Quarterly 2 · 2008 - German Films

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Andreas Schmidt (photo © Jennifer Bressler) ACTOR’S PORTRAIT Andreas Schmidt initially studied German and Philosophy at Berlin’s Free University before taking private acting lessons under Hilla Preuss and attending seminars in directing by Edward Zebrowski, Filip Bajon, Agnieszka Holland and Krzysztof Kieslowski. He sub - sequently appeared on the stage in Mannheim, Dortmund and Berlin before making his film acting debut in Reinhard Hauff ’s Linie 1 in 1988. There is a particular link between Schmidt and the Irish-born filmmaker Eoin Moore: he appeared in one of the director’s shorts and Moore’s graduation film Plus Minus Null from Berlin’s dffb and has since worked with him on another three features and a TV movie. In 2003, he was nominated in the category of Best Lead Actor for the German Film Award for his role in Moore’s Pigs Will Fly and received another nomination three years later in the Best Supporting Actor category for his performance in Andreas Dresen’s Summer in Berlin (Sommer vorm Balkon). Schmidt has also appeared in: Black Rider (Schwarzfahrer, dir: Pepe Danquart, short, 1993), Life Is All You Get (Das Leben ist eine Baustelle, dir: Wolfgang Becker, 1996), Conamara (dir: Eoin Moore, 1999), Crazy (dir: Hans-Christian Schmid, 1999), Heidi M. (dir: Michael Klier, 2000), Balls (Maenner wie wir, dir: Sherry Hormann, 2003), Farland (dir: Michael Klier, 2003), Bin ich sexy (dir: Katinka Feistl, 2003), Im Schwitzkasten (dir: Eoin Moore, 2004), Das Gespenst von Canterville (dir: Isabel Kleefeld, TV, 2004), Gefangene (dir: Ian Dilthey, 2005), Cataract (dir: Sainath Choudhury, short, 2005), Neandertal (dir: Ingo Haeb, 2005), the Tatort episode Aus der Traum (dir: Rolf Schuebel, TV, 2006), Rudy – The Return of the Racing Pig (Renn - schwein Rudi Ruessel 2, dir: Peter Timm, 2006), Polizeiruf 110: Jenseits (dir: Eoin Moore, TV, 2006), The Counterfeiters (Die Faelscher, dir: Stefan Ruzowitzky, 2007), Fleisch ist mein Gemuese (dir: Christian Goerlitz, 2007), Tatort: Borowski und das Maedchen im Moor (dir: Claudia Garde, TV, 2007), Die Tage sind endlich (dir: Bernd Boehlich, 2007), and Tatort: Der tote Chinese (dir: Hendrik Handloegten, TV, 2008). Seeing Marlon Brando as the ex-prizefighter Terry Malloy in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront started Andreas Schmidt’s fascination with the acting profession. “I must have been 13 or 14 when I saw the film and something very special happened,” Schmidt recalls. “I had the feeling for the first time that here was somebody portraying something that came from his innermost being, something very valuable. Brando definitely triggered off something.” Contact: VELVET Management Neue Schoenhauser Strasse 16 · 10178 Berlin/Germany phone +49-30-3 92 60 78 · fax +49-30-39 90 39 54 email: info@agentur-velvet.de · www.agentur-velvet.de SOMETHING VERY SPECIAL A portrait of Andreas Schmidt However, drama school wasn’t the destination he aimed for after fin - ish ing school. “I wanted to learn about writing and so decided to study German at the Free University in Berlin,” Schmidt continues, pointing out that he began taking private acting lessons during his studies and then attended a series of seminars on directing given by such filmmakers as Agnieszka Holland and the late Krzysztof Kieslowski. “I knew then that I was more at home with the film world because I would have a better opportunity of learning how to structure a story than at the university.” german films quarterly actor’s portrait 2 · 2008 18
Breaking off his studies, he decided to embark on an actor’s career without having attended drama school. “At the time, I was rather distrustful of authority and never applied to any of the drama schools,” he observes. “Today, I would go to drama and film school and want to learn everything!” Nevertheless, the budding young actor had engagements in theaters in Mannheim, Dortmund – where he was encouraged in his writing ambitions by a friend and scriptwriter of Adolf Winkelmann, Jost Krueger – and Berlin before being cast in his first larger film role in Reinhard Hauff ’s adaptation of the Grips Theater musical Linie 1 in 1988. He had appeared in TV movies by such directors as Winkelmann, Marco Serafini and Dominik Graf as well as a small part in Pepe Danquart’s Oscar ® -winning short Black Rider and Wolfgang Becker’s Berlinale competition film Life Is All You Get when he got to know the Irish-born filmmaker Eoin Moore who was studying at Berlin’s German Film & Television Academy (dffb) at the time. “I was producing a short film and looking for a sound man,” Schmidt says, “and came across Eoin who was also a member of a film computer mailbox I had set up. He later asked me if I would like to take on the lead in his graduation film Plus Minus Null. I was a bit skeptical about the prospect but, after the first rehearsals, I felt so at ease. It was the best film shoot I have ever had and a deep friendship developed between the two of us.” Indeed, an inside-joke between the two of them are the slight chang - es to the name of Schmidt’s character in three of their collaborations: Alex in Plus Minus Null, Axel in Conamara, and Laxe in Pigs Will Fly, although the series was not continued for Im Schwitzkasten – where Schmidt was called Toni Neer – or his secondary role in the Jenseits episode of the Polizeiruf 110 crime series. While Schmidt has had his fair share of working-class