DAVID THEWLIS Q&A for THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS<\/p>\n
QUESTION: What do you look for in a script?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: What I have learned to look for over the years now is\u00a0
\na good story. That’s what brought me to this one [The Boy In The\u00a0
\nStriped Pajamas] because it was the best script that I had read for\u00a0
\nsome time. It was like reading a good novel; I kept turning the\u00a0
\npages, encouraged by what I had read. Obviously I also look for a\u00a0
\ncharacter that is going to be a challenge to me. I try not to do\u00a0
\nthings that I have done before, or do something that will be too easy\u00a0
\nor that I can already see the way that I will do it and I’m bored\u00a0
\nbefore I begin the film. So I like to scare myself a bit and\u00a0
\nthink …well, I’m not sure that I can do this, or that I am the\u00a0
\nright person to do it, or if by casting me they are making a good\u00a0
\ndecision. So I usually look for things that I think will challenge me.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: How do you become involved in the filming of The Boy In The\u00a0
\nStriped Pajamas?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: There is no real story…I got sent the script, via my\u00a0
\nagent. She read t and really recommended it to me. She said you\u00a0
\nshould read this one quickly, it’s very, very good and there is a lot\u00a0
\nof interest in you and Mark Herman (director) wants you to do it. I\u00a0
\nread it, it was a no-brainer – I said yes, and absolutely I’d like to\u00a0
\ndo it. I was in Los Angeles at the time and the same day I rang back\u00a0
\nand said that if they were interested in me I would certainly do it.\u00a0
\nThen when I heard about the rest of the cast…Vera Farmiga, Rupert\u00a0
\nFriend and David Hayman. I knew David Hayman (Pavel) since I was at\u00a0
\ndrama college. Her is an admirable guy, a great guy in many, many ways.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: Had you been aware of the book?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: I was unaware of the book, I’m afraid. I had never\u00a0
\nheard of it. I had been working out of England for a long time – In\u00a0
\nEastern Europe and Spain and Portugal and the USA. I am such a big\u00a0
\nreader that I am sure that I would have known about it if I had been\u00a0
\nin the country. So my first experience was the script, which is\u00a0
\nrather unusual because I was not sent it in hard copy, I was sent it\u00a0
\nin a PDF file, so I actually read it on a computer because I did not\u00a0
\nhave a printer with me where I was. So when I got to the end, I kept\u00a0
\npressing the key because I thought that you couldn’t just finish\u00a0
\nthere. It is even more brutal on the written page than it is on the\u00a0
\nscreen. So it ended on the computer and then…and roll credits! I\u00a0
\nthought, what does it mean…roll credits…you can’t just end the\u00a0
\nfilm like that. But of course you can end the film like that and it\u00a0
\nis one of its great, great strengths. It is very hard to talk about\u00a0
\nthis film without discussing the ending because the ending is what\u00a0
\neveryone talks about and the many people who have bought the book\u00a0
\nwill know the ending. Even though it is slightly different in the\u00a0
\nbook, but not very much different from the film.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: So once you knew that you were going to do this film, did\u00a0
\nyou go and get a copy of John Boyne’s book?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: Yes, I did. As I remember I think that I was able to\u00a0
\nget hold of it in the States. So I read it straight away. There is a\u00a0
\ndifference between the book and the film. Firstly [in the book] the\u00a0
\nparents are not as prominent and from the beginning I think that the\u00a0
\nfather comes over as being a little bit more intimidating. But there\u00a0
\nwas something in the film script that suggested that he could be\u00a0
\nplayed gentler at the very beginning. That was not to fool the\u00a0
\naudience in any way, but just to have a gentle progression into the\u00a0
\nmadness. One of the great themes of the film is the relationship\u00a0
\nbetween father and son. Not just Bruno and my character but\u00a0
\nLieutenant Kotler and his father and Shmuel and his father and my\u00a0
\ncharacter and his father. So it is exploring that on many levels. So\u00a0
\nI thought it was more interesting to show my character as a loving\u00a0
\nfather – as indeed such people no doubt were. No matter what they\u00a0
\nwere, I am sure that even Goebbels loved his children, even though he\u00a0
\npoisoned his own children at the end of the war. I have no doubt that\u00a0
\nhe experienced love and affection for them. You could say I suppose\u00a0
\nthat he killed them out of love for his children…either because he\u00a0
\ndid not want them to exist in a Germany without National Socialism or\u00a0
\nthat he didn’t want them to face the recriminations of being the\u00a0
\nchildren of Goebbels. The point is that Nazis loved their children;\u00a0
\nwe can’t say that they didn’t.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: Did you have any reservations about playing this character\u00a0
\nin The Boy In The Striped Pajamas?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: Not at all, no. I thought it was very challenging to\u00a0
\nget into the mindset of such a person. There have been such great,\u00a0
\nwonderful actors who have played Hitler. I was in fact approached\u00a0
\nmyself years ago to play Hitler. I would not shrink from that because\u00a0
\nas an actor it is fascinating to try and find the man behind the\u00a0
\nmonster. You can’t just put on a funny moustache and learn all the\u00a0
\ngestures and say that’s Hitler. You have to think about what they\u00a0
\nwere thinking about and be quite brave with yourself and contemplate\u00a0
\nthe darkness within them and look at the darkness within you. Some\u00a0
\npeople have mentioned the British accents that are used by the\u00a0
\ncast…but what if it were set in Britain? There were Fascists here.\u00a0
\nSo it is not impossible that it could happen here. It is not\u00a0
\nexclusively a German thing. It could happen anywhere in the world,\u00a0
\nwith the right sequence of circumstances. I just immersed myself in\u00a0
\nthe period. At the time I knew everything about that period of\u00a0
\nhistory. It was not something that I had read a great deal about\u00a0
