- Title: FJ-HRN-768
- Summary: Christian Oliver / The Good German: HRN-768 Christian Oliver Interview Tape 2 A01. HRN-768
- Description:02:00:44 - A01. HRN-768 In: 02.00.44 Out: 02.02.48 Sound bite: Christian Oliver It was a dream come true. It was the biggest and most valuable learning experience. Or one of the most valuable learning experience out of my career because I reallywhat really impressed me the most is really that, what we have just done on that little tiny movie, Subject Two, amongst friends in a very intimate, creative intimate environment with like nine people in a hut, we had to seclude ourselves at nine thousand feet. Soderburgh does with like thousands of people, with like a studio. I mean he still is, comes from an intimate place. He comes from an independent make and he does them still. He does one for the studio and does one for himself. I mean I dont want to speak for him but its in, they are not much different. I mean they are. The way he treats actors, the way he treats the crew, the way he treats everything, the environment he puts you in, its the same. It is a very great and trusting environment. It was just amazing toto be able to work on such a level and when Cate Blanchett walks into a room itsthere is not a lot of acting required. I just had to keep slapping myself going like, stop watching her, you are in a scene with her, start doing something. It was like wow, she is just amazing and she can turn it on like that and I wasI really caught myself next to the camera going, dude, you are staring, you are watching her, you are in the scene with her so it was so exciting and she is such a wonderful actress and she is so giving, I felt part of it, I was really accepted as one of them and it was great to feel like that. George is obviously ridiculous on set, he is the most passionate actor. 02:03:22 - A02. HRN-768 In: 02.03.22 Out: 02.06.50 Sound bite: Christian Oliver I did learn so much but it is hard to put it all in on thought or one sentence. You know for me personally what I took out the most is what Ive been looking for for so long is the.Im missing a wordnot the approvalwhat Ive been looking for for so long is somebody really whowe are all hoping for our break, waiting for our break but we get caught up in all the Hollywood B.S. and it is so easy to get caught up in it and you start losing sight of what it is all about. It is about having fun, egos do not apply. It is about making something together. It is a team sport. It is not tennis. You cant be out there as an actor hitting balls by yourself. It is a team effort and it is a huge team effort and everyone counts. That is what I really took away from that. And it not something I didnt know before but I realized and he proved to me that it is possible for me to work in this huge machine, Hollywood machine and still be true to yourself and have your integrity and respect of other people and other human beings. It was a very respect integrity driven environment for me. I mean everybody is here because I want them to be here and they contribute to this what we all do in this together. It wasnt an ego driven thing at all. It was so great. I was like wow, this is amazing. If people with such artistic integrity and people on such super stardom level George Clooney, Tobey Maguire, Cate, and all these people, they were there for one reason and one reason only and that is to make a good movie and you know I was a part of it. And everyone else was a part of it. Every extra was a part of it. You know. They all counted, everybody counted. And that is what I really wanted to take away and really wanted to take away into my next project. And that is why I liked working with friends and producing my own stuff because you surround yourself with people you trust and people you want to work with and egos do not apply and egos have no nothing whatsoever. And you hear all of those nightmare stories and you start believing maybe Im too nice. Maybe Im too this and maybe Im too that. And it was great toI mean that is what I personally took away from that experience. With many other great experience on that set but that is one of the biggest things I really treasured that he gave that to me and I gave itI pass it on to all my actors and all my friends. The first thing you need to know is it is possible, it is out there. It is alive and people are making these movies with heart and passion and if you are around George Clooney it is ridiculous how passionate this man is. It is fun. His energy and he is a fighter and he fights for what he believes in and it is infectious, like you want to be, you want to start fighting for your cause and get other people infected with that virus, it is great. 