{"id":727946,"date":"2026-05-17T17:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T14:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/lars-eidinger-the-man-who-plays-monsters\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T17:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T14:45:15","slug":"lars-eidinger-the-man-who-plays-monsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/lars-eidinger-the-man-who-plays-monsters\/","title":{"rendered":"Lars Eidinger: The Man Who Plays Monsters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tThe world is about to see a lot more of Lars Eidinger. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe German actor is a towering leading man in his own country, whether onstage, were he is a member of the ensemble of Berlin\u2019s Schaub\u00fchne theatre, or screen, from playing an introverted husband in a toxic relationship in Maren Ade\u2019s\u00a0Everyone Else<\/em>\u00a0(2009) to, in Matthias Glasner\u2019s\u00a0Dying<\/em>\u00a0(2024), the most turbulent conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic since Cate Blanchett\u2019s Lydia T\u00e1r. And he has skirted around the outskirts of international scene. He was the boyfriend of Kristen Stewart\u2019s celebrity employer in Olivier Assayas\u2019\u00a0Personal Shopper\u00a0<\/em>(2016), played the main Nazi baddie in Netflix limited series<\/a>\u00a0All The Light We Cannot See<\/em>\u00a0(2023) and, last year, was the crazed purse thief chased down by George Clooney in Noah Baumbach\u2019s\u00a0Jay Kelly<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut soon the 50-year-old character actor will be joining the DCU and plotting to conquer and collect the world as Brainiac, the villain of James Gunn\u2019s\u00a0Superman<\/em>\u00a0sequel\u00a0Man of Tomorrow<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore that, Cannes is getting a double dose of Lars. He has two films in the festival this year. He plays Klaus Barbie \u2014 the infamous \u201cButcher of Lyon\u201d \u2014 in L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes\u2019 World War\u202fII drama\u00a0Moulin<\/em>, screening in competition, and is an architect who collaborates with both the Nazi and East German communist regimes in Volker Schl\u00f6ndorff\u2019s sweeping historic drama\u00a0Visitation<\/em>, playing as an out-of-competition Cannes\u202fPremiere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEidinger likely won\u2019t make it to the Croisette this year \u2014 his DCU duties mean he\u2019ll be shooting in the U.S. during the festival \u2014 but speaking to\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>, he reflected on playing everyone from Nazi war criminals to comic-book supervillains, and why he\u2019s drawn to characters who force audiences to confront the uncomfortable parts of themselves.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy did you say yes to the role of Klaus Barbie in\u00a0Moulin<\/em>? It\u2019s almost like being asked to play\u202fHitler.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell, honestly, it was the person Klaus Barbie himself who drew me in. I probably wouldn\u2019t have said yes if it had been yet another fictional Nazi character. I never used to understand why actors would categorically refuse to play Nazis, because I always assumed those were attractive, complex roles. But then my most recent one \u2014 which I told myself that would be my last Nazi role, the last wartime role \u2014 was\u00a0Persian Lessons<\/em>. That experience was extreme \u2014 I came face to face with my own demons. My father was born during the war; my grandfather fought in it. I was raised by those people. I grew up with them, and that has a very direct influence on my personality, my character \u2014 it\u2019s always present in my life.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter that film, I realized I\u2019d rather free myself from that, and stop returning to that trauma again and again. Because it is a trauma that Germans carry around with them \u2014 the Second World War, the Shoah, the Holocaust. Then came a film with Shawn Levy,\u00a0All the Lights We Cannot See<\/em>. And I was drawn back in, because colleagues like Mark Ruffalo were involved, the fact that it was American, and Shawn Levy made it interesting. But I told myself: absolutely the last time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThen came the call from L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes. I thought back to\u00a0Son of Saul<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 a very good film and a very skillful use of the device of telling the story of a concentration camp through the perspective of one person, essentially through the protagonist\u2019s face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI thought, \u201cL\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes is surely an interesting interlocutor for engaging with this subject one more time.\u201d And as for Klaus Barbie specifically \u2014 you\u2019re absolutely right, he occupies an extreme place; there\u2019s almost no one who doesn\u2019t know that name. That\u2019s what drew me: to engage with this character. And especially with the history surrounding him \u2014 not in the film, but what I find so fascinating: how he was dealt with after the war, how long he remained active, that he even worked for the Americans and ended up involved in the drug trade. As a biography, that\u2019s quite staggering and very revealing about an era. That\u2019s really what wakes my interest: when something documents a period, captures what defined a time.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t(L to R): Gilles Lellouche as Jean Moulin and Lars Eidinger as Klaus Barbie in
