ORDINARY PEOPLE

THE ZONE OF INTEREST Jonathan Glazer’s Nazi drama is uniquely horrifying…

Resident evil: Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) at home

The new masterpiece from Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Under the Skin) is largely set in the home of the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller). Living next to the camp, they sip tea and entertain and raise their children as screams and gunshots sound from behind the wall at the end of their manicured garden.

How easy was it to say yes to Jonathan Glazer?

Sandra Hüller: I didn’t really want to have anything to do with this period of violence. It’s difficult when you’re cast in a film from another country and you’re the German actress who plays a fascist woman. It’s boring.

But in this case it felt necessary, and it turned out to be a dream, because of the work, and Jonathan Glazer.

Christian Friedel: I’ve had two offers before to play Adolf Hitler and I’ve been offered roles as other Nazis.

I’ve always said no. But Jonathan’s decision and his approach was so different. It’s great to change the perspective and to give these evil people a human face. That was the challenge. It was two years of my life that I had this character next to me. It was a really dark, intense experience.

The house and garden were rigged with hidden cameras. You could wander and improvise as long as you said a key line or got a point across… SH: There are many things that work really well with this technical set-up because you’re not interrupted. You’re alone in the house. We had really long takes. It’s a good thing to start playing with each other instead of just opening the door and saying the sentence and closing the door again.

‘It was areally dark, intense experience’

CHRISTIAN FRIEDEL

CF: Jonathan described it sometimes as Big Brother in a Nazi house. We had no technicians on the set, or even Jonathan – he was in a trailer with 10 monitors. But it allowed us to create this reality. For an actor, the most difficult thing is not to be boring. But here it was allowed.

This film feels important now. Today, there’s so much division and hatred…

SH: It brings people to their own little garden that they have in their life, with a wall next to it. I think it’s important to be aware of the excluding language that we use. All the things that we do that feel normal because some American guy started to do it and everyone followed. This is where it starts.

CF: The darkness is inside all of us. This film reminds us to think about ourselves and what could be possible if the political system is changing. Jonathan said to me, ‘There are two wolves inside of us: a good wolf and a bad wolf. Which wolf you feed the most will dominate.’ It doesn’t matter what religion we have, the colour of our skin, our sexuality… It’s in all of us.