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