Daniel Brühl Talks Giving Jude Law a ‘Hard Time’ in Ron Howard’s ‘Eden,’ Working With ‘Maniac’ Ruben Östlund and ‘Crazy as Hell’ Tarantino: ‘I Don’t Want to Be Safe’
Daniel Brühl went to “Eden” and survived to tell the tale.
“I can’t compare it to any of my films. I’ve never done anything like it,” he says, teasing Ron Howard’s upcoming thriller. “Two days ago, I was doing the dubbing and saw Jude Law giving me a hard time on screen. We are both giving each other a hard time in this film.”
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Shot in Australia – “We shot in nature, in the wilderness. All of it!” – it also features Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby and Sydney Sweeney as a group of people heading to the Galápagos Islands. Hans Zimmer composed the score.
“Tonally, it’s very eerie and very influenced by its setting. Ron and I, we have been talking a lot about Peter Weir’s films and the wonderful ‘Walkabout’ by Nicolas Roeg. There is this connection to nature, which is similar to [Howard’s previous film] ‘Thirteen Lives.’ It’s very epic in its scale,” Brühl says, enthusing over “Eden’s” “thrilling, feverish pace.”
“The cast is stellar, but it’s not a talky film, which I also enjoyed,” he adds. “It’s more about what people do rather than what they say.”
Back in 2013, Brühl worked with Howard on “Rush,” where he played Formula One champ Niki Lauda. “No German director would have offered me that part,” Brühl says. “He’s so cold, so calculated. In Germany, they would have said, ‘But Daniel is such a nice guy.’ I am not!”
Howard actually first mentioned the idea of “Eden” to Brühl while on the set of “Rush.”
“It was our last week and he said, ‘I want to make this film with you one day,'” Brühl recalls. “I am amazed by his pace and his energy. This man is like a Duracell battery.”
Soon, Brühl will face another “maniac”: double Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund. In “The Entertainment System Is Down,” a social satire set on a long-haul flight, he will be joined by Keanu Reeves and Kirsten Dunst.
“He’s crazy!” he says of Östlund. “These maniacs, they are all so distinctive. It’s a fun process to get into his mindset. Now, at 46, I want to have these experiences outside of my comfort zone. I want to experience the thrill of falling and failing, and I don’t want to be safe. Ruben is relentless and probably one of the most peculiar filmmakers [out there]. Although there have been others. Tarantino is crazy as hell, in the best possible way.”
Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” marked an important step in Brühl’s career. “After ‘Good Bye, Lenin!’ I was put in one box,” he says. “People saw me as their son-in-law, as that guy who helps elderly people cross the street. Here, I start as the only likable German and then… it flips.”
He adds, “Tarantino, he just does things differently. He invited the whole crew and the actors to watch 35mm films every Thursday. There were German crew members eating pizza next to Brad Pitt. Everyone was invited to that party.”
Set to receive the President’s Award at Karlovy Vary, Brühl isn’t ready to start collecting lifetime achievement awards anytime soon.
“I hope I still have a long way to go,” he says. “It has been funny, these last couple of months. So many things came together. It makes you happy: you turn 46, you have your first midlife crisis and go, ‘Oh. I still have interesting work to do.’ But there are moments when nothing is coming in, and that’s why I wanted to join a production company.”
As reported by Variety, Brühl – a partner at Amusement Park, also behind the Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” – will now direct “Break,” a biopic about 1930s tennis champion Gottfried von Cramm forced to face the Nazi regime.
“I didn’t want to turn into an old, miserable actor who waits for the phone to ring. I wanted to do things proactively. I also need to feel this kick. With ‘Becoming Karl Lagerfeld’, when I first got the call, I was laughing, thinking it was ridiculous. Then I hung up the phone and realized, ‘Fuck. This is exactly what interests me.’ It could have been a shit show, something that makes people throw tomatoes at me. But it attracted me,” he says about his role in Disney+ series, where he plays the iconic designer.
“At our company, I also want to push. The success we had with ‘All Quiet’ opened up doors I now want to use. There is another film, very personal, which I want to direct. Provided the next one isn’t a total disaster,” he laughs.
His debut feature as a director, “Next Door,” fell victim to the COVID pandemic.
“It had a very short life in the theaters,” he says. “It was selected for the Berlinale, but there was no festival! There was a screening in the summer and it wasn’t the same.”
The intimate dark comedy about privilege and gentrification saw him play a “heightened asshole version of himself.”
“I come from Cologne and we think we are ‘the friendly Germans.’ But then in Berlin, I would get this reaction that, well, they don’t like me,” he says. “You have to accept that.”
With its period setting alone, “Break” will pose a completely different challenge. Is he ready to direct a much bigger film next?
“No. Not at all,” Brühl says. “I mentioned it a couple of times: ‘Is this weight too heavy for me to lift?’ But I would be a coward if I didn’t accept this beautiful invitation.”
On directing “Break,” hen adds: “It’s a film I chose to do, because it’s relevant for now. I want it to be political, but not in a loud, obvious way. In Europe, this populist poison is spreading out everywhere. When the [Berlin] Wall came down and the borders opened up, there was this spirit of open-mindedness and curiosity, and generosity. Now, we are going back to darker places. I want to remind people what it means when we lose freedom we’ve been privileged to experience.”
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