Interview with Acting Coach Bernard Hiller

German talent left stranded without proper training

Mission Hollywood Judge Bernard Hiller spoke exclusively with GW Magazine about
proper acting training and why German actors tend to fail in Hollywood

By Sonia Laszlo

Artist Bernard Hiller found his vocation in acting, teaching and
making the world a better place. The acting coach feels in particular for German
Actors, being of Polish/Russian descent, having grown up in Buenos Aires and
having lived in Germany for 5 years, he came to the US in 1963, he is convinced
that German Training is way behind the international Standard. He feels for
German actors, having in the back of his mind that if his life would have panned
out differently he could have been one of the German artists left out in the
cold without support or proper training.

Mission Hollywood, following The Starlet for WB with Faye Dunaway and California
Dreaming for the British Channel 4, marks Hiller’s third venture into
reality TV. Next up for him are his continuous classes in Los Angeles, London,
Rome, Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires and Rio De Janeiro as well as work on director
Andy Tennant’s two upcoming projects “Bounty Hunter” with
Jennifer Aniston and “Around the World in 80 Dates” with Reese Witherspoon.

misssion hollywood © micah smith

Bernard Hiller sat down with German World for an exclusive interview.
With frank words he explains why German actors are not successful in Hollywood.

Why are Germans not successful in Hollywood?

There is a variety of reasons, but the main one is and let me ask a question
in return to illustrate: if your national soccer team continuously fails to
deliver, what happens? … You bring in a new coach! All the stars have
proper training and continuously hone their craft; Al Pacino had the same coach
for thirty years.

When I teach my classes in Germany I see first had that the training there is
antiquated and just terrible. There are some schools, but when you want to learn
something, you go where the best teachers in the world are and the movie business
is in Los Angeles.

Furthermore, message to German actors: Lee Strasberg has died! His school has
a great name in Germany, but nobody in the business cares about diplomas! It’s
not about going to Busch acting school for three years.

In Germany you can’t even get an agent interview without a diploma! What
counts in the US is if you have proper technique and skills. You have to be
willing to learn from anyone, even if you acquired them from the parking lot
attendant! Diplomas and Institutions mean nothing in the US.

It’s also not about being famous is about being a serious artist. You
can’t just say you’d do anything, but you have to really be okay
with doing everything, absolutely everything.

Also the pessimistic attitude and the tendency to begrudge somebody else’s
success are very contra productive in this collaborative art.

Something else that is absolutely necessary to succeed, but seems to go against
German nature is that you have to embrace uncertainty, if you are not willing
to loose, you will never win.

Isn’t there a danger ob being typecast as the eternal Nazi?

If you have it in your head that you will come here and not defy the odds, but
end up playing the Nazi, yes, there is grave danger that this will be your reality.

Schwarzenegger is a great example how unimportant accents etc are. He came here
and made something of himself and never let himself be discouraged, ever. I
am sure over there everybody thought, that coming here with nothing but his
dreams, was not that great of an idea.

There are some successful German actors in Hollywood, but considerably
less women, why?

Everything I mentioned before is true for men and women, but on top of everything
I mentioned German women have another challenge to overcome. They have to dare
to be sensual and vulnerable!

Earlier you said it’s called Showbusiness, not Showup- or Showoff-, for
a reason. What did you mean.

If you need attention and people to tell you how great you are and people to
support you all the time, you are not an artist, but you need therapy. If you
need a psychiatrist, success in acting will not make you happy. This is a serious
profession and not a way to cure yourself.

What about American actors in Germany?

A German might be a star in Hollywood, but because of the German mindset even
if Germany was the movie business’ epicentre, an American would never
be a star in Germany. Even actors with Swiss or Austrian accents have to assimilate
to book leading roles and as I mentioned Germans love diplomas, (jokingly) there
are three actors I would really worry about Hoffman, DeNiro and Pacino because
they don’t have a diploma.

Other common pitfalls?

There is no red carpet rolled out for anyone here, not matter how big a star
you are where you come from. We are not interested in actors, Germans come here
and are actors, we are interested in truthful moments under imaginary circumstances,
in humanity, not some preconceived performance. Humanity and truth are universal
and therefore Hollywood movies are understood and resonate with people around
the world.

So success is a training, but also a mindset question. As an example, if the
best were in Germany, somebody with Pacinos mindset would want to go there and
without being the well known star he is, he would have to stand in the chorus
or might even have to fight his way to even stand in the chorus, without his
own lines, silently understudying every part and listening and learning, waiting
for his chance to shine. The funny thing is, that he would not whine and complain,
he would just do it.

Biggest mistakes Germans make when they come to Hollywood:

1. Being unprepared

2. Don’t know the rules of Hollywood

3. Expecting to receive instead of offering with love what you can bring

4. Negative attitude

5. There is this German preconception, that everybody in Hollywood is superficial!
Well if you have a superficial attitude, you will attract superficiality.

6. I know this sounds harsh, but I have to be truthful to my desperate German
students, who wonder what is wrong, there are no real German superstars in Hollywood,
so everybody is on the sidelines, like a little clique busy with negative energy
and holding each other back instead of excelling. There is terrible training
in Germany, just terrible, after Max Reinhardt, nothing happened! When people,
come here they have to unlearn everything! They are artistically DOA, dead on
arrival.

7. If you worry about your papers and your accent and your looks and the likes,
you remind me of a blind woman upset that she does not have a car available
to take her driving test! Begin at the beginning!

8. Probably the biggest pitfall is that to be successful you have to embrace
something Germans detest: Uncertainty. You are not in control and you don’t
know what will happen, that is the only way you grow, if everything is always
certain, comfortable and controlled, you have no where to go.

The good news is you have talent

The bad news is that everybody has it!

There is tons of talent out there, the key is to have to courage to do something
with it and to see where it takes you and what you will do with it.

What can you do before you come?

1. Don’t come! (if me telling you already discouraged you, this is not
for you!)

2. Take Singing and Dancing Lessons

3. Write a Mission Statement with strong reasons (Remember to have Goals&Dreams
bigger than your fears)

4. Save the money to succeed (at least 1 year living expenses)

5. Create a life in LA, only happy actors are good actors

6. Find a mentor

7. Go study in the great places (if you want to know how to build a great car,
you go to Wolfsburg, if you want to know how to act in movies, come to Los Angeles!)

8. You can never become better than your teacher

9. Believe in something higher than yourself

10. Stop the negative, destructive, begrudging German attitude

11. If you need love and attention, you need therapy, not an acting career.

10 commandments of success

1. Know that all success requires risk!

2. One must be willing to look foolish & Feel uncomfortable.

3. To risk is to be vulnerable. To try, to love or care.

4. If you don’t try you will never know

5. The more you risk the more you will gain

6. You must be willing to live in uncertainty

7. Without risk you cannot learn, change or grow.

8. Avoiding risk does not keep you from suffering or sorrow. It just adds to
it.

9. The greatest danger in life is to risk nothing.

10. “For the person who risks nothing, has nothing, does nothing, and
is nothing.” Leo Buscaglia

11. Only a person who risks is free!

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