After Of Money and Blood on Canal+ where he replaced Gaspard Ulliel at short notice, who died in an accident, Niels Schneider comes back in The world does not exista four-part mini-series broadcast in its entirety on the evening of Thursday, September 26 on Arte (and arte.tv). In this unclassifiable fiction, Virginie Efira’s companion in the city plays a solitary and taciturn journalist who returns to his native town in the North to investigate a murder in which a former classmate, to whom he was very close, is allegedly involved. As soon as he arrives, he is confronted with the demons of the past. Interview with the actor, unrecognizable in this fiction, where he is in every shot.
The world does not exist : “I gained about ten kilos“, Niels Schneider looks back on his preparation to play this demanding role
Télé-Loisirs: You are unrecognizable in this fiction. How did you transform yourself to embody this character?
Niels Schneider: I try to prepare myself mentally and physically in every way possible before arriving on a shoot. It could be reading, watching films or doing sports. There, I really built up a body for myself. I like physical preparation to feel like I’m becoming the character. I need to believe it when I look in the mirror. I went on a diet and trained for eight months to gain muscle. In total, I gained about ten kilos. It was exhausting but at the same time very cathartic. I was also able to go to the editorial office of Le Monde and it’s a detail, but I trained for hours and days to type with all the fingers of my hand to appear as credible as possible.
There is a dichotomy between his massive physique and this constant worry that emanates from him…
Yes, because of his past as a victim of bullying, Adam has transformed his body into armor, as if to be ready to defend himself. He is physically impressive, but in his head, he is still that fifteen-year-old kid who was a victim of school bullying. There is a line from Faulkner that says, I believe, that “the past is never dead.” When he finds his tormentors, twenty years have passed, but it is as if he has remained in the past.
Your character has very little dialogue but a lot of emotions to express, how did you approach this aspect?
It’s the art of making silences heard. For these shots without dialogue, I put myself in my character’s situation, I think about what he would think and I believe in it completely at the moment. I bet on a very sober game. It’s a gamble, but I tell myself that the viewer will capture even a tiny percentage of what I feel inside. My character has this introverted rage, it’s a valve that can implode at any moment. I find this contained violence overwhelming. It’s a feeling that we are generally ashamed to experience in life, but on screen, we have the right to feel it and express it. Fiction allows, allows that. That’s also the beauty of this profession.
There is also this scene where he is alone with Sara (Maud Wyler) in the room and where he suddenly shows a form of appeasement…
It’s one of the rare sequences where he smiles and cries. This scene upset me because this character who is always under tension finally lets his guard down. Sara is the only person with whom he has a connection, it’s a moment of sharing that is both sweet and bitter, one of the rare moments in this thriller where feelings and settings are cramped, from which a real human warmth emerges. It’s a scene that feels good.
The world does not exist : Niels Schneider, “I am much freer in my roles than in my daily life.“
Like many actors, is acting a kind of therapy to cure great shyness? When I started acting, I discovered a space of freedom. A place where I was no longer afraid of the gaze of others. It was a kind of escape. I kept my shyness, but I managed to tame it over time, even if I am not a fan of social events. I am not a social animal and places where there are people can still make me anxious. But fiction is the world of the imaginary, there are no limits and it is magnificent. All the barriers that we can have in life fall between “action” and “cut”.
If we put all your roles together, would we get a portrait of you?
There is a bit of that because I put sincerity into each of my roles. It allows me to visit parts of myself, sometimes dark, sometimes bright, that I did not suspect existed and that I do not allow myself to experience in life. In The world does not exist or in Of money and bloodI play things that are very far from me and yet it summons emotions that are also part of who I am. It can be very disturbing. I realize that I am much freer in my roles than in my daily life. Real life is the imaginary. It allows you to approach all the taboos, to explore the human soul in its entirety. There is something about exploring yourself and others that I really like! In life, we are often in performance in the end and curiously when we put on makeup or disguise ourselves, we can reveal a real part of ourselves. This is what I do through the characters I play.
An actor learns to act but not to promote, how do you approach this exercise?
I’m terrible [Il rit]. It’s sometimes quite distressing and I’m still a little uncomfortable. However, I’ve been doing this job for a while now. What’s strange is that we find ourselves playing the role of the actor being interviewed. I think I look at myself a little more kindly than before. You have to accept letting go, telling yourself that you can’t control everything about your image. You can try to have a certain amount of control through the roles you choose, but you can never control the fantasies that others project onto you. It’s part of the job, you have to accept it and not worry about it. I stay away from social media and today, it doesn’t pollute me. You shouldn’t listen to criticism, or praise, and learn to protect yourself. For people like me, anyway.
