The German actors play Hedwig and Rudolf Höss in Jonathan Glazer’s brilliant new film about the commandant of Auschwitz and his wife. They talk about the complicated shoot, ancestral guilt, and what convinced them to take on the roles in the first place.
Can you put a face to the banality of evil? On a beautiful London morning, Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel return from a photo shoot. The German actors are here to talk about The Zone of Interest, the film they made with director Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin), of the Free Foundation. about Martin Amis’s 2014 novel of the same name. But let’s talk about Friedel’s taste for porridge; how Hüller, on the other hand, doesn’t eat so early. And they smile and stop, aware of what’s to come.
In The Zone of Interest, Hüller and Friedel play a couple straight out of history: Hedwig and Rudolf Höss, who raised five young people during World War II in a solid villa with an adorable flower garden. He stood atop a wall in the Auschwitz death camp. where Rudolf was commander. Thus ends the verbal exchange.
Both men are dressed for the photograph: Friedel, 44, a cherub in a turtleneck, Hüller, 45, a freelancer dressed in black, a veteran of the circuit since his recent bravery as an editor accused of murder in the mystery Anatomy of a autumn. “I feel like I’m water,” he says of the attention. “Like Bruce Lee. “
Both are brilliant in a film that would overwhelm most actors. On screen, we never see the gas chambers or anything else of the camp, although we always hear it. Instead, Rudolf frets about the state of his career and Hedwig tends the azaleas.
Hüller didn’t need to touch it, he says. When he approached her, she refrained. I had noticed too many German actors dressed as Nazis in dramas of the mundane era. “Also, I don’t have any preference for researching these types of characters. I’m not interested in cruelty and violence.
As heard in Anatomy of a Fall, Hüller is fluent in English. Friedel is more hesitant. His voice is soft. He later claimed that he had never drunk alcohol “or used drugs. “His first film was Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, set before World War I. Introducing him as a kind teacher, Haneke told him he had a “historic face. “He met Glazer and manufacturer Jim Wilson for the first time in London in 2019. He was intimidated by the film they described, but also convinced.
“Even in kindergarten, I enjoyed bringing other people’s ideas to life with singing, dancing and puppetry. It’s part of that same journey. Even if the thought is unbearable: a killer of millions of people who plays wrestling with their children. He asked if they had ever chosen Hedwig. Because it had to be someone so good, but who wouldn’t think about it, she makes a diva gesture: ‘I’m going to do something spectacular here. ‘So I said, ‘Do you need Sandra?'”
“You never told me this,” Hüller says. “How sweet.”
The pair first met in 2013, performing together in the deadpan 19th-century romance Amour Fou. They remained friends. They had a lot in common. Both grew up in the former East Germany: Hüller in the small town of Freidrichroda, Friedel in Magdeburg. As adults, they all embraced the rigor of German theater. (Both still perform on stage. ) They are also talented singers. Friedel is the frontman of the art-rock band Woods of Birnam; 2016 absurdist comedy Toni Erdmann brought us Hüller’s remarkable edition of Whitney Houston’s The Greatest Love of All.
And again. ” They’re so different, right?” Wilson said: “Christian is a natural sweetness. No mediation. And Sandra is complex. It can be a lot of fun, but it’s brimming with inner life. Despite Hüller’s reluctance, Wilson claims that there was no true plan B if she or Friedel succeeded. They were the only actors he or Glazer wanted.
Hüller changed her mind on learning what the film wouldn’t be. “Meeting Jonathan, I realised it wasn’t actually about the Hösses. It was about people ignoring terrible things right where they live. A film to make us unsafe in the cinema. As we should be. We should ask: is this also us? Do we do this, too? Do we do this every single day?” Hüller’s speech has taken on the pulse of a monologue. “So yeah,” she says, abruptly. “This made it interesting.”
I say the film brought me face-to-face with the Holocaust and other atrocities: even the climate crisis. “My daughter told me she didn’t need children because the world is dying,” Hüller said. (She is the mother of a 12-year-old boy. ) How did you respond?”I said I take her seriously, even though her age means it’s not a resolution right now. But there is intelligence in his thinking. Even a sure beauty. Friedel looks a little sad.
The area of interest was filmed in the summer of 2021. The preparation was not so different from any ancient drama; Friedel learned to ride a horse. But the location underscores the film’s uniqueness: not the now-decrepit Villa Höss, but another space on the site of Auschwitz, which also borders the camp.
Inside, instead of a crew, 10 hidden cameras filled the building, so that Friedel and Hüller could perform without the artifice of cinema. (Glazer called the installation “Big Brother in a Nazi House. “From an artistic point of view, they say it’s fascinating.
It was also hard. Some pressures were professional; others personal. The abyss gazed back. “There was a cocktail of darkness,” Friedel says. “We were so close to the camp. We felt responsibility to the victims. My subconscious rose up.” He suffered nightmares. The Friedel who Hüller says “just cannot be an asshole” strove to find inside himself a man who could administer the Holocaust.
