Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Rami Malek are engaging in a psychological game of chess in writer-director James Vanderbilt‘s historical drama Nuremberg that chronicles the efforts to bring the Nazi high command to justice after World War II in the Nuremberg Trials.
“The year is 1945. Adolf Hitler is dead, and the Second World War is drawing to a close. Several figures within the Nazi high command have been apprehended by the Allies — among them the eerily charismatic Hermann Göring (Crowe),” one of the most powerful figures in Hitler’s Nazi Party, reads a synopsis for the movie, which world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, Sept. 7. “U.S. Lt. Colonel Douglas Kelley (Malek), an army psychiatrist, is called in to evaluate the Nazi captives. He sees his directive as an opportunity to psychologically define evil, helping to ensure that such atrocities are never repeated while providing him with material for a surefire bestseller.”
The star-studded ensemble cast also includes the likes of Michael Shannon as U.S. Supreme Court justice Robert H. Jackson, charged with the task of forming an unprecedented international tribunal, Richard E. Grant as Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, one of the prosecuting counsels at the Nuremberg Trials, Leo Woodall as Sgt. Howie Triest, John Slattery, Andreas Pietschmann (Dark) as Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess, and Colin Hanks.
Sony Pictures Classics recently acquired the North American rights to the movie, which is based on Jack El-Hai’s 2013 non-fiction book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist.
Shannon’s Jackson believes that even the world’s most notorious criminals deserve a fair trial. “The challenge, as Jackson sees it, is to get the seemingly unflappable Göring to reveal his true nature in public,” highlights a description of the film. “To do that, Jackson and Kelley will need to work together to earn Göring’s trust — and appeal to his narcissism.”
In other words, the Second World War may be over, but the psychological war is on.
Ahead of the premiere of Nuremberg, THR discussed the film with Vanderbilt, whose screenwriting credits include Zodiac (2007), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), and White House Down (2013). He made his directorial debut with Truth (2015).
The filmmaker shared with THR insights into his casting of big hitters, bringing a different, more thriller-centric, cinematic perspective to WWII and the Holocaust, how The Silence of the Lambs provided inspiration, rebuilding the Nuremberg courtroom to scale, and how using harrowing historical footage made for the hardest day on set.
As an Austrian, I thought I knew this part of history really well. But I wasn’t aware of the person Rami Malek plays and the book that Nuremberg is based on. When did you read it, and how early did you see its cinematic potential?
For me, it was almost instantaneous. I didn’t know the story either. I knew about the trials, and I sort of knew what happened historically. I read an article by Jack El-Hai that he was using as a book proposal to sell the book. I was familiar with his work because there was something else of his that we were developing. So, I got to read the proposal early, and I think it was the quickest I said yes to anything. I was just thinking: “Oh, my God, there’s such a movie here. And it’s such an interesting way into the story. I think we all think we know this part of history, yet the deeper I dug and the more research I did, the more I realized I didn’t know nearly as much at all. I didn’t know there were psychiatrists in World War II. I didn’t know about Doug Kelley or any of that. So, it felt like such an amazing way into it. This is absolutely a movie!
How did you approach balancing the thrills and the personal drama and tension between these big personalities and doing justice to the horrible atrocities of the Holocaust?
I started out as a screenwriter, so I’m always story-first, character-first. That’s the thing I’m always most interested in, and that’s the thing that pulled me into this. I felt very early on that this had to be a serious film, and it’s about serious things, but a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. And I wanted it to be a thriller. I want it to be a ride for people emotionally. I want it to be entertaining. My favorite dramas are entertaining and fun. The Godfather has a lot of jokes in it. You laugh while watching The Godfather.
So, it was really important for me, in order to give the gravity to the atrocities, and for that to stand out, the entire movie couldn’t be heavy. I felt it actually would work against you. As a viewer, the last thing I want is to feel like I’m being lectured to or beaten over the head by a film. So, the way I built this was as a thriller and as a character piece.
We talked a lot about The Silence of the Lambs, in terms of Kelley and Göring, and how it is about two men in a cell for some of it, really trying to get under each other’s skin and outwit each other. How would that work? How do they attempt to outmaneuver each other?
And in terms of the Jackson story, I really sort of fell in love with that. He’s not really in Jack’s book, but the more research I did, the more I discovered Robert Jackson. And I was like: “This is incredible. This man, who was sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, who, against the wishes of the United States Army, said we need to put these men on trial, pulled together this incredible international coalition, and made the world come together to do this unprecedented thing. He was then the lead prosecutor for the United States. That’s an incredible story, and I wanted to tell that as well. So all of it sort of went into a big pot and a stew. Just telling the stories of these three men pulled me through this.
You mentioned how, at times, the film feels like a chamber piece with two guys in a room trying to outwit each other. You feel that tension in the air. What went into the decision to go for big names for these roles rather than lesser-known actors, especially for a man like Göring?
