Another translation :) This one was taken from:

http://www.berlin1.de/freizeit/spaziergang/article67772/Berliner-Spaziergang.html 

And I hope you like it as much as I did :)

The Calm Hero

A Walk Through Berlin

Published October 31^st 2010

August Diehl has kissed Angelina Jolie. But don’t imagine that to be an especially exciting experience. That happened on a movie set. Camera! Lights! Sound! Action! Kiss! August Diehl portrays the „best biologist in the world“ and Angelina Jolie plays an agent. In the movie (“Salt”), August Diehl dies soon after that kiss.

What remains for the viewer is the close up of a romantic moment. Years later, you’ll be able to see every single stubble on August Diehl’s face. If you meet the actor in his neighborhood, the Prenzlauer Berg, you can ask him everything. Everything, but: “What was it like with Angelina Jolie?”

But more about that later. Our first meeting on the Bornholmer Bridge between Prenzlauer Berg and Wedding is impressive. August Diehl is walking towards me, crossing the bridge, and behind him, in some distance, a young mother and her child. When we exchange first greetings, the mother overtakes us and her child, about two years old, raises an arm, points at August Diehl and starts to cry. Very loud. Just like that. The mother seems puzzled, shakes her head, kneels down to calm her daughter a bit and then they quickly walk down the staircase next to the bridge.

August Diehl actually is everything but scary. An elegant, black coat, black and white shirt with flowers on it and hair that constantly falls in his face. If he laughs, he laughs for real, with creases at the eye. Above all that, the autumn sun shows up behind the clouds every five minutes. The 34 year old actor has time off at the moment, spending it with his wife and their daughter, who is about the age of the child we just met.

The crying girl can’t ruin his mood. We walk down the stairs, into an empty area with lots of graffiti on the walls. You can still make out where the Berlin Wall crossed this area between Bösebridge and Behmbridge. “Hero” is written on one of the walls, as if it was directed to everyone who is able to read it. We talk about the people who died here and that the Bösebridge was the first open border crossing.

Then the topic changes to August Diehl’s new movie „Die kommenden Tage“. It draws a gloomy future for Germany where fear and water shortage are daily threads. August Diehl says: “The weird thing about this movie is that it shows Europe going through issues that already exist all over the world: In South America, in Asia, in Africa.” He refers to the security, the dangerous zones, the empty streets. “In the movie, just like here, you ask yourself: Where did all the people go to?” He points at a guy on a bike cycling past us. “There is a person once in a while, but apart from that, the streets are deserted.”

In the movie, Diehl plays an ecological terrorist who doesn’t mind the death of innocent people in order to win the fight for water and oil with the rich people. The movie is set in Berlin between 2012 and 2020. It has become a grey city, with more and higher skyscrapers between the radio tower and Alexanderplatz. There are also housing areas that make you think of an African slum. Small wooden huts, huge screens at the Postdamer Platz and at night, you hear shots in the streets. The viewer only sees that happen in the background, without explaining too much. The back stories of the main characters are only vaguely explained.

August Diehl likes movies that do not show everything, don’t explain every part of the story. “I get a lot closer to the main characters,” he says, “if I do not understand why they act the way they act.” He wants them to surprise him and at the same time remain slightly mysterious. That way, he can ask himself: „What does he think he’s doing?“ or “Why is it that way?”. Maybe it’s also closer to reality. Who can really get to know someone in 90 minutes?

We cross the Behmbridge and follow the boardwalk in the direction to the Mauerpark. Now we do notice how loud the Prenzlauer Berg actually is. We are surrounded by subway trains and streets, several feet in front of us there is a building site – and just now, another plane has flown above our heads. Maybe the child we met before didn’t point at August Diehl but at one of those planes? Anyway, we do have to talk louder than all that noise now, which is at first exhausting but after a while feels quite natural.

August Diehl also lives around here, likes that part of the city a lot. “Talking bad about the Prenzlauer Berg is out of fashion again,” he says. Luckily, it has never really been justified. “Eight years ago, all the people who lived here wanted to move away from Helmholtzplatz because there were too many beggars,” he says. Today, the same people complain that it’s too clean. Diehl likes the “in between” you can find here a lot. Apart from that, you’re not forced to stay in one area of Berlin for all your life. “If I meet friends, I drive to Neukölln or Charlottenburg.”

Diehl, who was born in Berlin, has lived in both places and always felt at home. But August Diehl was raised in France. At least until he was seven years old. His parents (an actor and a costume designer) have a house in the south of the country where they schooled him at home. And where they now live, again. August Diehl loves visiting them because he still has lots of friends there. Later on his parents moved to Prien in Bavaria where Diehl visited a Waldorfschool and already left an impression in the school plays. Especially when he played Franz Moor in “Die Räuber” by Schiller, who is the ugly, jealous son of a thief who has to fight against his brother. His first big role: The bad guy.

