ACTOR PORTRAIT

Born in Berlin in 1981, Alexander Fehling stud ied Acting at the Hochschule fr Schauspielkunst "Ernst Busch" from 2003 -2007. He soo n began working on stage and in film, and was presented in 2006 with the Academy of Arts' O.E. Hasse Prize for Talented Young Actors for his role as the Prince in Robert W alser 's Schneewittchen. He made his fil m debut in Robe rt Th alheirn's And Along Come Tourists (A m Ende kommen Touristen , 2006 ), for which he rece ived the Young German Cine ma Award as Best Acto r in 2007. Alexander then appeared in He inrich re loe r's Buddenbrooks (2007), Hans-Christian Schrnid 's Storm (St ur m , 2008), Quentin Tarantlno's Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Friede r W ittich's 13 Semesters (13 Semester, 2009) . Last year saw him playing the leads in Philipp St lzl's Goethe! and Toke Co nstantin Hebbeln's Niemandsland (wo rking title). Alexande r was selected as one of 10 young European acto rs to be presented with the Shooting Star Award at the 2011 Be rlinale by the European Film Pro motio n. He can be seen in the ro le of Andreas Baader in Andres Yeiel's fiction feature deb ut If Not Us, Who? (W er wenn nicht wir), which has its world prem iere in the Berlinale's O ffi cial Competition. Agent: Agentur Hoestermann . Bernhard Hoestermann Gneise naustra e 94 . 10961 Berlin/Germany phone +49 -30-6950 1881 . fax +49-30-69501 888 mail@hoeste rmann.de . www.hoestermann.de

GE RMANY' S SHOOTING STAR

A portrait of Alexander Fehling
It was after playing the donk ey at the age of 12 in a childr en' s theate r production of The Bremen Town Musicians that Alexander Fehling first caught the acting bug. "I wasn 't even cons ciously following acting for a profession as a goal." recalls Alexander, who the n played in many productions in e rlln's vibrant 'off theater' <scene after that first appearance in the suburb of Pankow. '" discovered very slowly what it could all be to become an actor," he continues. "lt was like I was playing without a ball - lt's there, but you just can't see it. " After completing his alternative to military service as an orderly in a psychiatrie clinic, Alexander decided to take the plunge and apply for a place at the prestigious "Ernst Busch" acting academy, whose past graduates include such colleagues as August Die hl, Devid Striesow and Julia [entsch, Convinced of his own pote ntial, he was bitterl y disap po inted at not being accepted and spent a year traveling to ap ply to study at other drama schools in Austria and Ge rmany before he successfully applied a second time to "Ernst Busch" in 2003 . In retrospect, Alexander says that this year of traveling and selfquestioning was "a very important pro cess for me which con tinues to influence me right up to the present day." His studies were focused on acting for the stage , something which did not overly concern him at the time since he hadn't seen himself working in the cinema. That developed later. "They don 't rea lly pre pare you for spec ific things," he says about his time at "Ernst Busch". "You shouldn 't have those expectations, you just have lots of poss ibilities to make use of." It was dur ing his third year of studies that he had his first professional engagement in the production of Robert W alser's Schneewittchen in e rlln's So phie nsle appearing opposite veteran Ge rman actor Matthias Habich. His role as the Prince earned him the Acade my of Arts ' OE. Hasse Prize for Tale nted Young Acto rs in 2006. Anothe r thea ter engagement came with the ro le Max Picco lo mini in Pete r Stein's staging of Schllle r's Wa/lensteins Tod befor e the world of cinema knocked o n his door. "Robert [Thalheim] had been looking for someone to play the role of Sve n for around a year," Alexander recalls how he came to be cast in
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one of the main parts for Thalheirn's second feature And Along Co me Tourists. "T hey w ere going through people in the drama schools and my name was on that list. A t the time, I was living a rather chaotic life with no telephone and no real place to live, so they almost didn 't get to me! I w as lucky enough to be the last one ar the casting session." This first role for the cinema saw him going to Cannes in 2007 w hen the film w as invite d to screen in the Un Certain Regard sidebar and he was subsequentl y awarded the Young German Cinema Award as Best A ctor duri ng the Munich Film Festival that year. Interestingly, he didn 't return to the theater - after a four year absence, he is appearing in a contemp ora ry re-working of Flaubert 's Madame Bavary fo r Berl in's Maxim Go rki Th eater starting Febru ary 19th - but concentra ted on w orking for the big screen. " I just knew one th ing," he explains. "That I w ant ed to stay and be able to look for pro jects in the theater or film . It took a long time before the inte resting things came along, but I had to be patlent because I feel a certai n sense of respo nsibility w hen I am playing a part." Thus, in the follo wing years, he took small parts w hich he found "interesting or w ere for films by directors I admired ." First up was Heinrich Breloer's adaptation of the T homas Mann nove l Buddenbrooks w here he was cast as Morten Schw arzkopf and which aired in its two-part TV version on German television over Christmas 2010. He then followed this w ith the part of Patrick Frber in Hans-Christian Schmid's English-Ianguage thriller Storm w hich premiered in competition ar the Berlinale in 2009 before gaining his first experiences of working on a big-budget international production in the role of Master Sergeant W ilhelm in Q uentin Tarant ino' s inimitable take on the Seco nd W orld W ar in Inglourious Basterds. Recalling w orking w ith Tarantino, A lexander says that the approac h w as different fro m the mo ment of the casti ng session held together with produ cer Lawrence Bender : "Q uentin was just very interes ted in everyo ne wh o w as coming into the ro om. It w asn't abo ut wh at I had been do ing before or wh at I know, but wh at I w as do ing at this particular point in time and in this ro om ." His next project, the student comed y 1 3 Semesters by feature debutant Frieder W ittich, couldn't be further away from Tarantino 's epic - and stars a former "Shooting Star" colleague, Max Riemelt, in . the lead. W hile Alexander had been quietly building up a track record of appearances in an eclectic range of projects, he was destined for a higher profile after being chosen by Philipp Stlzl to play the lead part of Germany's most famous man of letters in Goethe!. "There were great opportunities for me as an actor;" he says. "I had space to fill. I am very grate ful for that after being so patient all those years. I think it 's good that I hadn't been playing lead roles before I appeared in Goethe!. People didn't already have a certain picture of me. W hat fascinated me was that the character of Goethe is very active, something quite unusual for Ger man films. I can't recall another character in German cinema w ho is both active, courageous and sensitive." Fast forward almost two centuries and A lexander has been cast in another key figure from Germ an history: as Andreas Baader in

