Actor Jannis Niewöhner, who plays a Wehrmacht deserter in the ARD drama “The Defector”, dealt very privately with the Second World War. “My grandpa was at war and lost his hands there. But he didn’t tell much about it, I rather talked to my mother about it,” said the 28-year-old (“Beat”) dpa news agency.
That would help him now with a film like the Siegfried Lenz film “Der Überläufer”: namely to deal with the feelings of the characters, especially with the ambivalence of the feelings. “So you did things that were fundamentally against what you knew was right.”
“The subject of war was always present during my school days,” recalled Never-wives. “Of course, I didn’t really experience this very closely, with all the episodes after that. There is a lot literature about which I also read in part. And of course the novel by Siegfried Lenz, which sets out a complex emotional world that partially exceeds what the script offers, “he continued. Such a film adaptation can only ever be an attempt to get as close as possible to the material, and it should be approached with a heart.
He could empathize that in all of the decisions he makes, his character never loses the feeling that he has done something wrong. “Walter is basically defected, he is driven and in the whole chaos he takes the steps that are inevitable, also to protect his own life. He doesn’t really have a choice, but he listens to himself and doesn’t give himself easily a system without not questioning it “. The two-part series “The Defector” runs on Wednesday (April 8) and Friday (April 10) at 8:15 p.m. in the first.
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