\nL\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes\u2019 \u2018Moulin\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t@Szabolcs-Barakonyi<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tDo you find empathy for all characters you play \u2014 even someone who seems like a monster?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, my goal as an actor is to feel empathy for the character \u2014 empathy in the sense that I understand, that I try to inhabit the character\u2019s logic and perspective. My method is to start by gathering as much material as possible. With Klaus Barbie, that\u2019s possible \u2014 you can watch how he spoke, how others described him. There\u2019s Max Oph\u00fcls\u2019 magnificent documentary\u00a0Hotel Terminus<\/em>\u00a0(1988), where survivors recount their experiences with him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI took all of that in, and then at a certain point I set it aside and just worked from the text, the script<\/a>. Experience has taught me that too much imitation can paralyze you. I try to be freer, to treat it as fiction again. The interpretation of Klaus Barbie in\u00a0Moulin<\/em>\u00a0differs from the original. The historical Barbie is described as very sadistic, physically aggressive \u2014 someone who enters a room and strikes people on the head, leaving them unconscious during interrogations. They often couldn\u2019t even recall afterward what they\u2019d said, because the torture had rendered them senseless. That violence, that physical violence, essentially doesn\u2019t appear in our film. That\u2019s a deliberate choice \u2014 I discussed it with L\u00e1szl\u00f3, and I was uncertain at first whether it was right. But what it underscores is that we are dealing with fiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd there\u2019s a tension there: The film always flirts with the temptation for the viewer to walk out and think, \u201cThat\u2019s how it was.\u201d That\u2019s what the film plays with. That\u2019s the great responsibility you carry, and the great danger \u2014 that you partly falsify history, because the viewer always thinks they now know how it was. You watch\u00a0Downfall\u00a0<\/em>(2004), and leave the cinema believing you know what happened in [Hitler\u2019s] bunker. Which is, in a certain sense, fatal. You have to keep that responsibility in mind as an actor.<\/p>\n

\n\tYour other Cannes role is\u00a0Visitation,<\/em>\u00a0which also features someone who functions within an authoritarian system: an architect, an artist, whose choices make him complicit, first with the Nazi regime, then with the dictatorship in East Germany. Was that the draw?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYes, exactly \u2014 the theme is actually very comparable. In that film, and in the source novel, the architect\u2019s wife [played by Susanne Wolff] is more critical, while my character initially functions very well within the system. That was very important to me, because in hindsight it\u2019s always easy to say you would have resisted, you would have distanced yourself. But from within the system, from within the time itself, it\u2019s often not that simple.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI can equally imagine that generations following ours will distance themselves from certain behaviors \u2014 capitalism, for instance, has its dark sides that we often ignore, we function within the system knowing full well how much injustice it\u202fentails.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I say I play a character with empathy, I mean I want to bring the audience into the same conflict the character is in, and also feel which parts of themselves they share with these figures. The greatest danger in art and filmmaking is holding it at arm\u2019s length, observing from a safe distance. My great ambition is always to engage with these figures \u2014 to sound the notes I share with them, to put myself in relation to them rather than distancing myself. To be genuinely empathetic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tLars Eidinger with Susanne Wolff in Volker Schl\u00f6ndorff\u2019s \u2018Visitation\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCannes Film Festival<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tYou don\u2019t seem interested in being liked. You consistently choose roles that aren\u2019t designed to win over an audience. Is provocation part of the\u202faim?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI believe the figure of the classic hero is actually a far less realistic figure \u2014 it\u2019s a pure fiction. And you engage with it differently, because the hero creates distance: You feel you can\u2019t identify, you look up to this figure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a quote from Charles Manson \u2014 the serial killer \u2014 who said: \u201cLook down at me and you see a fool, look up at me and you see a god, look straight at me and you see yourself.