characters to play – he hails from the Berlin district of Maerkisches Viertel – he admits to being frustrated at times that TV commissioning editors cannot be more flexible in their thinking of how to cast him. “Just because I have played a man who beats his wife [in Pigs Will Fly], then I can only play such parts, or you’re always a policeman. I don’t know why the editors can’t imagine me as a doctor or a professor of literature, but they think that I’ll always play the good prole because I come from a particular area of Berlin. As a rule, though, I tend to play weird characters, what I’d call outlaws or people outside of society.” At the same time, he stresses that he has “the opportunity to work on some great projects at the moment and am really happy about what is happening with the cinema in Germany now. It is quite different from how the situation was in the 80s. Moreover, it’s one of the nice advantages when you have come along a bit in your career that you can use your name to get a project moving. I really like the fact that my name can have such a value.” Schmidt has also kept up the collaboration with Berlin’s dffb which he began with Eoin Moore on Plus Minus Null: “Whenever time allows, I always try to make myself available as an actor for the students’ entrance examination,“ he explains, “because I learn an awful lot from these young people. I then have a connection to a whole year of students and I’m always curious whenever someone comes to me later with an interesting project.” But acting is only one of the strings in Schmidt’s bow. Together with friends from Maerkisches Viertel, he formed the German country rock band – Lillies Grosse Liebe – where he was the lead singer in the late 1980s and has since composed songs for Plus Minus Null and an episode of Polizeiruf 110 by Bernd Boehlich. He has also followed his interest in writing over the years: his play Die sieben Todsuenden (The Seven Deadly Sins) was staged at the Komoedie am Kurfuerstendamm in 2006 and he is now completing the second draft of a screenplay for a feature film project. Furthermore, while Schmidt has not appeared on stage now for more than 10 years, the theater has not lost its grip on him: he has made a name for himself in recent years as a theater director with such productions as David Gow’s Cherry Docs at the Berliner Vagantenbuehne and Kristof Magnusson’s Maennerhort (70% rewritten by Andreas Schmidt and the acting ensemble). Meanwhile, his staging of Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri’s Und abends Gaeste (Cuisine et Dependances) has been running at the Komoedie am Kurfuerstendamm since the end of February this year. Whether he will make the move from theater director to film director remains to be seen, although he admits that he has had several enquiries thanks to his work in the theater. “But that is a profession on its own which you must learn,” Schmidt warns. “I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that I will direct a film in the future but I would really like to prepare things properly. As an actor, I’m not afraid of working with actors but it is all about finding the right cinematic language and timing is quite different than in the theater.” Andreas Schmidt spoke with Martin Blaney german films quarterly actor’s portrait 2 · 2008 19
Page 1 and 2: German Films Quarterly 2 · 2008 AT
Page 3 and 4: CO-PRODUCTIONS THE CANNES FILM FEST
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Page 7 and 8: duction company: Walden Media, loca
Page 9 and 10: utilized to the fullest extent, res
Page 11 and 12: DoP Florian Emmerich keeps up pace
Page 13 and 14: as a filmmakers’ collective, but
Page 15 and 16: “via a Dutch diplomat who smuggle
Page 17: in Munich, worked as an assistant d
Page 21 and 22: d’Annecy, the reception provides
Page 23 and 24: the most recent German short films
Page 25 and 26: “One of the strengths of Bavaria
Page 27 and 28: 66/67 Type of Project Feature Film
Page 29 and 30: Wilke Moehring, Jenny Schily Castin
Page 31 and 32: Austria ever, the Star Trek-spoof (
Page 33 and 34: Lippels Traum Type of Project Featu
Page 35 and 36: mum guarantee was put up by Flying
Page 37 and 38: Justus Jonas, Peter Shaw and Bob An
Page 39 and 40: “Stefan is a modern Werther who p
Page 41 and 42: NEXT GENERATION 2008 A Selection of
Page 43 and 44: Auge in Auge - Eine deutsche Filmge
Page 45 and 46: Comeback A dark, seedy attic in Mun
Page 47 and 48: DWK 5 - Die Wilden Kerle THE WILD S
Page 49 and 50: Die Frau des Anarchisten THE ANARCH
Page 51 and 52: Gestern in Eden THE OTHER DAY IN ED
Page 53 and 54: Ich will da sein - Jenny Groellmann
Page 55 and 56: Lauf um Dein Leben - Vom Junkie zum
Page 57 and 58: Meine Muetter - Spurensuche in Riga
Page 59 and 60: Memory Books In Uganda, AIDS-infect
Page 61 and 62: Die Oesterreichische Methode THE AU
Page 63 and 64: Sommer SUMMER The path of true love
Page 65 and 66: Trouble - Teatime in Heiligendamm T
Page 67 and 68: Wolke 9 CLOUD 9 She didn’t ask fo
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GERMAN FILMS SHAREHOLDERS & SUPPORT
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ASSOCIATION OF GERMAN FILM EXPORTER
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GERMAN FILMS: A PROFILE German Film
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FOREIGN REPRESENTATIVES IMPRINT Arg
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Quarterly 2 · 2008 - German Films

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