A lawyer who becomes a crime boss: In the film adaptation Mindful Murdering, Tom Schilling creates his own Walter White. In an interview, the actor reveals how it came about.
Since 2019, Björn Diemel has been murdering mindfully on the bookshelf. Now the character created by Karsten Dusse is coming to Netflix – in the form of Tom Schilling. The actor, known from films such as Oh Boy, Werk ohne Autor and Fabian oder Der Gang vor die Hunde, has already appeared in many successful literary film adaptations. He roughly places Dusse’s model for Achtsam Morden between Dostoevsky and Tarantino.
It tells the story of a lawyer who just wants to spend time with his daughter, but then gets drawn into a spiral of violence and crime by one of his clients. But for Björn Diemel, that’s not a problem. Because ever since he took part in a mindfulness seminar, he’s been able to get a grip on anything. Even the murder of a crime boss, whose place he takes from now on.
An unassuming man becomes a criminal mastermind: echoes of Walter White and Breaking Bad reverberate through the first season of Mindful Murder. But what is it like to bring such an ambivalent character to life? How mindful was the shooting? And can a movie or series be better than its book? Tom Schilling talks to us about all these things and more.
Moviepilot: How did you get into Mindful Killing? Did you have any previous contact with the book?
Tom Schilling: Our producer, Jan Ehlert, had read the novel before it was published and optioned it for the production company Constantin Film. When the first two scripts were available, the pilot episode and the second episode, I got them from my agency to read and was then in the casting for the role. And then Netflix and Constantin Film actually wanted me to play the role.
What kind of mindset did you have when you went into the casting back then? What did you think made you the best choice for the role?
To be honest, it helps a lot when you don’t want something that badly. That could also be a mindfulness tip: You achieve more when you want less. When I got the offer for the series, I didn’t know the series yet. But after I read the novel, I was totally blown away and thought to myself, “Wow, that’s all in there!” However, we then put a lot of work into the books with our head writer Doron Wisotzky to match this Karsten Dusse tone.
Can you name a few of the things that changed during this process? How does the current version differ from the first version?
It’s mainly about tonalities and about staying true to the novel. When making a film based on a book, you always have to ask yourself what to tell and what to leave out. You can tell one and the same story in very different ways by taking out some of the comments a character makes or putting them back in. Our current version, by Björn Diemel, who allows himself a lot and is really not the wokest person on the planet, does the novel a bit more justice than the ones before.
What was the most important thing for you that couldn’t be left out under any circumstances?
The confrontation with his receptionist. If you’re too squeamish, you might not like it. Everyone is always so afraid: this is our main character. We mustn’t damage him. He has to be relatable. He has to be friendly. But it’s exactly the opposite. The further he goes, the more he takes and allows himself, the more the audience enjoys him – at least a large part of it. We also looked at the reviews on Amazon. 90 percent love the book and ten percent hate it. What kind of character is this? How does he behave? It’s totally inhuman. He even tortures someone at the end. You can’t please everyone. Otherwise, you don’t get a multi-layered character.
I see Björn Diemel in the tradition of antiheroes like Tony Soprano and Walter White, who only become really interesting through their gray areas. Besides, I often had to thank Edward Norton’s hypnotic power of seduction in Fight Club. Were these characters an inspiration for you?
That’s this very famous male character cosmos that we’ve seen in series many times. But I didn’t directly copy anything from them. My job was to make Björn Diemel as authentic and as cool as possible. When I play Björn, I want people to follow me and not question me. And to do that, I do whatever it takes.
Did you feel like you went too far with the character at some point?
If you look at the book and the series separately, he is, of course, totally problematic. It is always someone else’s fault. In the book, it is even more obvious that he blames his wife. He doesn’t get promoted at work. He doesn’t have time for his daughter, even though he could easily take time for her. It wouldn’t have to be the big house and the expensive car. But when I play a character like that, I’m not allowed to question it, because the character doesn’t either. And that’s why in this case there is no such thing as “too far,” only “not far enough.”
You said that faithfulness to the original is important. But as an actor, you interpret a character in front of the camera. What did you add to Björn, where you, as an actor, became a co-creator of the character, so to speak?
I don’t see myself as a co-author. I see it more as a great gift to have such a fantastic original, which is brilliantly constructed from a cinematic and psychological point of view. The book reminded me of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. This rather conformist man breaks the greatest social taboo and suddenly feels totally free. He is above the law and that gives him an incredible sense of elation. Karsten Dusse writes such excellent dialogue for it. It would be a real shame not to adopt it in this breadth and entirety and all the arcs that it makes. It’s almost Tarantino-esque.
You must have had some specific images in mind when reading it. Do they still match the images that the series is now providing?
Hm, no, probably not. That’s the tragedy of film adaptations. They somehow take away the imagination.
Is it a tragedy or an extension?
I don’t think it’s not an extension.
Does that mean that all film adaptations, no matter what we make of them, are doomed to fail?
No, because there are also mediocre books that can be made into strong film adaptations.
Tom Schilling in Mindful Murdering
With A Million Minutes you have recently appeared in a movie adaptation that also fits quite well with the concept of mindfulness. Were you able to take anything new for yourself from working on the series?
I didn’t take away that much this time, because I had already dealt with the topic before. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to shoot these projects. Of course, I’m getting better and better at roles when I can charge them personally. When I understand what makes the characters tick. If I didn’t have children now and wasn’t in a relationship trying to juggle everything, then I wouldn’t be able to relate to my character in A Million Minutes and Björn Diemel. Then I wouldn’t be able to fill the role with my own emotional life.
I imagine working on a film set to be very stressful. Many things happen at the same time. Were you able to apply the mindfulness theme to the production?
Yes, we tried it by doing mindfulness exercises with our great director Martina Plura early in the morning.
What did you do?
We went for a mindful walk, for example. I once did an exercise where we stood in a circle. Two people at a time looked each other in the eye mindfully for a minute. That was awesome too. Or lying on the floor breathing mindfully for a minute. It’s like a brake on the careless work you often do on set. Everyone is busy with their own stuff. So you get a moment to yourself at the beginning of the day. Fun fact: We kept losing people and in the end it was just Martina and me. [laughs]. Many said, “Yes, we’ll be back tomorrow.” But no one came back.
