Nora Waldstätten

It’s a blazing summer day in Berlin. Nora von Waldstätten, ice cool in white shorts and T-shirt, considers a deeply personal issue and decides that yes, she will try the cake after all! Now, if this were a food magazine, you would go on to learn how Ms. von Waldstätten is a genuine gourmet, that she gets excited by genuine Wiener Schnitzel, pâté, ripe cheese, that she prefers savories to sweets (hence the brave decision to go for the cake), that we swapped recipes and restaurant tips, bemoaned the lack of decent Chinese cuisine in this city and so on for close to two hours! And then we remembered: we’re here to talk film. But don’t fret, it’s still all gourmet stuff!

Every actor has their break-out role. For Nora von Waldstätten it was Viktoria, the hot, psycho-killer schoolgirl in the "Tatort" episode "Herz aus Eis"  ("Heart of Ice"), who carves a seemingly unstoppable trail through her classmates. Apart from sky-high ratings and piles of fan mail, von Waldstätten created a classic, a "Tatort" killer the audience actually rooted for! Beautiful and viciously deadly, yet Viktoria still had to have a special something to create and maintain that audience fascination.

"It was quite a journey to create the character," von Waldstätten explains, forking for the chocolate cake with the gooey center. "I needed to stretch my own morals and ethics. I loved diving into her. I prepared for three months, reading books on manipulation and the psychology of killers. I always wanted to have a very clear break in her biography, to find some spot that hurt so much it legitimizes her actions within her logic. It was very important that she has a wound within, a certain brittleness."

Von Waldstätten admits it was "quite a tough shoot. I felt like a chess player moving the characters as I wanted. Viktoria was so deep and so rich. I was allowed to do things one shouldn’t even dare think. I’m not going to say what I found in the character’s childhood, but I found it! Childhood is when we’re most vulnerable. I always put a certain caesura in my characters, give them a childhood twist – it usually works!"

How about von Waldstätten’s own childhood twists then? She admits, once she started dancing on stage at such an early age, her parents suspected what was coming! "So when I graduated high school and told them," she says, thus confirming their worst fears, "my father suggested becoming a lawyer or diplomat, but it felt wrong to me." But when she was chosen to be one of ten from the eight hundred applicants to study Acting in Berlin "they were relieved and were proud when I made my theater debut. Now they often have a better idea of when I’m playing and where than I do!"

A quick Internet search reveals von Waldstätten has an aristocratic lineage and more names than the average credit card can take. But while she might be heirs and grace, she is in no way airs and graces! "The title is nice to know where you come from," she explains, "to know what your ancestors did and how they lived. The record goes back to 1400, and it’s beautiful to know your great, great grandmother, say, was close to Mozart, sponsored him and threw his wedding party. But we live in the here and now and I believe completely in making your own fate, creating your own life and daring to think very far. Knowing your roots is important, but you have to use your wings and fly!"

This year’s Cannes saw von Waldstätten on another high, playing Magdalena Kopp in Olivier Assayas’ "Carlos", which drew unanimous critical and audience plaudits.

"Again, I prepped for three months," von Waldstätten says, this time going for the vanilla custard tart. "Usually I write notes, fantasizing about a character’s favorite song and drink. Here, I had so many facts. It was about understanding the time in which she lived, and creating the character from that and her autobiography. What she and Carlos spoke about in bed was up to my fiction. I searched for why she is with him, what draws her to such a powerful man. It was a journey to create such a character."

Journey indeed! In fact she "met one of the Red Army Faction’s forgers in a café! I could technically forge an old passport! Not the new ones, though! It was a crazy research period because you’re playing someone who exists and you feel the weight on your shoulders. At the end of the day, though, it’s a fiction film so it’s your interpretation."

In the end, von Waldstätten decided to make the character her own and "be less respectful." Working with Assayas she describes as "amazing. He wrote the script and trusts you completely, gives you the character and creates an on-set atmosphere where you can completely let loose, knowing he’ll catch you if need be."

The depth of von Waldstätten’s letting completely loose becomes clear as she explains what was a nine month shoot taking in Lebanon, France, Germany and Hungary. "It was hard to endure the dynamics with 'Carlos' and keep the energy going. I had bruises everywhere the whole time since she (Magdelena Kopp) is pushed and thrown around a lot! What Edgar (Ramirez, who plays Carlos) and I did was to show the bond they had, the love. Edgar and I trusted each other and we decided to be really courageous and go really far: everything but the hospital!"

So having established that von Waldstätten is happy and able to take, er, battle damage, is she an extreme method actress? Well ... "I think method is a great, great technique, and I do use it, but in combination. I’m a great believer in preparation to build up the character. Before shooting I know to whom she prays. During shooting I sense memories to heat and stir the emotional pool. But I also think of the Dustin Hoffman-Laurence Olivier anecdote: it’s better to put yourself into the character. Like Viktoria, stretching your morals."

"You have areas you usually wouldn’t go to, or deny they’re there," von Waldstätten continues, "but unfortunately, or fortunately, we do have all the colors within us and when acting you have to enlarge some areas, make others smaller. I totally believe in putting your soul into it. That’s essential. It’s what makes it personal."

Recently coming off the opening night of the play "Kunst des Fallens", in which she plays Sigrid, a waitress in a beer garden, von Waldstätten is as equally at home on stage as in front of the camera. "It’s essential to do both," she says. "Of course there are differences to the acting and certain circumstances to consider, but both are acting at the bottom line. If you’re in front of a big audience or a small one just a few meters away, you have to use your instinct. It’s the same in front of a camera: you act differently by instinct, taking the different circumstances into account and adapting."

On von Waldstätten’s to-do list (producers take note) are "a real good comedy! I would love to do that! Horror, I don’t know, but I think I should do one vampire movie, definitely. And I’d love to do a history movie with corsets and huge dresses. When I was a child I was a big Sissi fan. I should definitely do one of those!" She cites her work with Julie Delpy in "Die Gräfin" ("The Countess") and "Carlos", which "was so brilliant for the costumes and hair do’s. There were so many days of fittings to go from the 1970s to the 1980s. Everything seemed so real; set design, locations, the details were all amazing. Every department did a fantastic job."

We know about her love of food, but what else is fun? "I love karaoke!" von Waldstätten says. "I’m trying to learn to play the guitar. Travel is especially good, to understand yourself in the world, see it and put things into perspective, not just through work, but for pleasure. I’d love to learn Russian, but time is a problem. Visit the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and so on. But there’s never enough time."

Right now, having just passed on the tiramisu, von Waldstätten is very happy in her profession. "I don’t feel the urge to produce, direct or write at the moment, but I’d never say never. I feel very happy just to be in front of the camera, but maybe one day I’ll write a script. Maybe! But what I always look for is the start and end, a character’s development, the caesura in that character and a story that’s worth telling! A lot of time and effort goes into it, and also a lot of myself, so the journey has to be worth it, and for the audience too. It all has to be worthwhile.”

Author: Simon Kingsley