Hüller was tested, too. On Anatomy of a Fall, she implored the director Justine Triet to tell her if her character was guilty. Historical evidence makes clear Hedwig Höss knew exactly what was happening beyond her garden. Usually, Hüller builds her characters from empathy. “But I gave her nothing.” Hedwig, she believes, never looked inward herself. You sense this is among the worst things Hüller could say of anyone.
The shoot, they say, “lonely” and “uncomfortable. ” Friedel watched Money Heist to distract himself. Every night, he and Hüller ate together. “It’s vital to have a colleague. ” That winter, however, he filmed other scenes without her. “I’m back in that uniform, and now it’s just me. “She burst into tears.
I ask them how they felt at the end of filming. Disappointed to finish an exclusive exploration?” I’m so glad it’s over,” Friedel says. In fact, it shines.
Hüller nods. And I’d love to paint with Jonathan again, 15 years from now. ” I’m kidding. Kind of like.
But it’s not over. Then there are the interviews. For Hüller, the star has already fallen in love with Anatomy of a Fall: Vanity Fair photographed her in Los Angeles in a lilac Prada dress. The next time we see each other will be through a video call. She is back in Leipzig, where she lives with her daughter and a dog. Now he’s wearing a baggy T-shirt that says, as far as I can see, God loves me.
Awards buzz surrounds both her recent performances. I think of her at film industry parties and recall her remark about channelling Bruce Lee.
“I can make the verbal exchange at a party my own. I can communicate about whatever I need. But no, I don’t feel at home. And I shouldn’t. It’s work. Like now. My ego is flattered that you need to know more about me , but soon I need to know more about someone else.
Yet work and life can blur for actors. Despite her revulsion at Hedwig, Hüller’s dog doubles as the family pet in The Zone of Interest. And the credits of Anatomy of a Fall featured her own teenage years, glimpsed in personal photographs. Triet, she says, first asked for them as detail for set dressing. Hüller only learned the plan had changed much later.
“So it’s a shock. But I love Justine and that’s okay with me. And she makes a face that makes me laugh. “Either way, it’s vital to settle for yourself at 14. “
He talks about his regime in Leipzig: spending time with his daughter and time alone. Praise both. She appreciates the power of the city; He likes to observe other people in supermarkets. She says she managed to get rid of the Höss, but the session stuck with her: a reminder of Germany’s “ancestral guilt. “He was also touched by the friendliness of the staff at the Auschwitz site and that of the local network as a whole.
I wonder aloud about his T-shirt. Does God love me?He laughs and then reads the full slogan: “God loves me and I can’t do anything about it. “He gets up to show me the rest. A teddy bear looks outside, trapped in a horrible Halloween pumpkin. ” Yes, I saw this t-shirt on the internet. And I thought it was a lot of fun. So I bought it. He still laughs when he sits back down. You may also blush.
Friedel is also in Germany when we speak again, at his home in Dresden. He would get up to rehearse with his band. Of course, no alcohol or drugs. ” No, my drug is ice. Less damaging to my mind. Just my body.
He admits that he is still haunted by The Area of Interest. “The emptiness has completely left me. I still want time to see for myself. Now he tells me he had a panic attack while shooting. But he likes to talk about the movie, he said. Help. “
He also discovered other people willing to communicate it. One of them, actor Josh O’Connor, who met him after seeing the film, did not recognize him and suggested he watch it. Inevitably, after the screenings, questions about Israel also arose. and Gaza. “This makes me even more aware of what the movie is about at this moment,” Friedel says. “The message is timeless and universal. There is a darkness in all of us. And history repeats itself. “
The film will be released in Germany next month. Hüller is curious to see the answer. Across the country, the far-right Alternative for Germany is enjoying unexpected electoral success.
“It’s a fascist party. We deserve to say simply fascist. And now the fascists no longer inspire Germans to remember only the past. They justify it. They say once again, “It’s smart to leave this country blank. “Therefore, we will have to communicate about humanity.
For Hüller, all he has to do is draw a line. In Leipzig, he tells me, he was walking his dog when three boys of about 17 started shouting insults at him. Did they recognize her? She sonrió. No. Anyway, I showed them the middle finger. Because I thought, “That’s not how you communicate to me. His manners are now tickled. I was told that. . . Well, let’s just say, I was cursed. Then they threw anything at me! And then they said bad things about my mother. Who they don’t even know! So I laughed at them. I thought, “Do you really think that’s how you travel the world?You’re not going to do it. ‘”
She makes it sound simple. Was she not scared things might turn violent? She grins. “Oh yeah. But I just thought: ‘No. Their way is not going to work.’ And I had a moment of faith it would all turn out good.”
The Area of Interest will be in UK cinemas from 2 February.