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Sullen Charm -A driven Artist.
Tobias Moretti as a trained musician who has directed operas by Mozart; but he's best known as an actor in a popular criminal series.
His breakthrough came when he took on the challenge of playing Hitler.
A scene from 'Speer und Er': Tobias Moretti as Hitler :
Hitler : Map table.. sword.. good, good!
The marble is from the Ostmarkt
The diplomats will slip on it with their patent leather shoes.
I shall instil fear into them when they're sitting before me.
Moretti shows a version of Hitler somewhere between a private figure and a megalomaniac, a man with visions of destruction plagued by self-pity.
It's a magnificient achievement. The Austrian actor really wanted this rôle.
Tobias : I got rather obsessive. I wanted to get back to basics. And away from superficial perceptions, from the usual attitude that he was
a wicked demon. And the people back then were really just stupid, just look how stupid they were. I wanted to get away from that.
Another scene from 'Speer und Er':
Hitler : The snow depresses me. I can't stand it. It stops me from getting on the mountain.
Vienna's Theater an der Wien, Spring 2007. Tobias Moretti is rehearsing his literary musical program. This is where he expresses
his musical side. A native Tyrolian, Moretti started music in Munich. But he was always interested in acting.
Tobias : The University of Music and Performing Arts shared the same building. The young actors in there seemed really utopians,
to me they always seemed so esoteric; well that was not my style at all.
Nevertheless Moretti did eventually go into acting. He played a popular police inspector with a dog.
A scene from 'Dance with the devil'
'There is some missing'.
Later the characters he played were often tough and intense, a Munich investigator, and a mountain guide
A scene from 'Schwabenkinder'
'What am I going to do with you? What am I going to do with all of you? I've got to make sure that nothing happens to you.
Do you understand?
Moretti still lives in Tyrol where his roots are.
Tobias : The fact that I don't comme from an educated middle-class home is quite important, because in our profession we need
something like an elemental drive to survive in order to achieve anything. I got there; I'm a survivor, a fighter.
Moretti has also fought his way to the top in the theater. His Ottokar in 'Ottokar, his Rise and Fall',
was quite an event.
A scene from 'Ottokar, his Rise and Fall':
« I can't stand it. I can't live like this. »
This won him the Gertrud Eysoldt Ring, the language German drama prize.
Another scene from 'Ottokar' :
« My head is spinning, I'll try to rest here. »
Tobias : « Ottokar is obsessive, he's a madman.. who borders on megalomania, like anyone who achieves too quickly. »
But Tobias Moretti took his time; these days he commutes between theater and opera. He has directed two Mozart's performances,
filling them in between his Tyrolian farm which he runs himself and filming.
His current feature film 'Impossibly yours' has just been released.
A scene from the film :
'With your permission I'll set the table now'.
Here Moretti plays a serious district judge who falls for a very young student. He's both obsessive and controlling.
Scene:
'Don't forget the alarm'.
Later he marries her. But his young wife soon looks for love elsewhere. Moretti's character, always the responsible pedant
is left behind.
Scene :
'Coming for a run?'
'Grandma should take you to the zoo. Yes, tell her that!
She should take you to the zoo to look at the seals. Then you'll understand me.'
Tobias Moretti is equally obsessed with music, literature and history, as he is exploring new forms of performance.
Scene from 'That Awesome Underground of Souls'
Meanwhile the city of Lisbon in Portugal was destroyed by an earthquake, and the Seven Years' War ended.
Tobias : 'We are constantly exposed, doing new things; we could crash tomorrow; yesterday I was successful,
tomorrow I could fail, and that's what drives us, keeps us going.'
Tobias Moretti will soon be starring as Casanova, in a film by Carlos Saura.
Tobias : « That was ' That Awesome Underground of Souls' ».