Sandra Hüller’s new film is set in the last days of the GDR. “Two to One” tells of the destruction of East German banknotes during the fall of the Berlin Wall, during which a handful of clever GDR citizens made a fortune. In Berlin, the 46-year-old tells us what it’s like to play Hamlet in the theater, how she experienced the last days of the GDR as a child, and why she now expects the end of capitalism.
Ms Hüller, when you play a character like Hamlet, do you look at how your colleagues have played him? Have you seen Lars Eidinger’s Hamlet, for example, or the silent film with Asta Nielsen?
I made an exception for Asta Nielsen, just to see if it made a difference that you have a female body. And it doesn’t. The long list of female actresses who have played Hamlet also reassured me – as did a statement by Angela Winkler. She said that as Hamlet she didn’t play a woman or a man, but a child of parents. That was the key.
I had an old pair of opera glasses with me for fun. And when I had them in my hand, I immediately put them back in my pocket because they felt intrusive. Is that it?
Yes! Yes! I think that’s totally intrusive. Theater is designed for this distance. In film there are close-ups, on stage you act from a distance. So you express yourself differently than with your face, which people want to look at closely. It always takes some getting used to when you work with cameras and projections on stage. And with opera glasses I have the feeling that people are getting close to me without me having any influence on it.
Ten years ago you said that your real job was the theater, and that films were always just a little extra. Does that still apply?
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