I’m so blessed with this cast. It’s a phenomenal cast, and to be able to direct two Academy Award winners going at each other is fantastic. John Papsidera, our incredible casting director, put this together. For Göring, I always wanted a big name. There are wonderful character actors out there who I’m sure could have played it. But, for me, Russell is a character actor hiding in a leading man’s body of gravitas. And so I knew I’d be in good hands with him.
The thing about Göring was that everybody talked about how charismatic and magnetic he was. Somebody once described him as the best dinner party guest you’d ever want, which was an amazing thing to say about a Nazi. Yes. So I really wanted someone who had that charisma and that sort of movie star quality. Göring could kind of pull you in and seduce you, and I thought Russell was incredible for that. So, I really wanted somebody who was a big name for that part.
And then it was really important to me, with the Douglas Kelley character, to have somebody who could sit across somebody like Russell and go beat for beat with him. It’s like two boxers fighting. You got to have somebody who can dance with him. And Rami, I’ve loved in everything. I’m a huge Rami Malek fan, even more of one now that I have worked with him. I was a huge fan of Mr. Robot, a huge fan of all of his work, and his comedic work as well. He has this sort of magnetism to him as well, especially in person, that he doesn’t always get cast for. He gets cast a lot as the sort of quirkier guy. But I love the idea of putting him in this rough and tumble role. We talked a lot about how we didn’t want this to be like the normal movie psychiatrist you have seen. We didn’t want the Sigmund Freud “Tell me about your mother!” kind of person. He is in a leather jacket. He’s a magician. Which is all true. He was this sort of wild guy. And I loved the idea of that kind of energy – Rami’s kind of energy and Russell’s kind of energy, which are very different.
What kind of historical advisors and historians did you work with to make sure to get all the details right?
We had some wonderful historical advisors, such as Michael Berenbaum, who is one of the people who founded the Holocaust Museum and who worked with Steven Spielberg on Schindler’s List. He was incredible. We also had a gentleman who was a historical advisor when we were shooting in Hungary.
I started writing the very first draft 13 years ago, and it took me probably a solid year of research, just because I wanted to be as accurate as possible. I wanted to understand and would also just read books about the period to make sure that I understood the mores and how people were, because it was such a very specific time. We’ve seen a lot of World War II movies. We actually haven’t seen a lot of post-World War II movies. We start literally on the last day of the war in Europe. It was such a specific time in Europe for the winners and the losers in terms of what they were going through.
Knowing that Nuremberg had maybe 12 hours of electricity every day, and that a great percentage of the city wasn’t there anymore, and there was very little running water [was key]. In the middle of that, trying to stage this trial that the whole world is watching, I really wanted to get the feeling of that. I was very lucky. The trial itself is so well documented.
They rebuilt that courtroom for cameras and for sound to make sure that there was a record of what was going on there. Eve Stewart, our incredible production designer, rebuilt that courtroom to scale, including the ceiling. It was very important for her to put the ceiling in and the light fixtures to the point where you would walk in and stand there, and it looked exactly like the one that’s still in Nuremberg.
James Vanderbilt
Courtesy of Justine UngaroI
Right before we went to Budapest to shoot, Dariusz Wolski, who’s the director of photography, who is incredible, and I watched Judgment at Nuremberg one more time. And when they got to the courtroom, because we had already been to our set, we were like: “Their set feels so small comparatively to the real courtroom.” We researched this thing within an inch of its life because we really wanted to make sure that we were as accurate as humanly possible. I always say, when you’re telling a true story that takes place over a year and condensing it into two hours, you’re going to have to leave some stuff out. You’re going to have to make some choices. But I always wanted, when we made those choices, to know that we didn’t miss anything and make the choices deliberately. Jackson’s opening statement was three hours long. I’m not going to show you Michael Shannon talking for three hours, although he would be riveting.
There’s a nightly scene at this Nazi marching ground in the city of Nuremberg. Did you really get to shoot that scene there or any other key scenes in the movie on location?
We shot that at a production location that we recreated in Hungary. That was a rainy, cold, three in the morning night out at an airfield. Actually, we needed enough concrete tarmac to make it work visually.
We knew we couldn’t build all of the stands and stuff like that. So I had them build a model, an old-school cardboard model, and they brought it to the set. And then I went with Michael [Shannon] and Rami [Malek] and stood there and pointed at the little Michael and Rami [that the team had built for the model]. I said: “Okay, this is you guys, and you’re going to be here, and this is what’s around you.” And then our visual effects guy had an iPad with him, and they had built a wireframe model on the iPad. We gave it to both of them and said, “When you’re looking this way, this is what you would see.” So they could actually look 360 degrees around to see what their surroundings were, so that they felt as much as possible. It’s always important for me as a director, as much as possible, to immerse actors in the world that [their characters] are living in.
