Michelle Yeoh
After decades at the top of her craft, Asian star Michelle Yeoh says she's fearless when approaching a role: "It's like when you do a stunt. If you are scared, get off the platform, because you are going to get yourself killed."
After decades at the top of her craft, Asian star Michelle Yeoh says she's fearless when approaching a role: "It's like when you do a stunt. If you are scared, get off the platform, because you are going to get yourself killed."
German actress Diane Kruger, in Berlin with A.J, Edwards' black and white drama The Better Angels, co-starring Jason Clarke and Wes Bentley, a radical change from the Hollywood blockbusters she is best known for.
In THR's Berlinale Actors Roundtable, Kruger shared her best and worst experiences with directors. "I've had directors who guide me to become the embodiment of his vision…but I've also worked with studio directors who are technicians and have no point of view or ones who are very manipulating, where you come come crying."
Frances Ha star Greta Gerwig is a member of the International Jury at this year's Berlinale. "When I finished writing "Frances Ha" I was so proud of it, as a piece of writing, I at first didn't want to take the part because I was afraid if I did, people wouldn't believe I wrote it."
On THR's Berlinale Actors Roundtable, six international thespians – U.S. actress/writer Greta Gerwig, British shooting star George MacKay, Germany's Ken Duken and Diane Kruger, English-born actor Sam Riley and Asian superstar Michele Yeoh, shared their deepest fears, greatest joys and most puzzling script directions (""The pterodactyl retreats.' How do you play that?")
British actor Sam Riley, in Berlin with the Out of Competition title The Dark Valley, recalls the Cannes premiere of his first film, "Control" (2007): "I was 26 and had had so many downers career-wise before that. Afterwards, when they clapped, I thought 'it's probably not going to get any better than this.' And that was my first film."
George MacKay, one of the ten up-and-coming Shooting Stars picked by European Film Promotion at this year's Berlinale, doesn't have a career strategy laid out. "So many good things happen by chance and are unplottable," says the 20-year-old star of Scottish musical feature "Sunshine on Leith."
Fear is what drives veteran German actor Ken Duken, whose latest is the Viking action film "The Northmen," selling at Berlin's European Film Market. "If I'm not scared (of a role), I don't want to do it."