When we cross the Mauerpark, it’s almost empty but it’s still quite loud. August Diehl stops, again and again, to take a deep breath and explains why he chose Franz Moor for his application at the Ernst Busch School of Acting. “You can be so angry, really aggressive.” Even though he had prepared the role of the scheming evil doer very well, he still had doubts. “There were moments when I thought: I won’t be able to make it.” It’s an insecurity that plays part in the lives of most young actors. He stops once again. “I think we share this huge fear to make a mistake, not to be good enough, with every young director and producer.”

But Diehl was lucky and got to work with established artists who showed him that it does work without fear, too. Among them were great directors like Peter Zadek, Volker Schlöndorff and Quentin Tarantino. With their help, Diehl could prove that he can do a lot more than just portraying the weird loner that let him win the Bavarian and German Movie Price in 1998 for “23 – Nichts ist so wie es scheint”.

But still: Volker Schlöndorff had to fight for the casting of August Diehl when he prepared his movie “Am Neunten Tag”. The German Film Funding couldn’t imagine eight years ago that someone like him could play a nazi. The director made a screen test with him and showed it to them. Then they agreed.

We have reached the quite noisy Bernauer Street when we talk about this story. “Apparently, I’m not considered to be someone whose movies will make a lot of money.” The man who says that has kissed the wife of Brad Pitt not too long ago. And that’s the perfect moment: what was it like with Angelina Jolie? August Diehl sighs. “If I had known the big fuzz everyone would make about it, I would have never survived shooting that scene.”

But during shooting the scene, he only thought about getting it done in a way that the people on the set and later on the audience at the movie theater would believe what he’s doing. “Of course you find yourself in your hotel room later that evening thinking that it actually is quite a weird thing to happen.”

That moment, we have reached the only really silent moment during our walk. No plane, no car, no subway, no construction site, no screaming child. We have reached a little park I never heard about: Vinetapark. It’s in the west of the Mauerpark in a housing area in Wedding. Nobody is walking around here or sitting around. We sit down on a bench, make cigarettes, talk about shooting in Columbia (“Dr. Alemán”), in Indonesia (“Slumming”) and Babelsberg (“Inglourious Basterds”). Diehl rather likes talking to journalists about movies and how they’re made than about himself.

But when the topic moves to his current movie, “Die kommenden Tage”, he does tell a rather personal story about him having an encounter with the police recently. Earlier this year, when it was still really cold, his daughter wouldn’t fall asleep. It was half past two at night. He got dressed and put her in a jacket and went for a walk in Prenzlauer Berg. Suddenly, two policemen in plain clothes stopped him and wanted to know if it was his daughter. Diehl  said, she was and the two of them weren’t satisfied: “We want to see your apartment to make sure it’s clean.” August Diehl was so surprised that he took them along and showed them the apartment. Everything way okay and they left again.

Another plance flies above us and the silence is gone. But the story isn’t though yet. We walk back to the east of the town and Diehl asks how it’s possible that the state enters apartments just like that. Were they really policemen? And if so, are they allowed to do that? When Diehl asked them, one of them said: “Sure, recently, in Kreuzberg, we saw a really dirty and rundown apartment and took the child with us.” For a moment, Indoensia and Columbia aren’t that far away, the safety zones, the security, the dark and gloomy future. Maybe he only told the story because of that? It does sound unbelievable. Diehl: “I just stood there, my child in my arms.”

We walk towards the Gleimtunnel and back to Prenzlauer Berg. And again the traffic drowns every attempt at a conversation. August Diehl whistles a melody, just a few notes. It sounds melancholic, but when I ask him which song it was he stops and says “Nothing special.” In the tunnel he tells me, with a loud voice, that it makes him sad that so many good artists have died recently. He doesn’t say “died”, he says “heads have rolled” and talks about a “mass extinction of the big directors”. He names them: Bergman, Brüder, Antonioni, Tabori, Chabrol, Zadek, Schlingensief.

That’s another of those moments where Diehl gets a bit more personal. Especially the death of Peter Zadek about a year ago has hit him. But Diehl doesn’t want to talk about it. In general, he stays away from red carpets unless they are for his own movies and doesn’t attend charity dinners, doesn’t have his car sponsored. What for? For him it’s just about making movies – which again, differentiates him from most of the other actors. He doesn’t care that this profession can also make him a star.

And if anyone still wants to know what Angelina tastes like, has to live with August Diehl answering “Brad Pitt.” And you really shouldn’t ask whether he kissed him, too.

