The Zone of Interest Interview: Christian Friedel on Working With Jonathan Glazer
25[The following contains spoilers for The Zone of Interest at the end of the interview]
On its somber journey through the festival circuit, Jonathan Glazer’s (Under the Skin) historical drama The Zone of Interest was screened at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. To discuss this heavy project, co-star Christian Friedel (13 Minutes) stopped by Collider’s studio at the Cinema Center by MARBL to sit down with Editor-in-chief Steve Weintraub.
Adapted from the 2014 novel by author Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest is a quietly haunting portrayal of real-life Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss (Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller). Taking place during the Holocaust, Glazer provides a slice of nightmarish life as Höss and his wife live out their day-to-day, striving to build a dream home just on the outskirts of the German concentration camp, Auschwitz. The horror and depravity of the camp serve as the white noise to Hedwig’s get-togethers and Rudolf’s preoccupation with his own daily struggles.
During their one-on-one, Friedel talks about his working history with co-star Hüller, who premiered two films at the festival this year—The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall—and their conversations about scenes and how this dynamic benefited from their previous collaborations. The actor discusses reading Glazer’s script for the first time, the talks he had with the filmmaker, and how the pandemic may have changed the film for the better. He also shares the intensity of the role, the unique way Glazer shot what Friedel calls a “masterpiece,” and they tread into spoiler territory to give his take on that chilling ending. The spoiler talk comes at the very end of the interview, so you can stop reading before that section.
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