Actor's Portrait:

If there is one face of the new wave of German films you are likely to remember, there's a likelihood it will be Moritz Bleibtreu's. Whether it's as the cool, but ever so slightly slow hitman Abdul in Knockin' On Heaven's Door, the hapless Manni in Run Lola Run, love-smitten student teacher Daniel in In July or the dare-devil Tarek in The Experiment, Bleibtreu already has a number of memorable performances under his belt - and there's much more to come.

«Being born into a family of actors was a kind of fate,» Bleibtreu recalls. «I knew what I wanted to do from very early on and had seen my parents at work. Other boys want to be policemen or firemen when they grow up, but I knew as a child that I wanted to act.»

But, he didn't necessarily want to be a dramatic actor. Indeed, his initial dream was to be a comedian like his heroes Jerry Lewis and Louis de Funès. Then, he left school halfway through the sixth form and spent the next few years living abroad and taking classes at drama schools in France, Italy and the USA.

When Moritz came back to Germany, he worked for a year at the theater in Hamburg, but didn't feel that this would be the place for him to make a career: «at the time, it was so old-fashioned and more like the sixties. They seemed to have slept through the zeitgeist.»

«I was lucky that I was part of a new generation of actors who came on the scene just at the time when the new commercial TV stations were needing actors for their TV movies. And so it was, as part of this wave, that I never really had a case where people asked about my training,» he continues. «In fact, it's interesting that most of the male leads in German cinema at the moment - people like Daniel Bruehl, Juergen Vogel, Benno Fuermann and myself - didn't have a classical drama training. The problem is that the drama academies train actors for the stage, not for the cinema. That can be counterproductive because many actors would rather do television or film later on.»

After taking TV roles at the beginning of his career - including Schulz & Schulz (1993), Kinder des Satans (1995), and Die Gang (1997) - he has focused on work for the cinema since 1998. «That was a conscious decision,» he explains. «If I have the opportunity, that is where I want to stay. I think the cinema is particularly interesting because, as a consumer, you have to make that decision to go there for a certain period of time. People's attention is quite different than if you are sitting at home with a beer in your hand and can zap to another channel at any time.»

«When choosing my roles, there is a combination of a million things to consider,» he says. «The director, the screenplay and the overall project, but there's also that magic word 'availability'. Often, you come across a really great project, but then the dates clash and that's frustrating.»

He stresses that he has never had any desire to keep on repeating the same character or searching for different roles just to show à la de Niro that he can «do» this or that type, but he has always been fascinated by the craft of filmmaking, «by how a romantic comedy or different narrative structures function, and what happens when you edit scenes more quickly.»

«Local stories and authentic emotions are particularly important for me,» he adds. «The most powerful films are those about people on your doorstep.»

Looking back on his career so far, Moritz is at a loss to say which role has posed the greatest challenge for him. «Each film is a challenge and each part has its own particular characteristics,» he explains. «The Experiment was a challenge psychologically, In July physically, and Luna Papa because of the shooting conditions. Last year, I worked on a Danish film (Fakiren Fra Bilboa) and have just finished dubbing my own voice speaking Danish. So, that's not bad that they thought my Danish was good enough. The thing is that I have great fun with these crazy things.»

«I have had a lot of luck,» he continues. «And I've traveled a lot with my films. That was absolute luxury to go to San Sebastian and be waited on hand and foot, and having my own retrospective in Australia (at the BMW Festival of German Cinema in 2002) was rather cool, not to mention me being in the jury at the festival in Moscow. I really enjoyed discussing the films with other people and seeing how films function. You could see how universal the medium film is.»

Does he see himself as a star? After all, he was one of the «Shooting Stars» at the Berlinale in 1999 alongside Maria Schrader. «The word 'star' needs to be redefined,» he replies, «because it has lost its value thanks to TV shows like Deutschland sucht den Superstar. There are only a few cases in Germany where the cinemagoers go and buy a ticket for a film because of certain actors, but we do have people who can have this attraction.»

As for winning prizes, Moritz is all modesty - «they are not so important, although, of course, one is pleased to receive them. What I always say is that people here in Germany must learn to be more pleased about their successes. And that's where I think the idea of a German Film Academy is a step in the right direction, to create more self-confidence in the industry.»

Although he couldn't be more in demand - this year will see the release of Oskar Roehler's Agnes and his brothers and Pepe Danquart's C(r)ook and him appearing opposite Alexandra Maria Lara in Helmut Dietl's new feature Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe - Moritz also has ambitions to work on the other side of the camera.

Last year, he joined Fatih Akin, Andreas Thiel and Mehmet Kurtulus in setting up the production company Corazón International which was a co-producer of Akin's Golden Bear-winning Head-On (Gegen die Wand). Among a slate of projects, they are developing a film entitled Nichts geht mehr for him to direct.

«I have been thinking about doing this for a long time,» Moritz says. «It's a coming-of-age story set in Hamburg which has been written by a young chap from the street. We plan to shoot some time in 2005.»