Moritz Bleibtreu: Acting is in his blood

It is no understatement to say that Moritz Bleibtreu is the face of German cinema. From the moment he shot to fame in the 1998 cult film Run Lola Run he has been Germany’s premier actor with roles in several well known German productions.

Moritz Bleibtreu in Free Rainer

And his fame is spreading internationally: Recently he could be seen in Paul Schrader’s “The Walker” (2007) and he has just finished filming “Les Femmes de L’ombre” (Female Agents), a French film featuring French stars Sophie Marceau and Julie Depardieu.

“For me it is a bit of a dream come true – you play with people you have admired your whole life,” said Bleibtreu after work on “The Walker”. The German actor had good reason to be impressed; after all, director Paul Schrader is the man who wrote Oscar-nominated films Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Yet Bleibtreu was not the only one who was impressed. Schrader offered Bleibtreu, who is fluent in German, English, French and Italian, a role in his next movie titled “Adam Resurrected” (2008).

Shooting to fame

Bleibtreu put himself on in the cinema map a decade ago in the award-winning Run Lola Run (1998), where he plays Lola’s (Franke Potente) small-time criminal boyfriend, who needs to come up with 100,000 DM within twenty minutes. In the years that followed Bleibtreu showed incredible versatility: He played a young teacher in search of his true love, in Faith Akin’s romantic comedy “Im Juli” (2000); in the psycho-thriller “Das Experiment” (2001) he portraits a journalist who takes part in a social experiment to research aggressive behavior by spending two weeks in a prison; and in the comedy Lammbock (2001) he plays a happy-go-lucky pot-smoking guy who delivers cannabis hidden in pizzas.

Moritz Bleibtreu Yet despite his domestic success, it came a great surprise to Bleibtreu when he received a call from Hollywood. Bleibtreu was filming “Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe” (2005) in Athens and he was asked whether he could be in Paris the next day, as Steven Spielberg wanted to meet with him. Bleibtreu hopped on the next ferry to Athens and flew over. The result: a small role as one the friends of the terrorists in “Munich”.

“He said to me, that he had seen all my films, especially ‘Taking sides – Der Fall Furtwängler’. And of course ‘Lola Rennt’. We never even think that they watch our films in Hollywood,” said Bleibtreu.

Destined to be an actor

Bleibtreu hails from an actors’ family. His father, the actor Hans Brenner, left the family when Moritz was two years old. So Bleibtreu grew up in Hamburg with his mother Monica Bleibtreu, a well known TV actress in Germany. Moritz grew up watching his father on TV every Friday evening, as he played the role of a janitor in a television series. He only ever met him three times after he left: Once when he was four; again when he was twelve; and then most recently in 1998 when his father was on his death bed. Bleibtreu simply told him he did not bear a grudge.

Despite having acting in his blood, becoming an actor was not straightforward for him. He gathered his first acting experiences at a young age, appearing in the children’s film “Ich hatte einen Traum” (I had a dream) in 1979, but it remained a one off for the time being.

He quit school when he was 17 and went Paris to be an au-pair and to learn French. After spending some time in Rome, he moved to New York and was determined to learn how to be an actor. He sought out the best method acting teachers. His great idols Pacino and De Niro had chosen the same route. But Bleibtreu encountered a problem – he could not cry on command. The whole class had a go at psychoanalyzing him: was the problem his relationship to his father? Or his mother?

Getting a break

It was his mother that offered him a lifeline when she called and told him about a small role in a theater in Hamburg. Bleibtreu came back to Germany and played the role where he merely had to say “yes”. Nevertheless it was to act as a springboard for a series of other jobs and from 1992 onwards he began landing small parts in several theater productions in Hamburg.

There followed small roles in Nico Hofmann’s “Schulz & Schulz” (1993) and in Bernd Schadewald’s TV film “Kinder des Satans” (1995). His first effort on the big screen was in the teenager-drama “Einfach nur Liebe” (1993). But it was his role as a likeable homosexual in Rainer Kaufmann’s comedy “Stadtgespräch” (1995) that brought him to the attention of a wider audience. It led to a role in Til Schweiger’s comedy Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (1996), which turned Bleibtreu into a household name in Germany and landed him the Ernst-Lubitsch film prize for outstanding comedy performance.

If there are any doubts about Bleibtreu’s position as a household name in German cinema, then they are set to disappear for good in 2008, as Bleibtreu looks set to capture the attention of cinema audiences in a big way. He has been cast as Andreas Baader in the film “Der Baader Meinhof Komplex” – a film based on Stefan Aust’s bestselling book about the German terrorist group the RAF. Baader fascinates the German public not least because of the circumstances surrounding the terrorist group leader’s death.

With Bleibtreu’s profile increasing at home and abroad he will surely receive another call from Hollywood. Perhaps it will be Schrader again, or even Spielberg. Then Bleibtreu can ask how they get their actors to cry on demand. Until then, he will just have to keep an onion handy.

Alex Handcock