02:07:16 - A03. HRN-768 In: 02.07.16 Out: 02.10.31 Sound bite: Christian Oliver Because Cate is actually hiding me and nobody really knows. She says Emil is dead, he died because she is trying to protect me because everyone is trying to find me. The Russians are trying to find me, the Americans are trying to find me and they are trying to find me for different reasons but the main reason is that I worked for a very important scientist and I was his number cruncher and I keep all of his secrets. I know everything and I am the one who wants to talk. I am the one who wants the world to find out what really happened and Im not the one who wants to go to American and start a new life and forget because that is what happened to some of these people. A lot of these people you know. A lot of people. It is about the undergroundwhat is so appealing about this movie is that it is not a war movie. It is post-war. It is about what happens after. Everything is destroyed and all of these peoples lives are destroyed and everybody is trying to pick up the pieces and Emil and Lena are trying to pick up their pieces, their marriage and they are trying to see if there is still anything they can pick up. They had a very very tough relationship and going into that, it was a lot of research going in on that on my own part. Researching that era, researching, filling in the blanks because Lena and Emil have such a tremendous back-story. Their marriage and what went wrong in their marriage and maybe kids, no kids, shes Jewish, he is a German scientist who loves science more than anything and his predicaments and the great thing is that Steven Soderbergh put us in the right frame and give us our parameters, he gave useveryone got a memo where he kind of described what he set out to do and how crazy it really is what he wants to do and he gave us DVDs from Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, Maltese Falcon, Notorious. All of these great old movies. And when I got that package, this is crazy. I cant believe I am going to be part of this. And then you start seeing George and you are like wow, he is perfect in that kind of movie, Cate, wow. I tried to start and build on that, on the history of what really went down in 1945 post-war Germany. And I started watching movies that were made in Germany. Movies that were made outside of Germany. And it was quite interesting and it fit my character but at the end of it all, the most important thing I had to build was my relationship with Lena, my wife and how did we get to where we were. It was just in shatters, pieces and almost pieces you couldnt put back together. 02:11:18 - A04. HRN-768 In: 02.11.18 Out: 02.14.22 Sound bite: Christian Oliver For me personally, I mean I can only speak for myself, what was appealing to me it wasnt, like you said, it wasnt the typical, stereotypical portrayal of Germany. It was post-war. It was after what had happened and it was how did we get here. How did we let this, how could have this happened and it is something still to this day, it is something that is very currently. This movie, it was 1945 but this movie could also take place anywhere else in any other war. Post-war. I think that is what is so appealing. It was 1945 and it was post-war but the story itself, just happened to take place during that time. The story itself was about who is good, who is bad and who are we to decide who is good and bad in those circumstances. And it is not always what it seems to be and it is hard to judge in those circumstances. And it is obviously a very sensitive subject matter and I was very happy to not have to portray the stereotypical German. It was just a German and there were many of those Germans and they did not have toI mean Emil really wasnt a good German but he was trying to be as good as possible and live with what had happened to millions and millions of people, living in Germany. And nobody knew what had happened and these are all the little things that the movie hints at. There are no answers and it is not suppose to provide answers but it gives you, yeah nobody has the answers, but it gives you stuff like that that can never happen again in our history and we have to watch it because it still till the day, wars that are being fought and we dont know what is going on and we dont know who is good and who is bad and it is not all this black and white as it always seems. And the movie being all shot in black and white, it is not all black and white, there is a lot of grays and war, there are so many grays in war. And when I saw the movie I thought wow, I mean, I think that it is just wonderful how it raises all those questions without really pointing at anybody and if it points you start thinking it is not really trying to judge I think. 02:15:03 - A05. HRN-768 In: 02.15.03 Out: 02.16.58 Sound bite: Christian Oliver Well I think that is the most important thing for me that I do have a great life outside of Hollywood and I could drop all my stuff and live on an island and be a scuba diving instructor if everything fails before I let this town really really get to me. But I have enough passion in me and I have enough fight in me that I want this very very bad and I want this. I think this is a great business and I love what I do. The acting part of it. I get to explore. I get to grow as a person and I get to become a better human being in a sense and for me, it is still finding out so much about myself and unveiling, stripping off all those protective layers and we are taught to bring on. Because in our daily lives if we run around all vulnerable we get slaughtered more or less. But as an actor I feel like I am allowed to constantly let go of those protective shields and explore more about myself and humanity and the people that I live with and therefore I am a fan I can not let go. I will stay who I am and try to be as truthful to that as possible. But I realize I dont need to sacrifice myself to be a part of this. (talks) I realize I dont need to sacrifice myself