Dietmar Bär: “I’ve never wanted to write a crime novel”

The new Cologne crime thriller “Tatort: ​​The Charm of Evil” is on the program on Sunday (September 19th, 8:15 pm, the first). If you can’t wait to finally see the popular team of investigators Freddy Schenk (Dietmar Bär, 60) and Max Ballauf (Klaus J. Behrendt, 61), you now have the opportunity to hear at least Dietmar Bär’s charismatic voice in a crime thriller. The audio book “The Nest. The Copenhagen Crime” with him as the narrator will be released on September 17th.

In an interview with spot on news, the actor explains, among other things, why he values ​​audio book work so much. He also talks about the surprising experiences he has already had with his or other voices.

Most of them you probably know from your role as Cologne “Tatort” commissioner Freddy Schenk. But you also do a lot of audio book work. What do you particularly like about it?

Dietmar Bär: As part of acting, audio book work is always pretty close to the theater for me. The storytelling from which the theater developed is what I also really like about the audio book. It is a very intensive work because you are actually alone with yourself and the recording studio and you concentrate on a nice piece of literature. In addition to film and stage, this is one of the pillars of my profession that I really appreciate.

How do you prepare for such a recording?

Bär: As a rule, I get a manuscript beforehand, which I then just read like you would read a book. Then I start to set it up for myself page by page with tempo and pause signs and the like. Every colleague has their own technology. This creates the images in the head of the various characters in the book and thus also the way they could sound so that one can distinguish them. And then it goes to the recording studio for a few hours for a few days. How many days the recordings take depends on the length of the book.

Do you specifically train your voice? Or is it no longer spoken the day before the recordings?

Bär: The physical challenge of working with audio books is not as enormous as, for example, in a theater performance in front of a sold-out house – or even more extreme in an opera performance. When working with audio books, however, you also sit closer to a different type of microphone. I don’t do special vocal exercises before reading an audio book, but since my time at drama school I have been doing general voice training on a regular basis.

Do you pay special attention to other people’s voices?

Bear: What I do sometimes is check what the person looks like behind the voice that I just heard on the radio. But I think we all pay attention to voices. This is a fascination, which is part of our natural communication system and certainly happens subconsciously. Why else would you want to be read to you so much? This is one of the things that we have ahead of other living beings.

Is there a fellow actor whose voice you find particularly interesting?

Bär: I can’t single out individual ones because then I wouldn’t name others. In my opinion, however, you can already tell whether the speaker has had a sound theater education, which actually always includes speech and voice training. Two or three natural talents are certainly the exception here and thus confirm the rule.

And how does the voice of your “Tatort” colleague Klaus J. Behrendt sound in your ears?

Bär: I’m very familiar with it because I’ve known it for over 30 years (laughs).

Do you often ask about your voice?

Bär: I was just on vacation at Lake Constance and someone spoke to me again in the café in the morning who recognized me by that. It has happened to me many times at the airport. And blind people, who have a completely different relationship to the voice and to audio books, have also spoken to me. Of course, some voices have a really high recognition value. I’ve also seen myself sitting in a Cologne pub and suddenly Robert De Niro orders a beer next to me. I turn around and then there is my colleague Christian Brückner with his distinctive voice.

Her audiobooks for children are also quite successful. What feedback from parents or children will you remember?

Bär: I was approached by a couple of actors and told that for years they always had to insert the “Räuber Hotzenplotz” audio book with me as a robber when they went on vacation with the children. That’s a big compliment because children are very critical. Children often have a favorite audio book that they have to listen to over and over again.

Her latest audio book is “The Nest. The Copenhagen Crime”. Have you ever been to Copenhagen?

Bär: Decades ago as a schoolboy, but unfortunately only on my way to Sweden for a camping holiday. The beautiful Denmark and the incredibly charming Copenhagen are at the top of the list for my wife and me. It is the capital of cyclists in Europe, so other city planners could easily learn from it. Since I’ve been reading the “Copenhagen thrillers”, this city has naturally attracted me even more. You can move your finger along the city map, that’s how precisely it is described.

Whether in a film or an audio book, you always breathe life into other people’s crime novels. Have you ever felt like writing a crime thriller yourself?

Bär: No, I’ve never felt like doing that. I prefer to stick with acting. One of my best friends is a screenwriter and I know what it means to write a screenplay – let alone make literature. Maybe one day I’ll be able to come up with a children’s book, but I certainly don’t have anything in the drawer waiting to be published.

How many thrillers do you have at home as books, audio books or DVDs?

Bear: I have all genres at home. Unfortunately, it is not possible to have read everything in a human lifetime.