Rupert Friend (The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas) Interview
In UK cinemas now, The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is a fictional story told through the eves of an eight year old boy largely shielded from the reality of World War II. Rupert Friend plays Lieutenant Kotler.
What do you look for in a script?
The first thing is…do I keep turning the pages? This one [The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas] I hovered up and went straight back to the beginning… which is almost unheard of because I get bored so easily. It was especially impressive because the story is set in a period of time that we think we know inside out. This was first and foremost and incredibly riveting read and secondly an incredibly original way of looking at something that we all think that we know inside out. Then for me the character – that I play – was almost impossible to understand when I read the script. I didn’t even know if I could do it and I’m a quite sort of arrogant chap and think that I can do anything. But I thought I could never do this. So all of hose factors made it intriguing.
So did you have misgivings about playing a character like this?
Not misgivings in the sense of being frightened of being judged for doing it, it was more about how could I do it. Everything that he does both John Boyne and then Mark Herman wrote down on the page but it is all very well to write something – to behave) in that way (when he beats up a frail old man or terrifies a young boy) is very difficult.
So how did you get into the zone when you had to behave so horribly?
I don’t know, I’m afraid. I wish that there was a good answer that I could give. I just know that it had to be done for the story to be told. So it was kind of like needs must in that respect.
Was it difficult to switch off at the end of a day’s filming?
Yes, in short. It was very hard. Sometimes you are left very much on your own because the character is quite a loner.
Did wearing the uniform help you to get under the skin of the character?
It always is a sort of final jigsaw piece when you have your first costume fitting. The uniform is an incredible design because it was designed by Hugo Boss, the First and he designed it to be sexy, powerful and scary. I don’t know whether the uniform is sexy at all but it certainly has almost a power inside it, which is sort of frightening.
Do the boots make you stand straighter?
Yes, they almost make you feel as if you could lean right forward and they are so shiny and make such a noise when you walk. It is all to do with show and power… peacocking so that you hear someone before you see them and when you do see them they are taller than you. If you dared to look down you would probably see your face shining back at you.
Before you were cast were you aware of the book?
No to my shame I did not know of the book and I have friends who work in the children’s book industry so it is shocking that I didn’t know about it. So the script was the first thing and after that I did not want to read the book without the part in my hand. But I knew I would love the book and I did.
When was it agreed that everyone would speak in their normal accent?
There were two reasons that Mark Herman had for doing that because it was his call. One was that all of the characters in the film are German and the audience has to imagine that it can understand German. So if they can understand German then no-one would have an accent. The second reason was that Mark wanted to make the point that this was not confined to one country and that it could have happened in other countries.
What research did you do for The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas?
For me it was trying to understand the psychology of a brute, someone who behaved with brutality. There is a practice in the armies of the world to de-sensitise their recruits. So I read about that. That was very useful. I watched documentaries and there is a great BBC one called Holocaust.
Do you think that another strength of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is that a lot of it is filmed in sunny weather which goes against the traditional dank, muddy image of the camps?
Yes I think that was deliberate because we had one of the best directors of photography (Benoit Delhomme) in the world. He is a very inspiring man and he would not have not noticed that [the sunshine] and I think that the idea is that we are looking at a vaguely chocolate box sort of Sunday matinee family that does the things we all do, expect that the Dad has a secret and the Mum is not in on that. The other book that David [Thewlis] and I read a lot was the autobiography of Rudolf Hoess (the commandant of Auschwitz) and his wife knew nothing of what he was doing every day. Yet they lived on the edge of the camp. His wife played with the family pets and took the kids horse riding and never questioned [what was happening in the camp]. I think that is the most frightening part about it.
How was it to work with the eight year old actors… Asa Butterfield and Jack Scanlon who play Bruno and Shmuel?
It was a great pleasure because they are so full of life and energy. They were also absolute imps and they love being imps. They never abused the fact that they were the stars of this film. They were at the stage when they saw film making as fun. So they were a pleasure to work with but sometimes I wished I was playing their friendly uncle because that would have been more conducive to what we were doing off-set. They were great.
