AWARD-WINNING ACTORS GEOFFREY RUSH AND EMILY WATSON IN “THE BOOK THIEF”

Release material

At the heart of Markus Zusak’s uplifting novel “The Book Thief” is a curious little girl. Liesel Meminger’s “crime” (referenced as a “thief” in the title) – a fascination with books and a desire to amass a collection of her own – pales in comparison to those being committed in the world in which she lives. She can’t possibly understand the tumultuous events happening around her, as war breaks out and she learns that a man named Hitler is responsible for tearing her family apart.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

                But as her foster father, Hans Hubermann, helps her read the pages of the books she’s so keen to take, and when she finds a friend in the Hubermann’s new basement-dwelling houseguest, Max, life begins to change for Liesel. Even in the darkest of times, the Book Thief learns the power of words, and how they can change the world.

                Author Markus Zusak says he was inspired to write the book by stories told to him by his parents when he was a young boy in Australia.  “It was like a piece of Europe came into our kitchen when my mom and dad told tales about growing up in Germany and Austria, the bombings of Munich, and about the prisoners the Nazis marched through the streets,” says the author.  “I didn’t realize it at the time but those stories led me to want to become a writer.

                With Sophie Nélisse set to portray Liesel, the filmmakers moved quickly to lock in their long-discussed choices, Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson, to portray Liesel’s new parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Director Percival notes that from the start, the consummate actors were in sync with his vision for the film.  “I wanted to play everything very naturally, and that’s a style with which Geoffrey and Emily are very comfortable.  Their work really transcends acting.  They own the characters, they are the characters, and they all fit together beautifully.  In working with Geoffrey and Emily, Sophie has probably had the best master class in the world because she absorbed the way they approach scenes and think about their roles, and you could see that rubbing off on her.”

                From The King’s Speech to the Pirates of the Caribbean films, the Oscar®-winning Rush has delivered a series of towering performances.  With THE BOOK THIEF, he became Hans Hubermann.  Rush credits the book and script with providing the initial critical path to Hans.  “I think the book is one of the great classics of contemporary literature, and though I knew I wanted to play Hans after reading the script, the novel inevitably became a bible because it offers so much internal observation of the character, and his rhythm, pace and inspiration.”   A house painter by trade, Hans’ constant companion is an old accordion that emits warm, wheezy chords of music. He appears to be an uncomplicated man, but is as complex as any Rush has essayed.  “I think Hans’ greatest gift is that he has a very acute emotional intelligence,” which leads to an almost immediate and emotional rapport with Liesel, he explains.  “Hans can read in Liesel that she’s been through very difficult times and he tries to find ways to draw her out.”

                Says Rush:  “Hans responds to the glimmer of energy Liesel has buried inside her and helps bring it to the surface. She starts to love language and words for the hidden powers they have, instead of the poisonous oratory and rhetoric surrounding them.  Liesel finds an escape – a spiritual retreat in the magic of language. Once you understand the potential of language you can understand the potential of ideas outside of your own experience. I hope THE BOOK THIEF will have a similar effect on an audience.  To me, it’s about discovering the value of empathy.”

                Rush and Sophie developed an instant rapport that, says Rush, fed into the dynamic between their on-screen characters. “The great pleasure of doing this has been working with Sophie, who’s such a playful actress,” he says.  “She’s extraordinary to be around, and I loved that in between takes of very dramatic scenes she would be playful.  But when it came to playing the emotional scenes, I was flabbergasted by how focused and how emotionally true she was.” 

                Hans’ wife, Rosa, is an equally rich, surprising and complex character that combines a harsh exterior with well-hidden inner warmth. Rosa regularly calls her husband, “saukerl!” – German for filthy pig.   “In some ways, Rosa is caustic and seemingly unforgiving,” says Watson.  “She’s harsh with Hans and Liesel, not the sort of person you’d expect to become a foster parent.”

