- Throughout your career you have worked between TV & movies as well as in the theatre so how do the three mediums compare? Do you have a particular favourite?
No I don’t really have a favourite. I really love theatre as that is where I started out. The system in Germany is different as you sign up with a company for two or three years and you work exclusively with them, you can’t do any film work on the side.
So that is why I decided to become a freelancer because I wanted to do film. Now I find it quite hard to go back to theatre, I would love to, you can’t do just one play in Germany most of the time you have to sign up for the company.
Both mediums, theatre and film, have really interesting sides to it that I really like to explore.
- You were born in Germany and worked in theatres over there so how did you find the transition into English speaking work?
Foreign languages was the only thing that interested me when I was at school so playing in another language… it is quite demanding because if it is not your mother tongue you are missing some connotations and some emotional depth of certain things.
But I think that it is more fun as you are discovering something new every day.
- You are also set to appear in the second season of Game of Thrones so how did that role come around? And how did you find working on such an epic project?
Well I just auditioned for it; I have a really great agent here in London. It was a totally different type of production but it was good fun because you had two hundred extras on horses every day on location it is a huge enterprise.
It was so different compared to a project like Resistance, which was quite intimate. Both projects were really fun to do.
- Can you give us any hints as to what we can epic from season 2 and what your role is going to entail?
My role a magical assassin called Jaqen H'ghar and he mainly interacts with Arya, the little stark girl, and he is a teacher.
What I liked about that character is that at the beginning he appears as one of the bad guys because he is introduced as an assassin but he turns out to be more her teacher and helps her to kill off her enemies.
And I got to shape-shift which was great - it was my first shape-shift on screen (laughs).
- The year is coming to a close so what movies have you been enjoying over the past twelve months?
Oh god you have got me there - what was the last movie that I saw? I have been travelling and working so much over the last half year I haven’t been to the movies in quite a while.
I thought Drive was very good and I am really looking forward to Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.
- Finally what’s next for you?
I have just started a German comedy feature film. It’s a comedy which makes a nice change (laughs) not having to be so deep and thoughtful.
Resistance is released 25th November.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw