Actor's Portrait:

Whenever conversation turns to the actor Ulrich Muehe, one inevitably hears the word "versatile" used to describe his skill in being able to change seemingly effortlessly from one kind of role to the next and feel at home on the stage or in front of the camera for a TV series or a feature film.

While Muehe did not have any family background in acting - his father was a master furrier -, "my choice of profession was there very early on and I doggedly pursued this goal," he recalls.

After an apprenticeship in the construction industry and 18 months military service, Muehe enrolled at the Hans Otto Theater Academy in Leipzig in 1975 where two years were spent in the academy and another two gathering practical experience in professional theaters. This is where he came to appear on stage at the Staedtisches Theater in Chemnitz in plays by Friedrich Schiller, Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Wolfe and he returned there after graduation in 1979 for his first engagement, debuting with the role of Lyngstrand in Henrik Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea.

In 1982, the dramatist Heiner Mueller cast him in a Volksbuehne production of Shakespeare's Macbeth and, a year later, Muehe had become a member of the ensemble at the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin. "I wouldn't say that I have any particular preference between the theater, film or television," Muehe explains. "I am lucky to have a situation where I am able to work in every media, although the film roles have definitely increased percentage wise in recent years. It is often difficult to coordinate the acting commitments because films often happen at short notice. Suddenly, a production company has got the money together and you then have to shoot very quickly. Theater is more long term in its planning."

"Working in these media is about different ways of practicing ones profession," he suggests. "In both cases [theater and film], it is about energy, but the difference is just the degree of energy. In the theater, for every thought I have for a role, I need to translate this into physical and vocal form so that it is transported back to the last row in the theater. Standing in front of the camera, though, it is sufficient in the ideal situation if I just think this thought. I don't need to make that translation."

Muehe's training in Leipzig had been a classical one for stage actors, so his first encounters with film and television at the beginning of the 1980's "opened up a completely new world to me. My first dealings with the camera came with the television productions of theater classics. We would record a take or an act and then look at the footage. By being able to repeat the performance and see it, one could learn a lot about the effect one is having."

Over the years, Muehe has worked with several of the most respected directors in the industry such as Bernhard Wicki (he won a Bavarian Film Award in 1989 for his performance in Spider's Web), Frank Beyer (Das letzte U-Boot), Helmut Dietl (Schtonk!) and Constantin Costa-Gavras (Amen) and no less than three times with Michael Haneke (on Benny's Video, Funny Games and Das Schloss). Muehe said that he would have welcomed the opportunity to continue the collaboration with Haneke, but that line was broken when the Austrian director began shooting his films in the French language.

As a conscious strategy to make himself better known to the up-and-coming generation of film directors, Muehe accepted the role of the forensic expert Dr. Robert Kolmaar in the ZDF crime series Der letzte Zeuge. The strategy clearly paid off for he was then approached by debut filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck to play the role of the Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler in his feature The Lives of Others.

"When I first read the script, it was in such an outstanding condition, that I was very keen to meet this young director," Muehe recalls. "The film describes a period I know very well, so I thought it was really great that a young man had come along who was already able to capture that atmosphere in his screenplay to begin with. I was extremely pleased that one could do this."

"Naturally, we talked for a long time about individual scenes and I was able to make a few changes to some dialogue. But, in principle, the script was so good and Florian was so into the material. However, it was important for him that I gave it one more read through as a kind of lector."

As Muehe points out, one probably needed more than fifteen years after the end of the GDR before such a film could be made. "Of course, Florian had the advantage that he isn't anchored ideologically on one particular side. He has been able to act very freely and impartially, but I think one just needed a certain amount of time before being able to address the issues in a more intelligent way. There were often victims of the Stasi in the screenings and in the discussions they said how very grateful they were for this film. We were pleased that we hadn't insulted or attacked anybody in their biography, and so that's why I am also so happy with this film which has achieved so much and stimulates discussion."

With the controversy of clandestine phone-tapping in Germany, the USA and elsewhere constantly grabbing the headlines, it is not surprising that the story of The Lives of Others has a potential appeal outside of the borders of Germany. Indeed, at this year's Cannes Film Festival, the film's sales agent Beta Cinema reported that the film had already been sold to 30 territories, including to Sony Picture Classics for North America.

"I think that is the characteristic feature of a great artistic achievement when one goes beyond the concrete to arrive at a universal generalization. For us, the film is very important concerning the Stasi, but it also has a universal side. It is not just about the Stasi or the GDR, it is also a crime story and a thriller. I believe that the film offers many ways for the spectator to find access to the story."

With Muehe's track record of working with such veterans as Haneke, Beyer or Costa-Gavras, he might have been forgiven for being slightly wary of working with a first-time feature filmmaker and young producers. But far from it.

"Florian didn't make any impression of being a raw beginner," Muehe notes. "He directed with such incredible energy and professionalism, and it was remarkable how he managed to shoot the film with the days we had. He just relentlessly held on. The thing is, there isn't anything hard-boiled about him and he really has brought his all into this film. What other directors might achieve after twenty years, he has done with just this one film."

Muehe is not resting on his laurels despite bagging the Bavarian Film Award and a Golden Lola as Best Actor for his performance as Gerd Wiesler. He says that he would like to try his hand at directing for the cinema - he directed Heiner Mueller's play Der Auftrag at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele two years ago - but still hasn't found a story idea he would like to commit to celluloid.

In the meantime, we will be sure to see Muehe on a big - or small - screen in the coming months thanks to his busy work schedule this year: he started 2006 playing a Jewish actor coaching Adolf Hitler (played by alternative comedian Helge Schneider) in the art of public speaking in Dani Levy's satirical comedy Mein Fuehrer - Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit ueber Adolf Hitler, and followed this with Nicole Mosley's low-low-budget HD-shot thriller Nemesis, a two-hander between a German couple in their holiday home in Tuscany.