Rami Malek admits that while the subject matter of his latest film Nuremberg is sobering and grim, the story and characters were so compelling that he and his castmates couldn’t help but feel giddy when diving into the work.
“What’s odd is the juxtaposition of the word ‘fun’ in Nuremberg,” Malek mused during Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles panel Saturday alongside writer-director James Vanderbilt. The Bohemian Rhapsody Oscar winner described the whipsaw between the tension being generated on set and the actors’ joy of creating indelible characters and soaking in the lighter moments that added humanity to the story of prosecuting top Nazi officer Hermann Göring, played by Russell Crowe.
“There are moments where you’re laughing, and that’s what James has done so brilliantly in the script, that’s what drew me to it,” he said. “I love stories that take us back into history and allow us to retell the story that we think we know – and I promise you when you see this, if you haven’t, there’s so many surprises and twists and just a part of history that really will shock you.”
Malek said he and his fellow actors “were salivating as we were watching or taking part in it. And I know Michael [Shannon] and Russell just enjoyed every second of that to be able to go through these takes.”
The sense of place added to the gravitas of the story, Malek added. “We were shooting in Hungary, and at the end of each take there was a standing ovation,” he explained, noting that the locals “kept applauding because there’s so many links in that part of the world to what happened – very, very closely. And so you could feel that. You could feel the tension in that courtroom scene. It was palpable every day. You hold that with you and yeah, there’s something uniquely special about that.
“I just threw myself into the nature of what this guy was going through,” he added about his role as an Army psychiatrist tasked with evaluating Göring at a critical turning point in post-war world, matching wits with Nazis who had committed or ordered some of the most heinous atrocities in history.
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“You have to come in there with a sense of charm and a sense of being as engaging and smart,” he said. “And I think being able to play that psychological chess match well enough to be in the room, pulling that off with all, not just [Göring], but 21 other Nazis as well. So there was a sense that I had to bring every level of humanity into that room — whether it was wit, charm, being able to be disarming, being able to be incredibly intelligent and being as powerful and having as much steeliness as I could at moments going toe-to-toe in that room.”
As he continues to add to his acting résumé, Malek also made it clear he wouldn’t be going backward in any sort of Mr. Robot reboot or spinoff with that 2015-19 series’ creator Sam Esmail. “No,” he affirmed definitively, though he said a collaboration on an unrelated project might arise. “Sam and I just talked about working together again, but that’s it.”
