Constantin Film presents a Christian Becker ... - Delphis Films

Christian Becker Interview Continued:
How hard was it to find your cast of young actors?
Together with Christian Ditter and Lena Olbrich, our Casting Director Daniela Tolkien
put a lot of effort into casting the Crocodiles, to make sure they would truly be a team at
the beginning of the shoot. Some of the roles were filled by kids with a lot of experience,
while others were completely new to acting and filmmaking–so what you see here is
their screen debut.
Does that mean the grown-ups were easier to cast?
Let's put it this way: We had a certain dream cast in mind–and we got them all! We had
a back avenue to some of them, such as in the case of Nora Tschirner, who became an
overnight sensation with "Rabbits Without Ears". We were shooting the screwball
comedy "Killing is My Business, Honey" with her, and were very lucky to be able to
keep her on for our next project. Of course, old friends like Ralf Richter or Martin
Semmelrogge, both veterans of the famous "Das Boot", are also on board. And as far
as Germany's most famous rapper Smudo goes, we're all big fans, of course, plus
Christian Ditter shot a commercial with him once, so they already knew each other.
Being from Stuttgart, Smudo isn't exactly a native to the Ruhr, but it's an area that has
always attracted a lot of people from all over, and is still a real melting pot.
Who is the target audience for the CROCODILES?
There are several, actually: We tried to keep our appeal as broad as possible. Primarily,
of course, it's a film for kids and teens who enjoy adventure and love going to see a
great movie–at the same time, we want to appeal to the adults who grew up with the
Crocodiles. In order to live up to the expectations of that audience, we threw in a whole
bunch of references to the original 1970s TV movie: For instance, having Martin
Semmelrogge play the oily minigolf guy. Long before he became world famous with
"Das Boot", young Martin played one of his first roles in the TV adaptation, and the
minigolf guy was played by his father, Willy Semmelrogge! During that scene, you can
even hear the original title track "Amada mia, amore mio", which we want to cover on
the End Credit Vocal as well. And finally, the Crocodile emblem appears in several
versions, once as a dog-tag like pendant on a chain, but then also as a patch on Maria's
jeans, in homage to the original Crocodiles...
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