbinder films The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), her best-known role for Fassbinder; Martha (1974), with Karlheinz Böhm, analysing a traditional marriage in a contemporary setting; Fear of Fear (1975); Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven (1975); Satan's Brew (1976); Chinese Roulette (1976) and Women in New York (1977). She also appeared in individual episodes of two Fassbinder television productions: Eight Hours Don't Make a Day (1972), and Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980).
- Carstensen appeared in films by directors such as Leander Haußmann (Sonnenallee, 1999); Romuald Karmakar (Manila, 2000); Chris Kraus (Scherbentanz, 2002, a role for which she won the Bavarian Film Award for Best Actress).
- For the 2003-04 season, Carstensen appeared in the Vienna Burgtheater, in the premiere of Elfriede Jelinek's play Bambiland under the direction of Schlingensief.
- For many years, Carstensen lived in seclusion in a small village near Heide. The actress had retired there after having lived in Mallorca for a few years. After her husband died, she lived alone with her dogs. She has not been able to take on roles for a long time, and for years the heavy smoker has suffered from pulmonary emphysema, which made it difficult for her to breathe.
- In 2019, she was awarded "the Götz-George-Preis" for her life's work.
- Carstensen also worked in international productions. In the fifth film made by Polish director Andrzej Zulawski, Possession (1981), a French-German co-production, she performed together with Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill and Heinz Bennent.
- Her artistic collaboration with director Christoph Schlingensief began with two of his film projects. In his 100 Years of Adolf Hitler: The Last Hour in the Führerbunker (1989), she played the part of Magda Goebbels.
- In 1977, she moved to what was then West Berlin where she performed on the highly regarded Staatliche Schauspielbühnen.[.
- During the 2007-08 season Carstensen assisted with the Austrian-German TV documentary Mr. Karl - A Person for People, directed by Kurt Mayer.
- In 1982, she moved to Stuttgart in order to work with director Hansgünther Heyme, where she appeared in a series of plays directed by him. Over the years she also performed in many smaller roles on the most important of the German-language stages, for example making several appearances in the Munich Kammerspiele.
- Carstensen received many awards in her career. Among these were the 1973 German Film Awards (Gold), for her acting in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, and the 2002 Bavarian Film Award, for her acting in Scherbentanz.
- In 1972 she was chosen by the German Film Critics Guild as Best Actress of the Year.
- She worked with Polish-born director Agnieszka Holland on her film Angry Harvest (1985), together with Armin Mueller-Stahl. This film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
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