                Over time and with her growing love for Liesel, Rosa is revealed to be a caring mother to her and a loving, if impatient wife to Hans.  Says Watson: “Rosa has an inner goodness that almost always has her doing the right thing.”  Watson gave considerable thought to Rosa’s backstory, particularly her marriage.  “I think Rosa was young and beautiful once, and probably more soft-spoken, but the times have changed her.  She seems like she’s angry and disappointed about pretty much everything in her life including her husband, with whom she’s at best dismissive, at times.  But their love for each other is still evident.”

                For Percival, working with Watson seemed destined to happen, because her film debut in the acclaimed Breaking the Waves was so moving and powerful that it led him to realize he wanted to direct films. Watson was busy at home with her children when she received the script for THE BOOK THIEF. “I sat down to read it that night, and I wept through it,” she remembers. “It was the best script I’ve read in years.” She was at once drawn to the idea that reading opens up a world of instant riches: “It’s a love letter to the power of story and the transcendence of story and storytelling and how it saves lives.  That’s an amazing thing.”

                “It was a time of extreme danger and evil and I was inspired by the acts of kindness during these very dark times,” Zusak continues. “That’s what THE BOOK THIEF is about: finding beauty in even the ugliest of circumstances.  One of the central themes of the story is that Hitler is destroying people with his words, and Liesel is stealing back the words, and she’s writing her own story with them.”

                “The Book Thief” opens February 19 in theaters nationwide from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

TWILIGHT” AND “PERCY JACKSON” PRODUCER KAREN ROSENFELT BRINGS ONSCREEN

HER LATEST YOUNG ADULT MOVIE PROJECT “THE BOOK THIEF”

                From Karen Rosenfelt, producer of blockbuster young adult movies such as the “Twilight” saga, “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief,”  “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “The Devil Wears Prada” bring another potential hit among the young and the young at heart in the upcoming endearing movie “The Book Thief,” starring Sophie Nelisse with acclaimed award-winning actors Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson.

 

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

                Based on the beloved bestselling novel, “The Book Thief” tells the inspiring story of a spirited and courageous young girl named Liesel, who transforms the lives of everyone around her when she is sent to live with a foster family in World War II Germany.  For Liesel, the power of words and of imagination becomes a means of escape – and even joy – from the tumultuous events enveloping her and everyone she knows and loves. She is “The Book Thief’s”  heart and soul.  Indeed, it is heart and soul – as well as triumph and perseverance—that drive the film, which is rich in themes and characters that will resonate for every generation.  A moving and poignant portrait of the resiliency of the human spirit, this life-affirming tale contrasts innocence (as embodied by Liesel) with the pervasive tyranny that marked the times and her homeland.         

                It’s the culmination of a journey that began in a coffee shop, with producer Karen Rosenfelt. Having shepherded the blockbusting “Twilight” and “Percy Jackson” franchises to the big screen, her interest in “The Book Thief” was piqued by an article she’d read in the Wall Street Journal.“It sounded immediately interesting,” says Rosenfelt.

                She sought out the book, and charged through it in a single weekend. Within weeks, she had brought the book to Fox and the project had been optioned. “It was then a seven year journey to get to where we are today,” she reflects. “We wanted to be very careful because it was such a special book. We only had one writer and one director on board during the entire process.”

                Finding the right director to do justice to the material was crucial. Brian Percival’s work will be familiar to any of the millions of viewers worldwide hooked on the period television drama “Downton Abbey.” Percival says he was attracted to “The Book Thief” because it didn’t reflect every other film about this period in history. “We didn’t want to set out to make another Holocaust story,” he insists. “This is about a young girl growing up and it’s about our human experience. One of the most heartwarming things I felt while reading it was this overwhelming sense of the human spirit and just what that can overcome.”