You have written and directed movies and sometimes done both on the same film. Why did you want to write and direct this one?
It’s interesting. I wrote it, and I always wanted to direct it. But when I first wrote it, I sort of went, “Should I direct it? Am I the right person for this? Is there an incredible director out there?” The subject matter itself is so important in our history, and there’s a gravity to it, and it’s such an incredible story that I wanted to make sure I was the right person to do it. But it always kept coming back to me.
Both of my grandfathers fought in World War II, and I grew up hearing about that time period. I was born in 1975, so I had a connection to that history and friends who lost grandparents in the Holocaust. So, my generation is very connected to that. I talked to my kids about World War II. It’s like talking to them about the American Revolution. Do you know what I mean? It feels so far in the past for the generation after me.
So, the idea of telling a story like this, making sure that we remember what happened, keeping those stories alive, and that connection alive, that’s also why I wanted it to be such an emotional film. I think you can learn all of history in class, but stories are the things that really stay with us. It just felt really important to me deep down, so that I wanted to be the one sitting in the [director’s] chair for this one.
There is harrowing historical footage shown in Nuremberg that was actually shown during the trial, entitled “Nazi Concentration Camps,” shot as Allied troops liberated the camps. How did you think about when, how, and where to use this footage in the film?
It was very important for us not to manipulate it. In pre-production, people would talk about it and go, “So, how are we going to recreate it?” I was like: “We’re not going to recreate anything. We’re going to use the real footage in our film, and we’re going to show it with the original narration.” Because it’s so powerful on its own. And I always knew we were going to use it – from the first draft to the final film.
I never wanted you to see any of it before our characters see it in court, because it was such an enormous moment for the world to see it. People had heard about the atrocities, but it was the first time that film was used in a court case to prove something. I always knew the section of the film where we would show it.
But the actual [footage] they showed in reality was almost an hour. If you can imagine sitting through that for an hour, it’s gut-wrenching. I said to the actors: “I don’t want you to go looking for this. I want this to be the first moment you see it.” So we set up four cameras in the courtroom, so we could cover all of our leads. And I said a little something to everybody, including the extras, to explain to them what they were going to see and take a moment of silence. And then we shot it. That was a hard day to witness that and see that, and go through that with other people. But as a testament to our cast and crew, they all understood the gravity of doing it, and the importance of doing it the way we did it, and not trying to push it in any way. I think it stands for itself as a historical document.
Were there any other particularly difficult shooting days or scenes, given the serious subject matter?
This sounds sort of counterintuitive, but I find that movies that are more serious are almost more joyous when you’re making them, because sometimes the stuff is so heavy. This cast is such a wonderful, talented, fun cast to work with. Whenever we brushed up against the true events, I always like to say: I like to take the work seriously; I don’t like to take myself seriously. And I think that was true for a lot of people on the film. We all were very, very dedicated to telling the story the right way, and worked really, really hard to do it, but I would say that day was definitely the hardest.
Did you ever think Nuremberg could become a series?
I love movies. I’m a film guy, and I have so many friends who work in television and limited series, and I watch a ton. But for me, this has always been a big-screen movie. There is such a scope to it. It’s such a big story. I grew up loving A Few Good Men and The Verdict, and all of these great courtroom thrillers. That to me is a big movie, so I loved the idea of telling the story as a film. It never occurred to me to do it any other way.
How excited are you to world premiere Nuremberg at Toronto?
It’s incredibly exciting. I think it’s a miracle any movie gets made. I think it’s an absolute miracle this movie got made, because it is a thriller. It is a movie where we tried to get a lot of scope, we tried to get a lot of excitement. But it is people in rooms talking, which is a kind of movie I love. I’m just so excited for people to see it. It’s the culmination of years of hard work, not just for me, but for this incredible cast and crew, and we really poured our hearts into it. So it’s just so exciting to get it out there.
Anything else you’d like to highlight or share?
I haven’t talked about Leo Woodall at all. He was just one of my favorite people to work with, and one of the cast’s favorite people to work with. We have all of these wonderful big names in the movie. I mean, you’d turn around, and John Slattery and Richard E. Grant and Colin Hanks are standing right there. It’s an incredible group of actors, and a lot of them are big names and didn’t have to audition, understandably. I know Russell Crowe is going to be able to park it. He doesn’t have to audition.
I made Leo audition like 17 times, not because of him – I loved him and I loved his work, but that character, and I don’t want to give away too much, but there’s some stuff in there he has to do. And I knew whoever it was I wanted to make sure they could park that. And so he read that scene at least twice, maybe three times. He worked his ass off to get that part. And he is such a gift in the movie. When we cast him, he was the not so well-known guy, and then, of course, he’s become an enormous star since we shot the movie. He’s now a big actor, and I couldn’t be happier for him. He’s so multifaceted and talented and did everything I asked of him and more.
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