La Dutch journalist who, in the waiting room of the London interview office set up for the cinema release of Tár, has the best line, says that «Cate Blanchett out-Cated herself», so good as to surpass herself, thus inventing a new unit of measurement for the talent of the actors, the “cate”. The Australian actress who has already won two Oscars and who is in the running for the third on March 12 for the role of conductor created by Todd Field, would probably position Nina Hoss a couple of “chats” above him: “I’ve been posting to Nina for a decade,” he declared. “It’s unhealthy, I know, but that’s how it is.”
Todd Field, Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss. (Photo by David M. Benett/Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImage)
Nina Hoss, German, 48 years old, daughter of a former trade unionist and member of the Bundestag and an actress of the Stuttgart national theater, he soon began working on the stage and then in the cinema. She becomes the muse of Christian Petzold, an author much loved by festivals, with whom she shoots 5 films, all very beautiful (Jerichow, Barbara’s choice, The secret of his face…), then cinema and major TV productions discover it, he is a spy in the series Homeland and in Anton Corbijn’s film The Spy – A Most Wanted Man, in Jack Ryan 3 is the president of the Czech Republic.
The breaking point, the discovery of the lie from social networks
In Tar it’s Sharon, the German wife of Lydia Tár, and concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker the orchestra that Lydia conducts, “the person who organizes everything so that Tár can express his genius”. A relationship that reaches breaking point when Sharon realizes that Lydia has been lying to her. And she discovers it publicly, when her partner is nailed by social networks.
What did you say when you read the script of Tara film like few others see, a tale of the complexity of the present time?
I said to myself: «Wow!». I love authors who instead of leaving you with a judgment, leave you with a question. It is useless to look for the answers: we will almost certainly not find them, the world is too complicated to exhaust it with a tweet. This film is about power and creativity and their interaction. It confronts us with the decision whether at a certain point we take, or not, to abuse that power, it asks us how far we are willing to go. It tells us what it’s like to be a woman in that world, what it means to grow old, to feel that vulnerability deep inside, and to make choices accordingly. The film takes you there and leaves you alone, it shows you the world with its dark sides but also tells you that something is happening. You don’t walk out of the movie depressed even though it talks about terrible things, because it has incredible energy.
Nina Hoss in TÁR (Focus Features)
Among the issues at the heart of the landscape that the film draws is also that of the relationship between art and its author, who can also be a figure who is not blameless. How did you solve it?
I often work on classic texts, and I’ve certainly worked with authors who I haven’t had my best moments with, but I don’t feel entitled to erase their work, if their work is important. In the film there is a scene shot at Julliard school in which Lydia has a discussion about Bach: a student refuses to play it because he is misogynist. It’s the conflict we’re experiencing, we have to save the greatness of the past, see what was done in the time it was born and yet find the strength to change. Who we are, including the revolution we are experiencing, has a lot to do with who we have been. Change takes time. And now maybe there really is hope for a big change. I wonder if I am no longer allowed to speak words that I have said so many times on stage because they come from classic texts, now considered racist, chauvinist, colonialist? I think we need to hear those words again, without denying the conversation they have produced. If we manage to do this, this moment could become really interesting and not the expression of another dictatorship.
The creative process: everything is important, even the interviews
Todd Field hasn’t made a movie for 16 years. Would such a hiatus be possible for an actor?
If you’re waiting to find work, a long wait can be devastating. A break, on the other hand, knowing what awaits me afterwards, is regenerating. Sometimes I need it. In German there is a beautiful word, muessigkeit (which could be translated as laziness, ed), which means that you are still, paused, while everything around you feeds you. But I can’t do it too often, I’m too energetic, I need context, to discuss, to do, I need to be with others, with my tour company producing something that will stay. I enjoy everything about the creative process, even doing the interviews.
He is among the few to say so…
I love interviews, because you are the first to see what we do, your opinion is very important. And then many of you are intelligent…
Nina Hoss in TÁR (Focus Features)
She started early in life and acting was a family affair. She had it in her DNA…
Sure, but if she’d asked me when I was 25 I would have told her that I could do anything in life. Now with what I know and what I have gathered, I tell you that I could not have done anything other than this. I fall in love with this profession more and more every day.
Music is also part of his life. This is the third film in which she plays a musician, she married a musician. And as a violinist you are very believable.
But luckily she doesn’t hear the sounds I produce with those very believable movements…But it’s true that music is a big part of my life. At some point I discovered opera and also started studying singing. Until choosing between aria and recitative I decided that the part that interested me most was acting and perhaps singing here and there every now and then. But I often create a playlist for my characters, it helps me connect with them. Music is the art form that goes straight to my emotional core. For an actor it is the most beautiful of shortcuts.
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