Quarterly 4 · 2006 - German Cinema

In 1985, she was then engaged by Luc Bondy to become a member
of the ensemble at the Schaubuehne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin and
stayed there for twelve years, working with some of the leading directors
such as Peter Stein, Klaus Michael Grueber and Andrea Breth.
She appeared in Stein’s productions of Chekov’s Three Sisters and The
Cherry Orchard, was cast as Madame Lenglumé in Grueber’s staging of
Labiche’s La Affaire Rue de Lourcine and as Charis in Kleist’s
Amphytrion, while the work with Andrea Breth opened up other artistic
horizons with roles in Schnitzler’s Der einsame Weg or Ibsen’s
Hedda Gabler.
Apart from appearing in Gabrielle Baur’s children’s film Die
Bettkoenigin in 1994 and taking a role in a Tatort episode in 1996,
Kogge did not make any forays into film and television during her time
at the Schaubuehne. “I remember people asked me, but it never
worked out time-wise,” she recalls. “My colleague Uli Matthes always
seemed to manage to combine his work for the stage with film roles,
but I didn’t have a name at that time. When I made the film with
Gabrielle, we shot it during the theater holidays.”
Her career opened to work in the other media, though, when she left
the Schaubuehne and engaged an agent to represent her. “It was quite
a change from the stage to being in front of the camera. I was initially
too intense using all of my body and energy,” she observes. “One
works much more independently as an actor on the stage and that’s
something I constantly need to feel although I also like to work in
front of a camera. Film is a bit like a puzzle – you can start at the
beginning or in the middle and slowly the pieces come together –
whereas on the stage you are able to make a creative and formative
contribution over the course of the whole evening. That is the difference.”
While the theater still is very much where she sees her home as an
actress – she has appeared on the stage in Salzburg, Zurich, Berlin,
Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Bochum since leaving the Schaubuehne –
Kogge nevertheless welcomed the chance to take on roles for television
“which allowed me to build up some experience of working
with the camera” with appearances in such popular TV series as Bella
Block or Sperling.
In addition, she has become better known to German television
viewers since 2001 thanks to the role of the Brandenburg-based police
detective Johanna Herz in the ARD series Polizeiruf 110. Her performance
in the episode Kleine Frau by Andreas Kleinert brought
her an Adolf Grimme Award this year.
While she has been quite busy working for television, Kogge has only
occasionally been cast for roles in the cinema: she played a waitress
in a champagne bar at Tegel Airport in Andreas Dresen’s Berlinale
competition film Nightshapes, appeared opposite Johanna
Wokalek and Til Schweiger in his romantic comedy Barefoot, and
was the bridegroom’s mother in Dominique Deruddere’s black
comedy The Wedding Party.
She was offered the role of the mother in Hans-Christian Schmid’s
Berlinale 2006 competition film Requiem just two weeks before
shooting was scheduled to begin after Burghart Klaussner (her husband
in the film) recommended her to the director. “It was a very
intensive style of working,” she recalls about the work on Requiem,
“but I like Hans-Christian’s kind of calmness and his preciseness. He
didn’t say very much, but what he said was always spot on. We
rehearsed a lot and then shot very little. Bogumil [Godfredow, the
cinematographer] shot long takes with a hand-held camera and so, in
effect, it was staged as if we were in the theater. The scenes were prepared,
there were rehearsals, one or two takes and that was it. In
spite of the tight shooting schedule he always had that calmness to
explain something or rehearse it once more.”
After the premiere during the Berlinale in February, Kogge was back
in the spotlight in May when she was nominated in the category of
Best Supporting Actress for the German Film Awards and was then
awarded one of film’s many prizes at the awards ceremony. “I was
overjoyed and quite surprised that I had won after I saw who else had
been nominated because it was a strong cinema year,” she says, pointing
out that the recognition from her peers in the Deutsche
Filmakademie was “very satisfying”. And as she said in her thank-you
speech after receiving the statuette, “the fact that one should get such
a nice prize for such an austere figure who doesn’t exactly command
one’s sympathy, that is great!”
Imogen Kogge spoke with Martin Blaney
german films quarterly actress’ portrait
4 · 2006 15