Ronald Zehrfeld

One of the basic parts of journalistic research is knowing, should it come to a fight with the interviewee, how good your chances are. Ronald Zehrfeld stands 1.90 meters tall, has more judo under his black belt than many and is, whichever way you look at him, a large guy. True, you could always try using furniture or even getting in the first strike, but given that he’s so friendly and self-efacing, the chances of things turning "Die Hard" are very remote.

"I can't believe my luck!" is Zehrfeld’s response when asked how he feels he has done so far. It's also a theme he keeps coming back to, almost as if he still can’t quite believe what he has achieved so far. "Being able to play characters is super! In fact, I’m not even used to being interviewed so explaining myself is not easy!" Don't worry, Ronald, you’re in good hands here.

Like many young males, Zehrfeld got into acting "to meet girls. It was one of my drives during school and there was this small theater group. The whole thing was so different to being in school; just getting into other characters and learning other lives. It’s also part of your defense mechanism and development."

It still being early days, Zehrfeld first had to graduate from high school, which he did in 1996, staying in Berlin and getting "step by step more into acting, till one day I wanted to study it and do it professionally."

Opting for civilian service, Zehrfeld worked in a youth club in the eastern Berlin district of Treptow, doing "music, concerts, small plays, acting. It was a place where young people could meet and develop, me included!" Following which, "I went to India for three months, this being 1998. The distance and speed of the country are amazing. It was IT and computers on the one hand, and beggars and cars from the 1950s on the other! I learned some humility and gained more of an idea about what I wanted to do in life, what I needed and didn’t. It held up a mirror to my own nose."

Returning, in his own words, "more grateful for what I have here in Germany, what we take for granted," Zehrfeld was "able to sharpen [his] perspective, having learned to be calm, to be with people and work with them together: it was terrifying at first, then humbling."

Enrolling at Berlin’s Humboldt University ("I wanted student status"), he also applied to acting schools "everywhere! Potsdam, Rostock, Hamburg". It was the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts that saw things his way. "I was lucky to get in." There’s that word again! "I loved how they have this classical training in acting, you could submerge yourself into it. We did a new scene every two weeks. I learned so much about myself; the four years there seemed like ten in real life."

After graduating, Zehrfeld "had great luck to meet Peter Zadek, who was giving a workshop. He brought me to the Deutsches Theater where I spent two years: it was a dream made real." After that he went with Zadek first to the Berliner Ensemble and then to Hamburg’s St. Pauli Theater.

Still 100% a stage actor ("The leap to TV and film came later"), Zehrfeld is effusive in his praise of Zadek and grateful for the opportunities provided. "Just being able to watch other actors was such a big thing," he says. All the same, he was getting film and television offers, and turning them down: "At that time film was, for me, well, something suspect! It was so different, a bit like tea and coffee, you could say. Theater and TV and film, they’re such different media. It’s unfair to compare them because they are each worlds of their own."

So what happened when Zehrfeld met Graf, Dominik Graf? "He was casting for 'Der rote Kakadu' ('The Red Cockatoo')," Zehrfeld explains, offered me a part and I accepted. Playing alongside Max Riemelt and Jessica Schwarz, the film is set in 1961, the year the Berlin Wall went up, and tells a story of hunger for life, rock’n’roll and love, all centered around the titular bar.

Now having finally tried film on a big scale, Zehrfeld found it much to his taste, "so I stayed half in theater and half in film." And how do the two compare now? "Well," Zehrfeld replies, "tea always has to brew first, it can boost you and also calm you! With theater we rehearse maybe six to eight weeks, so it can taste better as that aroma develops. Or it can become bitter. Coffee, that’s film, boosts you but with another rhythm. It has speed, you can repeat things, change camera perspectives and so on." Moving into television as well, Zehrfeld played alongside Iris Berben in the the ZDF drama "Der russische Geliebte" as well as the TV two-parter "Wir sind das Volk" and in Jan Fehse’s "In jeder Sekunde". Back to the big screen, he then played the lead in Sven Taddicken’s piratical adventure-comedy "Zwölf Meter ohne Kopf" ("12 Paces Without A Head").

So far so good, but once again it was Zehrfeld’s relationship with Dominik Graf that provided him with that actor’s dream, a role so big and juicy it would be a carnivore’s dream steak! 'He cast me in 'Im Angesicht des Verbrechens' ('In Face of The Crime')”.

Playing once again alongside Max Riemelt, Zehrfeld was Sven Lottner, Riemelt’s police partner, the two playing Berlin cops investigating the Russian mafia. "Again, it was a further develop ment in my acting," says Zehrfeld. The huge ratings and critical hit also brought him and the rest of the ensemble numerous awards, including the German Television Award and the prestigious Grimme Award.

In 2011 Zehrfeld had a supporting role in Christian Schwochow’s "Die Unsichtbare" ("Cracks in A Shell"), a film set, ironically, in the world of the theater! It also marked another facet in his career, a move away from what could be seen as typecasting (big guy, etc.) and into that of playing more intellectual roles.

If anybody needed any convincing, it came in Zehrfeld’s next film, Christian Petzold’s drama "Barbara". Acting alongside Nina Hoss, his performance as a pediatrician posted to a remote corner of the then GDR won him his first, and most assuredly not his last, nomination for the German Film Award. "I’m now a very busy guy," says Zehrfeld, who has just come off the premiere of "Wir wollten aufs Meer" ("Shores of Hope") (dir: Toke Constantin Hebbeln), and especially when it comes to discussing his up - coming projects, "It's super! Knock on wood!" Indeed, much tapping on wood here, because first up is another collaboration with Dominik Graf, "Die geliebten Schwestern", a classic story about the turbulent love life of writer Friedrich Schiller.

Then there is "Das unsichtbare Mädchen", a TV-movie (also directed by Graf) based on a true case of a missing young girl and how a mentally handicapped man was charged. "The case is being rolled out again," says Zehrfeld.

As an actor, "I’m always looking to further develop," Zehrfeld summarizes himself. "I work in a very privileged profession, … but there is also a social responsibility here. It’s a career to be grasped with both hands, which has scope for understanding as well as misunderstanding."

Outside of work, Zehrfeld plays "sport, football usually once or twice a week. I also play the guitar – I’m lucky to get to play characters who have hobbies! - rock, blues, classical stuff, but I’m not a virtuoso though."

The last film he saw? "That would be 'The Untouchables'. I make intuitive decisions when to go and what to watch. It can be a discovery or a disappointment. It’s not about genres, I can only say if a film takes me or not."

Author: Simon Kingsley

Source: German Films Service & Marketing GmbH