Breaking Baz: German Stars Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller & Leonie Benesch Make Their Mark On 2024 Oscars
deadline.comSandra Hüller (a Best Actress nominee) and Christian Friedel, stars of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest — nominated for Best Picture, Best International Picture, Director, Sound, and Adapted Screenplay — are familiar with Shakespeare’s famous verse from Hamlet: ”All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are merely players …” That’s because both thespians have been playing the Danish prince on stages around Germany for years.
Due to Germany’s repertory system in city and state theaters, an actor can revisit an assortment of plays time after time over a number of years.
Friedel tells me that he first played the Dane in 2012. It’s a sort of rock star Hamlet performed with his band, Woods of Birnam. “It can take years until the piece is really finished,” he explains.
He adds that “It changes as you’re getting older,” an experience he feels with movies as well. The films obviously remain the same, but you relate to them in different ways as you get older. ”If you watch a film again and again after some time,” he believes, “it’s like magic.” Hüller has been tackling her interpretation of Hamlet since 2019, and a few days after Sunday’s ceremony — she’s a contender for her performance in Justine Triet’s Best Picture nominated Anatomy of a Fall — she’ll be back treading the boards as Hamlet.
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