A ndres Veiel's flction feature debut If Not Us, Who?, which is premiering in this year's Berlinale competition. He describes working on this film as "very intense" and explains that he "didn't have a picture of Baader in mind and that was very important , I hadn't seen The Baader Meinhaf Camp/ex and only part of Baader with Frank Giering. That 's w hat being an actor is all about: noticing things and then forgetting things." H e did some backgro und reading on the historical figure of Baader, but not as much as w as needed for Goethe. "We spent more time talking about wh at is happening in the scenes and w here the characte r is coming from and wh at do es he w ant." he notes. "A s weil as w hat the co nflict might be in there." In the meantime, A lexander has another two projects curre ntly in post-pro duction. O ne of these, [an Za beil's debut featur e The Art of Dying (working title), w as co -w ritten by the young actor w ho stars in the story of a young Germ an explori ng a huge swa mp delta in Bo tsw ana, "Four of us w ent to A frica afte r I had finished Goethe! [in 2009] to make a film w ithout a script." he says. " lt w as a bit like an expedition as w e searched fo r our sto ry there, so w e spent three rnonths w orking o n the story of a young German guy w ho gets lo st in the w ilderness. The film is about life and death and w hat happens w hen you come to a place w here every rule you have learn ed is changed." Al exander admits that the "hands-on" experie nce of making a film certainly appealed to him and he could imagine getting more involved 'behind the carnera' at a later stage in his career. W hile he doesn't have any immediate plans in this directi on, he is nevertheless developing some projeets w ith directo r friends he knows on an inform al basis. Th e seco nd project in po st-produetion is another feature debut, Student O sca -w inner Toke Con stantin H ebbeln's Niemandsland , whi ch wrapped shortly befo re Christmas and is his second lead ro le. W hile the time aro und the Berl inale wil l be busy enough for Al exander this year, w hat w it h his preparations for the premiere of M adame Bavary and the presentation of If Not Us, Who? in the festival's com petition, he is also sure to be much in demand as one of the ten young European acting talents selected as 'Shooting Stars'. Al ong w ith colleagues from countries as far apart as Al bania, Ireland, Spain, the UK and Sweden, he w ill be th rust into the spotlight for a busy three days on the festival's first weekend as part of an initiative staged by the European Film Promotion. A fter his experiences of acting in such films as Inglourious Basterds and Storm. A lexander is open to doing more international productions "because I am interes ted in w orking with inspiring people, peop le I can learn from o r w ho are on the same w avelength as me." H e is looking forward to expanding his network of contacts through the exposure from Shooti ng Stars as w eil as getting anothe r perspective from outside of his w ork and life in general. " l've always been interested in w o rking on 'unsafe' ter rain.' he notes, "and acting in another language means that I am discovering new things."

Alexander Fehling spake with M artin B/aney

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actor portrait
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