Original-Cin Q&A: The Zone of Interest's Christian Friedel on Normalized Evil, and Where He Parts Ways With Meryl Streep
By Karen Gordon
In a strong year of cinema, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest has been racking up accolades since its premiere at Cannes this year, where it won the Grand Prix and FIPRESCI prize.
This past weekend it was named Best Film, and Glazer Best Director by the Toronto FIlm Critics Association, of which I am a member (as are most of the O-C writers). It was recently named Best Film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. It is expected to be an Oscar nominee. (Read our review of the film here).
The film profiles Rudolph Höss, who was the longest-serving commandant of the notorious Auschwitz death camp, and his wife Hedwig, who were living a comfortable family life a stone’s throw from the camp. Hôss was responsible for the deaths of almost a million Jews, and other prisoners.
Glazer’s film is not a biopic. Nor does it take us into the death camp. Instead, it focuses on the couple and the life they live. Hedwig loves her home and never wants to leave. Rudolph frets about keeping his job, and entertains proposals about how to make the death camp more efficient.
Christian Friedel as Rudolph Höss in The Zone of Interest
The film adds paints a chilling picture of how ordinary people can commit incredible acts of immorality and evil.
The film owes much of its success to the fine performances of the leads, acclaimed German actors Sandra Hüller, who plays Hedwig and Christian Friedel as Rudolph. Friedel is an award-winning stage and theatre actor. His film credits include the starring role in Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, 13 Minutes about Georg Elser’s attempt to assassinate Hitler and Closed Season, about a Jewish man hidden by a German couple.
He’s also a theatre actor, director, and a singer with the ensemble Woods of Birnam.
Original-Cin’s Karen Gordon spoke to Friedel this past September at the Toronto Film Festival.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Did you know who Rudolph Höss was before you took the role?
CHRISTIAN FRIEDEL: We learned in school, Auschwitz, the camp, the Holocaust. But I didn’t know the name of the commandant. And I didn’t know that he was with his family very close to the camp. That was new to me. I don’t know him, really. But now I know him.
O-C: Given his notoriety, what he did, how did you feel about taking on the role?
FRIEDEL: Maybe I can start with the casting process.
The only thing I knew is that it was a new project with Jonathan Glazer. I met him for the first time in London in a pub with his longtime friend and producer Jim Wilson. And then Jon shared with me his vision, his thoughts, his investigation.
He shared with me some photos, unknown photos, of the family. And I thought, first of all, “I want to be part of this. I want to play the character that is a challenge.”
And then it was really interesting to start to investigate who he was, maybe what he feels, what he thinks.
What is his work? He was not born evil. He was a normal, ordinary boring person. I started to read articles about him, and heard his voice at the Nuremberg Trials. I started to create the character together with Jon and with Sandra as well. We had a lot of conversations about the family, about the script, about the lines. But I think the difference is, what’s in the script. And what’s important is, what are we searching for?
O-C: He’s a perpetrator of incredible evil. But the movie doesn’t lean into that. Your character isn’t a Nazi screaming orders. He often seems like a stressed-out office manager, who could have been manufacturing auto parts, instead of who he was: a man committing mass murder as efficiently as possible and then going home to hang out with the wife and kids.
Did Jonathan talk to you about how to approach your character to achieve that. Or did you just play what was in the script?
FRIEDEL: We talked about it a lot. He said something to me, and I think this was one important key for me to dive into the darkness of the character. He said, “If you speak the truth, then lie with your eyes. And if your eyes tell the truth then lie with your mouth.”
I think to find normal situations believable, that’s one thing. But, we don’t want to see him act like a perpetrator. We cannot say what is going on in his head, and that was the challenge for me: to play it as normal as I can but be aware that there’s no—how can I say it? That we cannot say, “Okay, now I realize he’s the perpetrator. Or he has evil thoughts.”
Because this is the horror. I think that if you think about it, this incredible crime—I can’t believe it. How it was possible? The first time I was in the camp— there’s camp number one, which is huge. But camp number 2 is— I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that this happened. That this was a reality.
O-C: For me, as a viewer, it was uncomfortable at points, but the emotion really hit me when the film ended, as the credits were rolling.
FRIEDEL: I totally agree. I was so overwhelmed. It was for me, uncomfortable to watch the movie too, and I was overwhelmed, because, in the shooting process I was sometimes unsure. Am I doing the right thing? Can it work?
I was really unsure. But (after seeing it), I realize the audience has what you talk about, this emotional reaction after the movie, a lot of questions.
And then there’s something in your subconscious you have to deal with. It’s amazing that this works. I was really surprised and really happy to see that this works, because I think that to realize they were normal people, ordinary people, and to do this to other people? This is, I think, the most important thing in this movie.
O-C: Part of the movie’s message seems to be that it could be anybody. We think of these people as having perpetuated extreme evil with intention. But, the way the movie shows him, the way you play him, this guy seems to think of himself as a bureaucrat, aiming to be seen as a good manager and thinking about his career prospects. in other words ordinary in many ways, but with no apparent connection to morality and therefore capable of committing incredible evil. It’s an important thing to notice about him.
FRIEDEL: I agree this is really important. I would love to talk to a younger audience, because when I was young I saw Schindler’s List and that was an important movie for me.
And in this time to realize the incredible crime of the Holocaust. And this perspective, this new perspective (in The Zone of Interest) is so important. Because we have a war in Ukraine, we have difficult political system changes in the world. And we have to be aware that there is something inside of us. We have to realize that and think about it and not forget it.
O-C: In your career, you've played a man who wanted to kill Hitler, and now this banal and evil man. How does this weigh on you as a German citizen? You’re much younger. This wasn’t your world.
But at the same time, right now with what’s going on politically in all countries all around the world, we’re aware that this level of fascism could be in all of our worlds. Given that you've put yourself into this character's shoes and spent time there, what are your thoughts about these people?
FRIEDEL: It’s interesting because it started with The White Ribbon where I played the school teacher. And I think there’s a connection to (director Michael) Haneke and Glazer, and The White Ribbon and The Zone of Interest, because the kids we see in The White Ribbon could be the future perpetrators in the Second World War.
I played in a feature film Closed Season, I played a Jewish character. And then I played Georg who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1939. Maybe it was time now to play a Nazi. For me, there are connections to all of these movies. I can say all these characters are human beings. And maybe in this, for me, it is important to portray a human being.
I don’t like Rudolph Höss. Meryl Streep said in an interview, you have to love all your characters. I cannot love Rudolf Höss. But it was important to connect the person in the movie with my personality and my memories, so that we believe him. We feel the darkness in him. It’s important in all these characters, to find, to create them as believable.
O-C: It’s a heavy role. and it’s obviously affected you. So what’s next? Are you hoping next for a romantic comedy?
FRIEDEL: My next movie will be a music movie! And this is so different than this one.
It’s good, because I have to let go of this dark character. But, there’s something in my subconscious. Because this was such an intense experience, I will never forget.
But on the other hand, it was inspiring too for me. I’m really looking forward to doing a music movie and to sing and to perform and do something so different.