\nbefore. Obviously we are all aware of it, but I read every book and\u00a0
\nwatched every documentary. I did not read anything else at the time.\u00a0
\nI did not read anything that was contemporary or look at any\u00a0
\nnewspapers or indeed watch any television. I just basically had a\u00a0
\nNazi education. After a while that kind of gets to you.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: How were you with your nearest and dearest during that period?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: Most of the time that I was doing that I was in\u00a0
\nBudapest and I wasn’t with the family. I had started researching it\u00a0
\nwhen I was at home with the family…starting to read things and\u00a0
\nunderstand it…so I was with Anna and the family there. But when I\u00a0
\nwent to Budapest that was when I started thinking about it a lot…to\u00a0
\nthe point of going to the gym every day, to feel like a soldier, to\u00a0
\nfeel strong and to have like a military regime. Even if we had a 5 am\u00a0
\ncall, I would be in the gym at 4 am. And I was eating in a very\u00a0
\ndisciplined manner, I was not drinking, I was trying to live a very\u00a0
\nstrict like. Spartan. Which was good and worked and when I had\u00a0
\nreading time I was reading all this material. Having said all that,\u00a0
\nmaking the film was not a grim time because it so happened that it\u00a0
\ninvolved a rather nice bunch of people. There was just a nice\u00a0
\nchemistry…the children who play Bruno and Shmuel were wonderful.\u00a0
\nAsa Butterfield [Bruno] and Amber Beattie who plays Gretel were\u00a0
\nhysterical when they were together, they cracked me up and Vera\u00a0
\n[Farmiga] is a big laugher and Rupert is the same. So we did not have\u00a0
\na grim time making this film, indeed sometimes we had a very nice\u00a0
\ntime and I do not feel guilty about that, it is, after all, a film.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: Did you also want to do a film like The Boy In The Striped\u00a0
\nPyjamas because you are now a parent?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: I think that I still would have done the film if I had\u00a0
\nnot been a parent, but it did bring it home to me, especially in\u00a0
\nthose final scenes. Really I suppose then you tap into the thought of\u00a0
\nwhat if something happened to your own child. When I was doing all\u00a0
\nthis research I was having a lot of bad dreams – I had dreams about\u00a0
\nmy daughter being taken away from me. That happened several times,\u00a0
\nuntil I stopped it all. I stopped all the research after a while. I\u00a0
\ndecided that I knew how to play the character and the research was\u00a0
\nnot too healthy for my head. No-one should be watching [documentaries\u00a0
\nof the Nazis] all the time…night after night. I had watched some\u00a0
\nfootage that is not really shown on TV any more because it is too\u00a0
\nhorrific. I thought it was getting a bit perverse to keep watching,\u00a0
\neven though I was trying to de-sensitized myself. This man used to go\u00a0
\nand watch experiments to watch how the prisoners died – looking\u00a0
\nthrough the peep-hole – and then have lunch with his family. He would\u00a0
\nkiss his children and then throw children into the gas chamber. It is\u00a0
\nhard to imagine that. So I suppose I was trying to de-sensitized\u00a0
\nmyself and think about how this was possible and it was because it\u00a0
\nhappened to an enormous amount of people.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: What was the emotional impact when you watched The Boy In\u00a0
\nThe Striped Pyjamas?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: I had never watched a film that I was in when I cried\u00a0
\nwhile watching. But I have seen this film four times now and I have\u00a0
\ncried every time. As they are running through the woods you know that\u00a0
\nwhat is about to happen is inevitable. Jack and Asa are amazing and\u00a0
\nso by that point in the film you are totally in love with them. I\u00a0
\nchallenge anyone not to be moved by the end of this film. I watched\u00a0
\nit in Los Angeles with my agent and I thought she hated it because,\u00a0
\nat the end, she just got up and left. We were supposed to go for\u00a0
\nlunch. But I discovered it was her favorite film of the year and she\u00a0
\nleft because she just couldn\u2019t say anything, she was so emotional.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: Surely the film has educational potential?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: I think it is perfect for education. It is something\u00a0
\nthat should be watched and then talked about with parents or\u00a0
\nteachers. As I understand the book is already in the curriculum. If\u00a0
\nit is distressed to children, well it IS distressed, and they should\u00a0
\nlearn about it.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: How is your own writing coming on?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: God, I have another novel in the works and a\u00a0
\ncollection of short stories. I find there is lots of time to write.\u00a0
\nIf I am in a hotel on my own while my family is in Los Angeles then I\u00a0
\nwrite. On the film set I find time too. Working with words also makes\u00a0
\nme read more and I make a big effort not to watch TV.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: Are you planning to write a script?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: I am working on a script as well. Barry Sonnenfeld\u00a0
\nread my book, liked it, and asked me to write a script with him. That\u00a0
\nis happening slowly. The script is set in the States.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: Since you live in the USA what do you miss from home?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: Not too much. America is still a novelty.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: Are you a fan of DVD?
\nDAVID THEWLIS: Yeah, absolutely! I watch a lot of movies on DVD. I\u00a0
\nhave been watching a lot of old films like Sunset Boulevard. That is\u00a0
\npartly to do with what I am writing because it concerns old Hollywood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DAVID THEWLIS Q&A for THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS QUESTION: What do you look for in a script? DAVID THEWLIS: What I have learned to look for over the years now is\u00a0 a good story. That’s what brought me to this one [The Boy In The\u00a0 Striped Pajamas] because it was the best script<\/p>\n