Berlin will host the 38th European Film Academy Awards ceremony this coming Saturday — Europe’s answer to the Oscars. In one of the most prestigious categories, best actor, four acclaimed and decorated performers are competing: Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard (Sentimental Value), who just this week won a Golden Globe; Denmark’s Mads Mikkelsen (The Last Viking); Italy’s Toni Servillo (The Pardon, which earned him a prize in Venice); and Spain’s Sergi Lopez (Sirat).
Alongside the four contenders for the coveted statuette is a relative unknown at the very beginning of his career, who will try to hold his own against these cinematic lions: Israeli German actor Idan Weiss, nominated for his striking performance in Franz, in which he portrays the young Jewish writer Franz Kafka.
“To be honest to get a nomination for EFA is the best that could ever happen to me,” Weiss says in an interview this week. “The other actors are 30 years older than me almost, I mean that’s crazy. But I am very happy to be nominated. This is very special for me, as a person and also as a actor. It’s a wonderful sort of acceptance for what I did. I appreciate it so much.”
Have you already prepared a speech, just in case?
“I am thinking about preparing a short thank-you speech, because when I received a prize in Poland, I didn’t prepare one and then I had to improvise.”
Weiss, who speaks Hebrew, was born and raised in Germany to an Israeli mother. “Half of my family is living in Israel. The country is so beautiful as well as the people. I visit Israel every year. My mother was born and raised there. I am Jewish, but I was born and raised in Germany.”
Franz is directed by veteran Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, a three-time Oscar nominee. The story is set in Prague at the beginning of the 20th century and follows Kafka as he is torn between the strict expectations of his father and the monotonous routine of his day job at an insurance company, and his deep inner drive to write. Over the past year, the film has enjoyed a successful festival run, from San Sebastian to Toronto.
Weiss was cast after several difficult years in which he auditioned repeatedly for other projects without success. “I acted in short films and experimental theater, and I was already about to write to my agent that I was quitting acting altogether. Then I got the opportunity to do ‘Franz,’” he says candidly.
While auditioning for Franz, Weiss was working as a hotel receptionist at a small hotel in Berlin. “I got the news about the role close to midnight. When my agent called me, I was already in bed, reading a book and about to go to sleep. I looked at the wall opposite the bed and stared at it, and then I fell asleep. At that moment, I couldn’t grasp the magnitude of what had happened. Only a few days later did I begin to understand.”
Weiss immersed himself deeply in research and learned to speak Czech. “It was my first leading role, and in an international production, so I prepared for half a year. I read everything Kafka wrote and everything written about him. For me, Kafka was lost. When I was a child, I suffered from depression, so I looked back at my own past and tried to understand what depression makes you feel and how it changes your brain and your point of view.
“While working on ‘Franz,’ I left my comfort zone and for two months isolated myself in an apartment in Hamburg, going out only after dark. I didn’t do this to feel depression, but rather dark energy. What I learned from Kafka is that you must never give up or surrender, no matter what difficult situation you are in in your life. Despite his condition, Kafka wrote every single day."
Franz and the Academy Awards nomination that followed, have opened doors for Weiss. “I am currently acting in a German-language television series in which I play a doctor. I am about to do two films in English, one of them starring Orlando Bloom.”
Weiss describes himself as “a very extroverted and expressive person, but I can also be very introverted — for example when I meet new people. Then I step back and listen to their conversations, and after some time I join in. I can enjoy silence and stillness, and just as easily go to a loud techno club and stay there for eight hours.”