Rainer Bock thought himself a total miscast. He, the character actor, as dumbbells stemming furniture packer? With "strong hands", "broad forearms", a "massive body", as required by the script for the film "Atlas"?

The story had tempted him: a father-son drama, combined with the themes of gentrification and moral courage. So he went to the casting, three weeks later came the call from director David Nawrath. "He said that phrase that every actor wants to hear at least once in a lifetime," Bock recalls. "I can not imagine the movie without you." Even without the necessary physique, the 64-year-old had convinced the director and co-author Paul Salisbury: "In every move, every move he had internalized his character," said Salisbury, "he simply played the physicality."

The price of the role: two, three times a week with personal trainer to the gym, a nine-month period. The reward: a nomination for the German Film Award as "Best Male Lead".

Pretty German, touching

For the native of Kiel, the temporary climax of an unusual career. Bock came late for the drama, much later for the film. As a specialist in silent abyss, he has long enjoyed a high profile in the industry, and the popularity of the notorious supporting actor still has room for the audience.

About the detour USA should have recently attracted a few more viewers to him. In the fourth season of the "Breaking Bad" spin-off "Better Call Saul", Bock played the engineer who built the underground Crystal-Meth lab for Walter White. He got the role by e-casting, filmed himself with the tablet while playing and sent the scenes to the caster. With success. His figure: pretty German, touching, with rimless glasses.

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Rainer Bock: Get out of the second row

So now a furniture movers for evictions, which is a clan and its violent leasing practices on the loose, but it is thrown back on his own family history. A taciturn man, who is hardly good as a hero, but who forces his conscience to act.

In "Atlas" Bock plays unpretentious as ever, profiting once more from his distinctive "facial landscape", which writer Paul Salisbury raves about. On the bumps, imbalances in his features, the view hangs. Nawrath's screen debut is also Bock's first major role on the big screen. His revival for the cinema is, of course, a decade behind.

Spielberg occupies him from a standing position

Michael Haneke had him at that time based on a theatrical recording of "Uncle Wanja" for his monumental work "The White Ribbon" occupied. In it Bock gave a village doctor who abused his own daughter and humiliated his wife. Anyone who saw him interacting with Susanne Lothar, his cold-hearted portrayal burned down. Both earned 2010 a film award nomination.

For Bock there is the time before Haneke and afterwards. Before the "white band" he was mostly on stage, landed on Kiel, Schleswig, Heidelberg, Mannheim and Stuttgart in Munich, where he played from 2001 to 2011 under Dieter Dorn at the Residenztheater. For him, theater was for him "the culmination of the creative work".

The fact that Bock nevertheless soon became more frequently seen in films was provided by a new director, who no longer planned with him, as well as the overexploitation of his own body in up to eight parallel productions - and Haneke. After Steven Spielberg had seen "The White Ribbon", he cast Bock without a casting for a small role in his war movie "Companions". It was followed by shooting with Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma and Anton Corbijn.

A role profile crystallized out: Bock mimed Nazi military, Stasi officers and BND chiefs, most recently an euthanasia doctor in "work without an author". He plays his authorities, officials and rebels so withdrawn as insistent, mostly merciless and tight-lipped. No other German actor is as consistent as he is in the second row. He is not very ambitious, says Bock, "I'm more likely to wait for things to come to me."

His roles gain an ironic note, looking at Bock's early life before he went to a private drama school in his late twenties. At times he lived in an anti-nuclear village, battling such establishment officials as he often portrays them in the film today. How much of the former radicalism is still in him? "Too little!", Answers Bock decided and pushes afterwards: "I regret that."

The eco-heart is still beating

He has remained a quarrelsome spirit, and it soon becomes clear in conversation with him. Rainer Bock's days begin with an hour of newspaper reading, after which it is important to "get a handle on the resulting outrage". But the furor swiftly engulfs enthusiasm as the language comes to "Fridays for Future," the environmental awareness and civil disobedience of a school-stricken youth.

He himself is tempted to actively intervene, albeit less in the service of a political party. "Basic democratic movements interest me, citizen initiatives", so Bock, which stimulates about regular demos against right. Do actors have a social responsibility? Yes, says Bock. The many roles in films about the Nazi regime, he had therefore adopted mainly to make his contribution to the work-up.

In the video: The trailer for "Atlas"

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Pandora

The parade role with Haneke: in the end a curse? Gradually, the door opens for other characters, so Bock, "but sometimes really too slow". For television he has just made a satire - in the lead role. And Bock does not shy away from the "mountain doctor" if the script convinces him. He says: "From arthouse cinema can live in Germany anyway no pig."

"Atlas" starts on April 25 in German cinemas.