and his portrayal of the late, iconic in new series were in the spotlight on Thursday at a screening of the first two episodes at the cinema at Selfridges in London. During a Q&A after the screening, the star said he had to laugh at first when he was asked to take on the role. “I laughed for 30 seconds,” he admitted.
“And then I said, ‘This is absurd.’ And then I thought, ‘Hold on, that could actually be kind of interesting.'” Brühl started his work on getting into character with the help of his one encounter with Lagerfeld, who died in 2019, early on in his acting career.
“I met Karl Lagerfeld only once, and he was taking some pictures of me, and I was so nervous,” he shared. Calling the fashion icon “incredibly charming and cool,” he said, “after two minutes, he made me forget that I was with Karl Lagerfeld. But he was the distant figure who was that persona which reminded me a little bit of Andy Warhol, too.
So I saw the whole uniform, the shield that he had created.” The actor also recalled: “It was a very chilling moment when, for one second, he lowered his shades to check the photo and looked at me, and these two seconds I looked into very shy, soft, but deep, wise, sharp eyes. It was all at once.
I will never forget that moment. And I think it had an influence on me that I at least had met him once in my life to then say, ‘Shit, I just have to do this.’ Even if it could go terribly wrong, I just felt that urge to want to play Karl Lage.
