Oliver Masucci: That’s why he moved away from Germany

His new series “The German” starts on MagentaTV on July 24th – another international production for Oliver Masucci (56). The German actor lives partly in Mallorca and Switzerland, shoots with Hollywood stars and has been recognized by fans since the success of the Netflix series “Dark” from Iceland to Thailand. In an interview with Spot on News, Masucci reveals how he finds this and why he has an ambivalent relationship with Germany.

Oliver Masucci: Yes. It’s not like I am besieged like Tom Cruise – but people recognize me. I shot in Iceland before “The German” – there it was strange.

Masucci: I turned the BBC series “King and Conqueror” there with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. In Reykjavík I went to the rental car switch after landing, and the guy says very cool: “I got you upgrade – I’m huge ‘Dark’ fan.” Next I went to a café – and the waiter asks: “You’re German, from ‘Dark’, right? You are Ulrich.” In Thailand, too, people also asked me for selfies.

Masucci: It’s nice because I can still live normally, but from time to time someone recognizes me – and that in a benevolent way. Fans tell me that they have seen “Dark” four or five times. The series has made an impression worldwide. And in the “Harry Potter” offshoot “Fantastic Beast: Dumbledore’s secrets” I was the boss of the wizarding world – of course that also brings many fans.

Masucci: Not really. I am rarely there, and then I like it too. I visit my parents at Bonn, I am from time to time in Berlin. I lived, worked, played there for a long time. A week goes, then I have to go again.

Masucci: I’ve always had great wanderlust. My father planted that in me. He came to Germany as a guest worker from Italy in the late 1960s. Actually, he always wanted to be a ship cook and travel the world, but did not implement it for the sake. I’m doing this for him now.

Masucci: ambivalent. On the one hand, the country has done a lot that is worth preserving, but at the same time it does not develop quickly enough in many things. You can’t hear it anymore who wants to reduce all bureaucracy – it has not been happening so far. And in the cultural sector, I miss that artists and thinkers are recognized in this way – I mean very practical, at work, in the social security system – that actors do not have to be presented with the employment office at the end of a shoot in order not to lose pension points. How humiliating. The system is simply not made for actors and cultural workers. The last Minister of Culture has not changed anything. And the probably new one is completely unsuspecting in this regard. We must not be self -employed. That is also why I moved away from Germany.

Masucci: Similar to Germany as a whole: Innovation has a hard time. The storytelling is often too slow and too simple. This is also related to the financing: unlike in the European surrounding area, there is no tax incentives to make films in Germany. This is called Tax rebate, such as in Belgium, Austria, Italy, and attracts international productions that spend money there and employ locals. Instead, we are promoted on request, but that is – I repeat myself – a huge bureaucratic effort and too little incentive. Because the sums that are needed for spectacular productions are never possible, German films and series can rarely seldom regret internationally.

Masucci: I was there when I shot the vampire film “Day Shift” for Netflix with Snoop Dogg and Jamie Foxx. I also witnessed the Oscar ceremony when “work without author” by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck was nominated twice. It was exciting, but Los Angeles is not for me.

Masucci: For example, that I have up to two hours of car driving there just to go food – that’s absurd. It is too extensive for me. I liked Atlanta, where I also shot. The city is very multicultural and cinematic a hotspot – many interior shots are created there – Georgia also has a tax rebate. In the United States, however, I always notice that I am a European. I lack architecture, buildings, the old, the narrow streets, the small restaurants, life on the Piazza. And currently, with the political climate, it is too extreme for me – in both directions, on the one hand to Woke, on the other hand too nationalist.

Masucci: You are simply treated very well and professionally, on the set. In England, France, USA there is a huge appreciation for the “talent” – the actors. The food is good, you are kept fit physically and do not have to work overtime, as in Germany, where you save on shooting days and then compensate for this with unpaid overtime. The stars I turned with are particularly noticeable due to high professionalism. And little cult. Whether Jude Law, Mads Mikkelsen, Fanny Ardant, Eddie Redmayne – great colleagues.

Masucci: I turn an international sci-fi series in English: “Droneland”. In terms of content, it is somewhere between “Minority Report” and “Blade Runner”. She plays in a completely drone-monitored world shortly before the invention of the “Matrix”, in the future. Everything is recorded and saved. I am an agent that can beam back into a virtual past. As in the matrix, we can clink into this system. Humanity is at the part of the trial point.

Then I do the movie about Karl Adam, the rower coach, who was actually a boxer and shaped the sentence: “The principle of performance is the same at all levels.” He revolutionized rowing through completely new training methods and occupied the German eighth after the war with fatherless boxers and led twice to Olympic gold. A very emotional promoted story about completely different people that nobody believed in and who are fully committed to one thing. At the time, they even ashamed to wear the German jersey at the end of the 50s. After that, I will mostly make the third “Woodwalkers” film in the mountains, in the Harz, Southern Germany, Austria, Italy. And then the year is over. (laughs)