from German Films site
Profile:
David Kross was born in the small northern German town of Bargteheide in July 1990. After his first efforts at acting in a children’s theater group, news of his unusual talent – although he was only fifteen at the time – spread so fast that German director Detlev Buck invited him to a casting in Berlin. There, he successfully competed against 500 fellow applicants and landed his first leading role in Tough Enough (Knallhart). The role of Michael Polischka, who must come to terms with the hard life at a school in Berlin’s problem district Neukoelln, catapulted him into the film world’s field of vision overnight. His authentic performance met with great acclaim at the world premiere during the Berlinale in 2006, and in the following weeks the film drew 143,000 admissions to German cinemas and triggered a socio-political debate in the German government about conditions at socially disadvantaged schools. Kross, who seemed astonishingly unaffected by all the fuss, subsequently secured the title role in the lavish filming of bestseller Krabat (2008) by director Marco Kreuzpaintner. The film, which screened in Toronto, was already much-discussed worldwide during shooting because of its opulent realization. The 18-year-old actor then drew the attention of Hollywood director Stephen Daldry, who casted Kross alongside Kate Winslet in his third key role in The Reader (2008), which looks set to further his faultless reputation.
Interview article:
After this three-year, vertical take-off as Germany’s leading young generation actor, David Kross took a short time off this August before the world premiere of Krabat, considering the future and recuperating his energies. In a peaceful moment, we spoke to the young talent about a future that certainly seems to hold every opportunity.
“When I made Tough Enough, I had no idea what furore the film would bring in its wake. I would probably have been much more nervous if I had known about the risks beforehand.” David Kross gazes thoughtfully at the ground. Now, after three main roles, the 18-yearold talent naturally has a better understanding of the business, but in purely optical terms, he has lost nothing of his youthful integrity. His facial features may have become more striking, but the sparkle in his eyes still reflects the mixture of profundity and post-pubertal vehemence that directors regard as the secret of his natural style of acting.
“He acts as if he has been doing nothing else all his life,” director Marco Kreuzpaintner enthuses. And he should know – for several weeks, he filmed Krabat together with Kross in deepest Romania – and he expresses only what almost everyone on the set thought of the young talent. Kross’ down-to-earth personality and professionalism were even obvious after shooting was over for the day: while his fellow actors spent the evenings in provincial bars, Kross stayed in his hotel room, learned his texts, and studied on the Internet for his secondary school graduation exams. “Actually, I was quite frightened of the part, because in this film a lot depended on my performance," Kross sums up in retrospect. "And by contrast to Tough Enough, in the case of Krabat I knew just what I was up against.”
The genre film produced by Claussen+Woebke+Putz is 120 minutes long, and Kross features in almost every scene. The tremendous past success of Otfried Preussler's original book made the role into quite a burden from the start. Krabat was sold more than 1.8 million times in Germany, translated into 31 languages, and showered with prizes. Young as he was, Kross knew that if he failed with this film, his early laurels would be forgotten as rapidly as he had earned them.
But that was highly unlikely, as must have been clear to any observant visitor to the set when they saw his level of concentration. While a hectic, up to 230-man team worked around him in the icy cold of the Carpathian Mountains, Kross listened patiently to Marco Kreuzpaintner’s explanations. As soon as the word 'action' had been spoken, his body pose, facial expression and breathing altered – and with astonishing speed and attention to detail, Kross – the lad from northern Germany – turned into Krabat, a beggar boy from the 17th century. “Krabat is a small young man who has a hard time mentally and financially after the death of his mother. He reacts in a rather passive way to the things that happen to him. But then he falls in love, grows up, begins to question things, and finally manages to act instead of just reacting.”
This development into a thinking, acting individual is noticeable in Kross himself as well. When he saw the film for the first time at a special screening in Berlin, he analyzed his performance most perceptively. Afterwards, there was no word of self-praise, but a critical assessment of what he might have done better. “I cannot explain what exactly happens to me when I have to act in front of a camera. But I know that I need to experience a lot more in my life. Only experience of my own will help me to go on playing my parts well.”
Nevertheless, according to eye-witnesses, he also gave an utterly competent performance in his shared love scenes with Kate Winslet in The Reader, brilliantly embodying the boy from a rich family who falls for the conductress on a train journey. But the 18-year-old actor still lacks assurance in personal conversations – he has a sympathetic, rather awkward manner. The media interest in his person apparently knows no end since Tough Enough, and several journalists crowding around a table pepper him with questions at interviews, but he is obviously not the sort of person who likes to hear himself speak or pat himself on the shoulder. “I have to confess that sometimes I am still rather uncertain,” Kross admits and then continues, “but perhaps that is quite a good thing for my roles. If I felt selfconfident, I would probably come onto the set without preparing so well.”
From the human perspective, at least, David Kross has kept the rural mentality of a lad from the North: modest, reserved and with an eye for the truly important. Professionally, he comes across as someone who is already experienced and privately, he is in the process of finding his own way.
“It is important that I remain true to myself,” Kross says. We have heard this statement from many an up-and-coming star before him, but very few sound as honest as this young actor, who looks forward with anticipation but without exaggerated expectations to what lies ahead. “I don’t know what sort of reactions I will have to face after the premieres of Krabat and The Reader. But actually, I don’t really want to know. It is all the same to me where I end up working. The main thing is that I am involved in filming stories with material that works well.”
In the meantime, David Kross has completed the first part of his own very personal story – and it has been a great success.
Johannes Bonke spoke with David Kross