                It also, he suggests, provides a new perspective on death. “Because death is portrayed in a rye, slightly humorous way, and it’s not the terrifying vision of almost-hell that we’re sometimes given, a lot of people have approached Markus after reading the book to say, ‘I’m no longer quite so scared of Death as I was before.’”

                With the film focusing ever more centrally on the titular Book Thief, it was essential that the filmmakers found the right young actress to play Liesel. In the end, the suggestion came from the man that had created the character in the first place, Markus Zusak. “I’d seen Sophie Nélisse in the film MONSIEUR LAZHAR,” he remembers, “and I remember saying to my wife, ‘Hey, that’s Liesel.’ You look at Sophie and you can’t imagine anyone else playing the character.”   But with the highly experienced actors Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson on set, playing Hans and Rosa Hubermann, Nélisse has the benefit of a master class in performance to fall back on. They were the filmmakers’ first choices, and both admit they were swept up in Zusak’s narrative.

                Says Rush, “Markus Zusak, who’s a Sydney boy, based it on the stories that he was told when he was in his adolescence by his grandparents. I had never heard of it, and I’m sort of surprised, because I subsequently learned from my 17-year-old daughter that all her friends had said, ‘Oh, is your dad going to be in THE BOOK THIEF? That book changed my life.’ It’s one of those phenomena.”

                “I’m so thrilled to be doing this,” says Watson. “When I read the script I thought it was one of the best I’d read in years, and I really thought this was a character to get my teeth into. There wasn’t really much debate in my head.”

It was this moment that grabbed Watson. “You start by perceiving the story from a child’s point of view, and Rosa is the wicked stepmother. She’s an archetype. But then there’s a really interesting moment where it tells the story of the war from the point of view of very, very ordinary German people who are not buying the Nazi ideology, even though they’re caught up in it. For Rosa, it’s not because she’s particularly radical, she’s just getting on with her life when this moral choice lands on her doorstep. She has a split second to make a decision about which way to go.”

Rush recognized immediately that the story of THE BOOK THIEF is an uplifting one. “It shouldn’t be all dour and dark,” he insists. “From Liesel’s point of view, it’s like she’s entered a Grimm’s fairytale. She’s going into the dark forest of young adulthood and she meets a nice woodcutter, and a rather mean stepmother. And then, the more the film goes on, hopefully we’re rounding out those characters so that they have bigger dimensions.”

                But for all the artists involved in putting THE BOOK THIEF together, the story remains rested on the shoulders of one little girl, who goes for another take on the Babelsberg back-lot. As Percival calls “cut”, Rush reflects on just how much talent he sees in Nélisse. “She’s sparky off-camera, but on-camera she looks almost as if she’s this cool existential philosopher, taking life as it comes. They’re very tiny little threads she plays with, but she has so much subtle, beautiful, engaging stuff going on in her mind.  “The camera just loves her.”

                “The Book Thief” opens February 19 in theaters nationwide from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

SOPHIE NÉLISSE Q & A About "The Book Thief"

“The Book Thief” introduces us to a curious little girl by the name of Liesel Meminger played by Sophie Nélisse at the center of Markus Zusak’s novel of the same title.   Liesel has a fascination with books and a desire to amass a collection of her own – pales in comparison to those being committed in the world in which she lives. She can’t possibly understand the tumultuous events happening around her, as war breaks out and she learns that a man named Hitler is responsible for tearing her family apart.

 

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

                But as her foster father, Hans Hubermann, helps her read the pages of the books she’s so keen to take, and when she finds a friend in the Hubermann’s new basement-dwelling houseguest, Max, life begins to change for Liesel. Even in the darkest of times, the Book Thief learns the power of words, and how they can change the world.

                In adapting Zusak’s novel for the big screen, director Brian Percival knew that it would take a special kind of young actress to get to grips with the complex sea of emotions that young Liesel experiences over the course of THE BOOK THIEF. He braced for a long search, encompassing thousands of kids from all over the world, in order to find the perfect Liesel. There could be only one out there.