and who I am to be part of this and to live like this. So it is possible to have both. 02:17:44 - A06. HRN-768 In: 02.17.44 Out: 02.18.32 Sound bite: Christian Oliver Well basically I am a guy that is very active and is out there. Sports, bring it on, from boxing to ice hockey, snow boarding, skydiving. I mean I love adrenalin. Adrenalin, I love it. It feeds me. Definitely I gotta big things to do list outside of my acting, everyday acting here so there is plenty of stuff that keeps me occupied in my free time here. You know if it is going to the beach and rollerblading and water and snow. I love the outdoors. Im a big outdoor guy. 02:18:42 - A07. HRN-768 In: 02.18.42 Out: 02.22.53 Sound bite: Christian Oliver The funny thing isthe thing I really enjoyed in my career so far is that the stage has always found me and pulls me back. It is great, I mean I go to class all the time, I still do active, Im always, I feel it is an ongoing process, its like going to the gym. If you stop going to the gym, youll see. And if you stop building that acting muscle or thatit is going to show and I definitely do that all the time but the funny thing in the last couple years is that the stage has found me in certain way. In Germany I met this amazing amazing conductor, he asked me to??? Is his name and he asked me to participate in his yearly Thinka festival. And I did a soldiers Tale. Which is like an Igor Schavenski which is an amazing amazing story and I never really heard of it and he brought it to me and said I want you to perform it at my festival and so I took five months out and I did it and studied it and I did all the parts in it with a whole like musicians and everything. It was amazing in Spain. It was fun, it was like wow, this is allthis is so different than the film medium. On the stage it is do or die, right then and there. And you have immediate response and then it is gone. I did it years ago and then it was gone and I was like wow, it was just for just a couple hundred people, a couple thousand people, it was so unique and so intimate and that is where I draw my inspiration to you know, when you go to plays here, I mean LA has a lot of good stuff to offer. Unfortunately we are so spoiled that we have to travel to other countries or cities to go to the theatre all the time. I mean New York, Chicago, I mean all I did in Chicago this summer, I did an opera, which I as an actor never thought I would do an opera. I love the opera. I go to see the Dorothy Channel Pavilion to go see the opera because it is inspiring but I sit there in the last row and I go oh my god how great would it be to be on stage with an opera singer and my agent called and said, Christian, you wouldnt be interested in doing an opera would you? Are you crazy, of course I would but I cant really sing. And there was this amazing opera, Mozart, Abduction from the Sirrallio. One of the lead guys, you cant really say lead guy in the opera, but one of the guys is an all speaking part and it is weird in a way because around you is the cast with these amazing voices and there you are and I wanted to start singing every other second I wantedto belt it out but it was such an amazing experience for me, as an actor, to be on stage with such great voices and such talented people in an opera. It was a 1500 seat theatre in the middle of Millennium park in Chicago, the Chicago Opera Theatre. It was a great great experience for me to be on stage in such a great artistic environment. It was really challenging to me to really give it my all and have these people sing these amazing arias to me. It was mind-blowing. You know have an opera singer as close as you right now and start singing a love arias in nine minutes and you have to act with her and interact and not really say anything and it was powerful, it was powerful stuff. And I hope that in my career I would be able to find more of those challenges and those kinds of experiences because for me it is about to be to constantly challenge myself and find new avenues and find new material to explore and enjoy the process of that. 02:23:29 - A08. HRN-768 In: 02.23.29 Out: 02.24.57 Sound bite: Christian Oliver It is tough to see myself in 15 years from now because Im so happy where I am at right now so I am really trying to live one day at a time. But the first thing that comes to mind is probably not what you are hoping for is I want kids and family. I mean I want to be the best dad and the best husband. And it goes beyond wanting to write and direct and no, I want to have a great great family. That is the only thing I can see myself in 15 years. Everything else is one step at a time. I love what I do as an actor and I enjoy what I do. Obviously writing and directing, I mean writing is such a great tool to have and I think its very very, I mean I tried, with Ready or Not, I tried with my director, Sean Doyle and myself, we started writing it together but I had to leave it to the writers at one point so I have a lot of respect for that so it is something I would think I would not really really tackle but never say never and directing is something I would definitely like to explore. But my biggest goals are staying sane and having a great healthy family.
- Collection: Historic Films
- Producer:Historic Films
- Transmission Date:01/01/2006
- Rights:On request
- Decade: 2000s
- File Name: FJ-HRN-768