Man’s Business

By: HENSEL, JANA

The actors Daniel Brühl and August Diehl are friends - on screen and in real life.

They are among the bests of their trade, but Daniel Brühl (“Good Bye, Lenin!”) and August Diehl (“23”) had never been in front of the camera together. Not until the director Achim von Borries had the idea to cast the two actors for his movie “Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken”  - a true story that happened in summer 1927. Five friends spend a few days out in the country and get caught up in a round dance of love: Günther, coming from a rich family, loves Hans - and do does Günther’s sister, Hilde. Hilde’s friend Elli loves Paul and Paul, Günther’s friend, likes Hilde. The result is - no surprise: tragic.

During the time of the shooting, Diehl, 28, and Brühl, 25, became friends. For KulturSPIEGEL, they told uns - apart from one another - how they met for the first time and what friendship means to them.

AUGUST DIEHL

“It will do them good to wait for me a little bit.”

By the end of the afternoon, August Diehl utters the sentence that does, finally, tell us at least a bit about him as a person: “Friends give you the opportunity to forget about yourself.” He spent a lot of time thinking before he could force himself to make this statement.

The actor Diehl does think a lot. Not only about his answers but also about the way he behaves. When he met Daniel Brühl for the first time, he didn’t leave anything to accident. Brühl, who was this other young German actor. They were supposed to spend a few days at a mill in the countryside of Berlin. Getting to know one another, do first improvisations for their project “Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken”. Diehl had never met Brühl before, he only knew him on screen, from “Das weiße Rauschen” and considered him to be quite impressing.

When the doorbell rand and Borries and Brühl were there to pick him up, Diehl sat in his kitchen, drinking coffee. “”It will do them good to wait for me a little bit,” he thought, went to the intercom and said “One moment”. Then he sat down in the kitchen again. He had another sip of coffee, and one more, and one more…when he went downstairs about ten minutes later, Brühl had left to go and buy cigarettes. When Brühl returned, a smile on his face, he asked: “Oh, did I keep you waiting?” This made Diehl smile.

During the shooting of the movie, the two of them put so much effort into making the project something special - after all, here were two actors who were “of the same kind” - that sometimes the mood threatened to change into disappointment. In the evenings, Diehl and Brühl would talk about their characters, discuss the script and got euphoric again, decided to perceive the next day of shooting as a new challenge. Diehl doesn’t know if you could say that there was already friendship existing between them at that time. It’s rather a case of life imitating art.

Diehl plays Günther, a self-confident but slightly worn-out 18 year old from a rich family. He spends the weekend at his parents’ house in the woods. They take walks, practice shooting and discuss life, which they don’t know a lot about yet. You often see the full moon in this movie and all emotions are taken very seriously.

At the end, Günther gets lost in his tragically beautiful kind of despair. Diehl liked this character immediately because it gave him the chance “to finally portray someone who was extroverted”. But Günther is also a typical Diehl character: sensitive, in a constant fever, balancing at the edge of insanity. Paul, on the other hand, seems rather connected to this world. It’s easy to imagine Brühl and Diehl, meeting up after the day of shooting is done, half themselves, half still in character. Diehl, the pondering radical, Brühl, the smirking enthusiast.
The friendship between August and Daniel started, when they stopped being Günther and Paul.

When do you consider someone a friend? “If you start thinking about yourself because of them,” answers Diehl. In the beginning, it was rather a case of scanning one another between him and Daniel, they didn’t embrace one another. Sharing the same humor plays a big role. Sitting around, being silent and then laughing about the silence. “I’m still curious about Daniel,” says Diehl. And that sounds like he just gave him an award.

Being among Diehl’s friends doesn’t seem to be a simple task. He says that he reconsiders and checks up on friendships at every meeting. Is he himself a good friend? “I think so, I’m a good listener.” In fact, he is silent a lot. Maybe that’s just because he’s tired of always being the center of attention. He is rehearsing for “Don Carlos” in Hamburg at the Schauspielhaus. Which role does he play? “Don Carlos,” answers Diehl. And he says it modestly on purpose, the way succesful people to it to make sure they’re not showing off.

Ever since he did his first movie in 1998, “23”, and was on stage in a play directed by Peter Zadek, he was considered to be a child prodigy among the young German actors. He didn’t waste his talent afterwards. He shows up on stage and on screen, but always a bit less than one would wish for.

He needs places to escape to, friends, where he can hide. A funny idea, Diehl and Brühl, the two celebrated actors, meet up for a beer in order to escape from their success.

by: CLAUDIA VOIGT

DANIEL BRÜHL

“The asshole doesn’t show, he pretends to be important.”