\u201d Obviously, it\u2019s always a little piquant to quote a serial killer \u2014 but the thought itself is interesting: You recognize yourself in the figure. And that\u2019s the highest ambition of art: to confront people with themselves. Being liked isn\u2019t really a criterion. I pursue figures \u2014 or they pursue me \u2014 that I feel bring out certain parts of myself, and of the viewer, that perhaps they weren\u2019t consciously aware of but can discover there. It\u2019s always a form of reflection, of self-examination. The antihero, in my experience, is a far better vehicle for identification than the classic hero.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd yet you are playing the villain in the new Superman movie,\u00a0Man of Tomorrow<\/em>. What drew you to a franchise like that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not as different as you might think. Even if it seems surprising at first, these films have a serious philosophical ambition. They carry great allegorical weight for me. Take just the word \u201csuper\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s used as a superlative, for something excellent, wonderful. But \u201csuper\u201d really only means \u201cover\u201d or \u201cabove.\u201d So Superman is the \u00dcbermensch. You have the Super Ego. There\u2019s already a deep psychological dimension built in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLast week I was on set during rehearsals and asked if I could watch some of the filming, which had already started. And I saw an actor in the Superman costume, suspended on wires in front of a bluescreen. I looked at that image and thought: This is the essence of fiction. It\u2019s as significant an image as Hamlet holding the skull: Superman, in that Superman pose, hanging from wires in front of a\u202fbluescreen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBeing in the Superman universe wasn\u2019t a dream or burning desire for me. But now that it\u2019s happening, I can see a certain inevitability in it, something almost fated.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re known as a stage actor \u2014 your\u00a0Hamlet<\/em>\u00a0is renowned. Is there a connection between your theater work and what you do\u202fonscreen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYes, the theatrical quality has actually helped me enormously in the context of\u00a0Superman<\/em>, too, because it involves a different register of performance, one that isn\u2019t primarily realistic and allows for a far more expressive style of playing. When I watch a film like James Gunn\u2019s\u00a0Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em>, I find it has a great theatrical quality \u2014 in the handling of good and evil, and in a certain tendency toward allegory. Brainiac is described as the incarnation of Satan. I find that almost Shakespearean. The king, the fool \u2014 there are so many parallels for me.<\/p>\n

\n\tGerman actors abroad are often pigeonholed as villains. Does that bother you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell, that\u2019s not really my way of thinking, honestly \u2014 I can understand it, but I believe one of the great errors of our time, or perhaps of human beings in general<\/a>, is the longing to divide everything into good and evil. In psychology that\u2019s called black-and-white thinking \u2014 thinking in extremes. It\u2019s described as a cognitive distortion, a form of madness, which I find interesting: It\u2019s essentially borderline behavior, to say there\u2019s only black and white, good and evil, and to miss how the world actually presents itself \u2014 in contradictions, in gray zones, in\u202fnuances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI think that\u2019s ultimately why I try, even with dark characters, to portray them as ambivalent beings. I would do the same playing a good person: I\u2019d search for the darkness within the good. My general ambition in art is to play against this kind of thinking, against moral simplification. I engage a great deal with [Bertolt] Brecht \u2014 I\u2019m doing a Brecht reading tour across German-speaking countries, and I always close with \u201cAn die Nachgeborenen,\u201d [which translates] \u201cTo Those Born After.\u201d It begins: \u201cI live in dark times.\u201d And Brecht describes those dark times. I guarantee you: Everyone in the room hearing it for the first time thinks I\u2019m speaking about now, about our present moment. But it was written [before] the Second World War. It describes something immanent to human beings \u2014 what makes us human. \u201cThe fate of man is man.\u201d That\u2019s what interests me: to examine what makes a human being. And that\u2019s why it matters to me to say: With Klaus Barbie, it\u2019s not about monsters. It\u2019s about human\u202fbeings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world is about to see a lot more of Lars Eidinger. The German actor is a towering leading man in his own country, whether onstage, were he is a member of the ensemble of Berlin\u2019s Schaub\u00fchne theatre, or screen, from playing an introverted husband in a toxic relationship in Maren Ade\u2019s\u00a0Everyone Else\u00a0(2009) to, in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":727947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2025503489.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[160788,124783,153272],"class_list":["post-727946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-cannes-2026","tag-international","tag-lars-eidinger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}