Leo Woodall, 29, had to learn German to fulfill his dream role Nuremberg, alongside Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Rami Malek.
Leo plays Sergeant Howie Triest, a young American interpreter tasked with translating the words uttered by Nazi war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials. Crowe stars as Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief Hermann Göring, who is analyzed by Malek’s American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley.
The role was one that the Bridget Jones: Crazy about the boy star she really longed for. He learned some German to pronounce the lines for the audition tape. But he had a lot more to learn for the film when he finally got the part.
“I can’t quite remember how much I got for the first round of auditions, which was just a self-recording. There was a lot of German and I learned as much as I could. But there was so much that I remember that I thought, OK, I’m going to sink this whole tape trying to get every line in. So I’m actually just going to do that part and let it breathe a little bit.”
After he got the role, the One day Heartthrob began studying with a German language coach and took it upon himself to become so fluent that he would not make mistakes during filming.
“I had a German coach. Her name is Lena Lessing. She was great and she was very patient with me; very encouraging. We worked on Zoom once or twice a week,” he said.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn for a role… My first day was with Rami and Russell translating when their characters first met,” he added.
“So the nerves were over [stretching his arms]. And even if I only spoke English, I would still have felt the nerves. But I had to get this German. I knew Russell would also start speaking German,” Leo added.
“And so I just started drilling and drilling and drilling and talking to myself in German as much as I could. It’s funny, everyone makes mistakes on set, but I put the pressure on myself not to make a single damn mistake,” the 29-year-old said.
He acknowledged that he went overboard because he didn’t want to fail in front of two Oscar winners.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself and I felt like there was a lot of responsibility to just go the extra mile, and if I couldn’t stand and act next to them it would have been a really bad day. [Laughs]he added, noting that things went “well” in the end.
Leo Woodall in the lead role Nuremberg is currently in theaters. The actor will next be seen in Tuner.
