The Physician. Interview with Philipp Stolzl

Director Philipp Stölzl finished lengthy adaptation of The Physician novel, while in this Interview he answered our questions about filming, his work with young and experienced actors, his future plans and impressions about visiting Russia.

German director Philipp Stölzl has rick background in working with music vidoes. He directed them for Faith No More, Garbage, Madonna, Rammstein. He is also known as an Opera director. His first film Baby (2002) was released more than 10 years ago, but since that time his interest in making new ones has been growing. Sometimes he also serves as a writer for his movies like with Nordwand (2008). A few years ago he released new thriller The Expatriate (2011), while working there with Aaron Eckhart, Liana Liberato, Olga Kurylenko. Most recently Philipp Stölzl presented his The Physician movie.

It is an adaptation of a famous Noah Gordon novel from the books’ trilogy featuring the Rob Cole dynasty. There were numerous chances to turn it into a film, but where many failed this new effort succeeded. Tom Payne got the lead role acting alongside experienced veterans of the industry. Financial support was also secured from Germany authorities and private funds located at the international movie market. Producers are expecting higher returns from Germany and Spain, but in Russia the movie is also getting its theatrical release.

At the end of December, 2013 actor Tom Payne and his director Philipp Stölzl visited Moscow with their The Physician promotional tour. Unfortunately, sir Ben Kingsley didn’t also join them there. Therefore, all our questions about making the movie we addressed to its director, and 47-year-old Philipp spoke about the creative process, many difficulties with the adpatation of an epic book and his own experience in working with sir Ben Kingsley, Stellan Skarsgård and younger actress Emma Rigby. Read on to our full Interview.

Interview with Philipp Stölzl

- Greetings, Philipp!

- Hello! Is it ok, if I look at you, when answering? Tom Payne is our acting professional, and I’m working more behind the camera.

- Have you been to Russia before?

- I’ve been a couple of times in Russia. Visited Saint Petersburg for my opera work, since I’m an opera director. I’ve also been to Kiev, Ukraine for shooting commercials. I made quite a lot of friends there. In Russia I like its atmosphere here, people’s mentality. I’m sort of a Russia’s fan, and now we are presenting The Physician here.

- Did you enjoy the Moscow’s premiere of The Physician?

- Oh, really! Guys, who are releasing the movie, have been doing a great job, and they take good care about the film. We have a little bit of a tour behing us that started in December, 2013. We launched it from Berlin, then went to Vienna, Zurich, Madrid, finally came to Russia. It’s really interesting for such a short time to travel through so different cultures, mentalities, it was in a way educational for us.

- At the Berlin’s film world premiere its producers mentioned the possibility to create two more sequels based on the other books by Noah Gordon from the same trilogy. Would you like to keep up your work with this franchise?

- Sequels, let’s see! As a director, you always try to move on to find new challenges. The sequels of this novel are set in different centuries, possibly, it could be interesting for me, but as a director I learnt not to make too many plans. I need to go on to develop my own stories, people send me scripts, and I wait for the conciliation to happen: for a script to fall in love with, for a passionate story.

Imagine expanding this approach for each of the new movies. I have worked on The Physician constantly for 2,5 years, other movies took even longer. Each project is a huge part of my life, a director cannot make just endless amount of movies. The desicion which one to do next should mean a lot, because there is a part of life to be given to this title.

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Read on further to learn about working with actors in The Physician.