Oliver Masucci is a passionate actor. For BAD DIRECTOR, the new film by Oskar Roehler, he once again takes on the role of a difficult character. In FFQ&A he explains why he always goes where it hurts.
Oliver Masucci does not come from an artistic family. While others are born into a career in film, he tells his personal story in his autobiography TRÄUMERTÄNZER - EIN GASTARBEITERMÄRCHEN as an entertaining insight into the hard school of life. Anyone who has read it also knows that Masucci is one hundred per cent Masucci in every one of his roles. Masucci embodies his characters with body and soul. He is now known far beyond Germany, not least because he played Hitler in LOOK WHO'S BACK and did not fail in this difficult task, but grew. Masucci, who was born in Stuttgart in 1968, received the International Actor's Award at FILM FESTIVAL COLOGNE 2023. At the same time, he presented the series ONE TRILLION DOLLARS and aroused anticipation for the new Oskar Roehler film BAD DIRECTOR, in which he plays a washed-up director. The media satire opens nationwide on 9 May.
We caught up with the eloquent and charismatic actor for an FFQ&A in Cologne. Oliver Masucci talks about his childhood and his passion for cooking. He explains his work ethic, which he describes as old-fashioned because breaks seem superfluous, and recalls his schizophrenic uncle Enzo, who once introduced him to the dream world of cinema. Masucci is a captivating narrator, for example when he enthuses about the theatre stages where he later learned to realise himself. His father called him a dreamer-dancer (Träumertänzer), and it wasn't meant as a compliment. Even as a young boy, he had artistic ambitions and, in his father's eyes, imagined a life beyond his own circumstances. He fulfilled his dream, but today Oliver Masucci seems more like someone who loves film-ready stories about life as it is.
The son of Italian immigrants, Masucci grew up among the wealthy members of a German tennis club where his parents ran the restaurant. Even before he discovered his love of spaghetti westerns at the cinema, in which the heroes don't always behave morally, he "punched" one of these rich boys who provoked him with racist and classist insults. The anecdote is rooted in the philosophy of life, which is to make your own way without complaining about your circumstances. And it betrays a certain shirtlessness that Masucci combines with subtlety in his persona, making him a character actor who creates a high recognition value in every film character. For all his authenticity, he always has his feet on the ground - that's down-to-earth. No wonder Masucci often plays extroverted characters whose eccentricity is all the more striking.
His interpretation of Hitler already earned Masucci a nomination for the German Film Award, which he finally won in 2020 for his performance as Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Oskar Roehler's ENFANT TERRIBLE. Masucci shares Roehler's penchant for exaggeration when it comes to looking at the world's big egos. In his debut film, NO PLACE TO GO, Roehler famously dealt with his mother, the writer diva Gisela Elsner, adapted French misanthrope Michel Houellebecq's bestseller ATOMISED and, quite logically, ended up with Fassbinder. He was not a good person, but an even better director - and despite his radicalism, even in his closest relationships, Fassbinder always made a plea for tenderness, because he considered it more radical than many other human qualities. In ENFANT TERRIBLE, Masucci brings this eternally nagging spirit of German film history to life in such a tender way that it sends shivers down your spine. A role he first had to eat up in order to "create this body". One hundred percent Masucci.
It's easy to imagine Oliver Masucci transforming any hotel room or film container into a kitchen in the blink of an eye - and preparing roulades for colleagues like Mads Mikkelsen. One hundred per cent Masucci also means following your gut instinct and letting the heat, which in turn goes through your stomach, take over. But Masucci doesn't turn his heart into a murder pit, he wears it on his sleeve. "You can't please everyone. This attitude hasn't hurt him. International producers have had him on their radar since the Netflix production DARK at the latest, and he was last seen in the J.K. Rowling adaptation "PHANTASTIC ANIMALS": DUMBLEDOR'S SECRETS and Roman Polanski's THE PALACE. Masucci's extensive experience also makes him a natural for the lead role in Oskar Roehler's BAD DIRECTOR. The plot is based on the literary "self-infiltration" of the real director, so you can't help but laugh at the broken conditions on the set and the mindset of the fictional director.
When his uncle Enzo took him to the cinema for the first time, young Oliver Masucci could hardly have imagined that the reality behind the scenes would be so schizophrenic. But he soon realised that the only way to reach this dream world was through hard work, and that he would have to overcome a lot of resistance if he wanted to follow this path consistently. Resistance is an important driving force for Oliver Masucci. The fact that he goes where it hurts in his work is also one hundred per cent Masucci. As an actor, he has to take the feelings of his characters seriously in order to evoke emotions in the audience. In our FFQ&A, he defines the essence of acting as follows: "You're the one standing in front of the fire telling the story - so it has to be believable". Even Oliver Masucci can't resist a good story. You can almost hear the fire crackling inside him when he tells them.