                Cast in the roles of Hans and Rosa Hubermann, Liesel’s foster parents, are the highly experienced actors Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson. Both agree that Nélisse has a natural talent for acting, and marvel at her commitment. “She has incredible discipline,” says Watson. “Her attention span is amazing and she has incredible self-possession. They’re things you really take for granted, but she also has a very instinctual, natural presence. She doesn’t need to be told what to do. She reacts, you see thought in her face, and you can’t fake that.”

                Adds Rush, “She’s sparky off-camera, but on-camera she looks almost as if she’s this cool existential philosopher, taking life as it comes. They’re very tiny little threads she plays with, but she has so much subtle, beautiful, engaging stuff going on in her mind. The camera just loves her.”

                But for Nélisse, this is a challenge readily accepted and further talks about her role in the following Q&A (by Joe Utichi):

Q:            What do you love about playing Liesel?

A:            Well, she’s really tough and she’s really fun to play because she goes through a lot of different emotions. At the beginning she was thinking, “I’m a bit scared and a bit intimidated,” and then while the movie goes on she’ll get more tough and courageous.  She’s so amazing to play because it’s not just an easy role. It’s interesting to play with.

Q:            Do you see any similarities between you and Liesel?

A:            She’s a fighter, a bit like me. I won’t really give up when I want something. She’s courageous and she never gives up, which is most like me.

Q:            What is it like to work with Emily Watson and Geoffrey Rush?

A:            They’re so good because they’re professional and I can learn so much from them. They’re inspiring in how they work, how they act and their preparation beforehand. Sometimes they give me advice, which is really good. It’s so fun to get the chance everyday to be sort of spoiled to be with them.

Q:            What kind of film do you think it’s going to be?

A:            I think that it’s an inspiring movie, because as much as it is about the war, it’s not depressing. It is sad because of the fact of what happened, but it is sort of another way to see things in this movie. Words are like life. Liesel learns to read and she survives because of that. That applies to your own life; if you’re having a hard path you can look on the other side of things. And because of words she can see the world in a prettier way.

Q:            Do you read a lot?

A:            I like books that I like. I mean, you know some people don’t like a book and they’ll just finish it and say, “Okay, it was bad.” But if there’s a bad book I have to read, I’ll think, “This is boring. I won’t read it at all.” If it’s a good book I’ll read it really, really quickly and go, “Okay, I want to read the other one.” If it’s bad it’ll take me like ten years to read it!

Q:            What are your favorite books?

A:            I really like journals – diary kinds of things, girl stuff. But my best friend showed me a book that I liked. At first I didn’t think it’d be my type of thing. It was a mystery/fantasy sort of thing about animals, called FABLEHEAVEN. It’s really good. I really like it and I read all four of them. It’s a big book, but they’re really good so these are my favorites.

Q:            What is it about acting that you enjoy?

A:            I just love to play a role that’s not mine and to try other things that I never tried before. It’s amazing to go into other characters and to really be like that character. It’s hard - it’s a job - but it’s so fun, and then you can look at yourself and say, “I’ve experienced that,” and it’s fun to do.

Q:            Do you watch a lot of films?

A:            Yes, films are not like books, so even if they’re boring, and even if the movies are bad, I’ll watch them anyway. I know it’s stupid but I like these little stupid movies.  My dad’s like, “Why do you watch these stupid things?” And I’m laughing at myself because I’m watching it, but I really like all movies.

Q:            Who are the actors you’d really like to work with?

A:            I really like Johnny Depp because I think he’s hilarious in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Maybe Jessica Chastain, I think she’s good. There are a lot of good actors. Most of the actors I’d like to work with, all of them have so much to give me.

Q:            Are you an actor for life now?

A:            Yes. Unless people stop liking me and won’t hire me! But as long as I have an opportunity, I’ll keep going.

                An inspiring and moving story, “The Book Thief” will open February 19 from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.