At first glance, Daniel Brühl, 25, is a nice boy. On the second glance, he’s a gambler. He wants to earn points. And he does exactly remember the first match with August Diehl. They wanted to leave for a weekend in the countryside to get to know one another in preparation for their first movie.

The game started. But Brühl was aware of the fact that he had had a bad start. Together with Borries, he had to pick up Diehl. As a punishment, Brühl made the director go and ring the doorbell while he stayed in the car like an idiot, waiting for his partner to-be.

…who took a lot of time. Brühl got it right away: “The asshole doesn’t show, he pretends to be important.” It seemed as if Diehl would get the first point. No. Brühl got out of the car to buy cigarettes. 1:0 for Brühl. He is still more than cheerful about this.

But the gambler within him wanted to keep going, wanted to get the next point, even though he had to wait until the evening.

The tiny crew had been cooking, someone brought absinth. Brühl put on a straight face, looked Diehl in the eyes and posed the most stupid question that can be asked: “Tell me, August, how did you become an actor?” Silence. Diehl had an irritated look on his face. Brühl stared right back, slightly doubtful - had he gone to far? Then Diehl got it. This was the moment when the friendship started, according to Brühl.

That’s been one and a half years ago. He is still glad that he met Diehl. Not only because he thinks the two year older is a “fantastic actor”, he also likes discussing with the stage experienced guy. He listens to his advices and also gives him tips.
Very often, the two of them are being compared, but Brühl is sure: “We are totally different.” Diehl, to him, seems more serious, controlled by his brain, who is always on time when they meet in Prenzlauer Berg where both of them live. During their games of chess in the café, it’s usually Diehl who scores the points.

Brühl, on the opposite, is rather spontaneous, always late, listens to his guts to make decisions, loves making fun of people. He insists on Diehl training secretly for their games of chess. From now on, Brühl only wants to play blitz chess because he’s better at it, faster, stronger and capable of keeping Diehl from thinking too much. Brühl still likes winning.

In the past year, something happened that forced Brühl to reconsider his playfulness and to control his spontaneity. He became a star with “Good Bye, Lenin!” This endangers friendships.

Even when he says that friendship, to him, means “sharing success”, he does admit: ” I force myself to close myself up to other people,” and: “I only talk about my success when I’m being asked about it.” That doesn’t sound spontaneous and sounds a bit as if Brühl hadn’t found the perfect way to handle it. Keeping friends, daily life, jet set and being a star in balance. Since last year, he has to think a lot, shouldn’t talk too much and too long about himself to assure not making friends feel bad, but still has to let them take part in his life.

Diehl, being a star himself, is one of those where he doesn’t have to be careful.
Brühl saves himself with a good sense of humor and is happy if his friends make fun of him with embarrassing pictures or if the put up posters with him on them above their beds. He is proud of one of his friends who, in order to win a dinner with the star Brühl, stole all participant cards for a raffle in several bars and sent them in.
But actually, these aren’t more than practical jokes from a past time that Brühl has long forgotten about. He changed the sides and his friends mark the invisible border. The border between yesterday and today, intimacy and publicity, carelessness and responsibility, interrail and cultural elite.

Still, Brühl thinks both worlds can be connected. He plans to do less interviews this year, have more free time on his hands. You can easily believe him when he says: “Friends are the most important thing.”

by: JANA HENSEL

Original on: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/kulturspiegel/d-29802927.html

When did I learn to be so damn cool about to many things? It’s really weird how with every heartbreak you get cooler and even though it still hurts like hell, you can’t really spend three weeks in grieve anymore but rather three days. I expected myself to sit here, staring at my phone waiting for him to call all day long but I didn’t and now I feel more like “Come on, call me and I’ll tell you what I think of you”.

Having been hurt so often that I can distance myself emotionally from someone I thought I could trust within about six hours just based on the hint of them steering towards letting me down.

I don’t want that to happen…

“..Is this problem going to change your life forever or will there come a day this problem will no longer exist?
If you decide the problem won’t exist after a certain period of time, then you can file it under “temporary.” Which brings me to step number two: if the problem is temporary, then you can sort of detach from the “now-ness” of the discomfort. I’m not saying ignore the lessons in the problem. Definitely learn from the problem, work to solve it, but spare yourself the existential grief, because it will get you nowhere. (This coming from an existential grief-master.)”

lalunatique:

The reasoning is that I’m doing it as an educational trip to further my studies.
However Tumblr, I am going to confide in you. I am just hoping I see either Daniel Bruhl, Til Schweiger, August Diehl, or Michael Fassbender.
Oh, swoon. I do love me some German arse.

(Source: ca-va-fumer)