Welcome to another edition of SIX OF THE BEST, the semi regular part of BRWC where we fire six questions at lovely people. This time, we chat to the beautiful Jennifer Ulrich who stars in We Are The Night.
So, tell me about We Are The Night. What’s it all about?
– “We are the Night” is a film about 3 vampire ladies biting her way through Berlin nighlife and coming across a young girl called Lena. A lonesome rider longing for things in her life to change. The leader of the pack, Louise, is biting her in a nightclub and making her one of them. First enjoying her new gained self confidence and independence Lena realizes more and more that she doesn’t wanna be part of this killing complot anymore. But once she’s in there’s no way out again and she discovers that also the other ladies are struggling with their situation, everyone in its own way.
Tell me a bit more about your role.
– Charlotte was an actress in the mute film era of the 20ies who really enjoyed being a vampire first because she was hungry for life. When we meet her in the film, about 90 years later, she has become a woman filled with bitterness, still dressing like in the 20ies to express her longing back for her old human life. Charlotte is the quiet, deliberate and thoughtful woman in the backround. She’s an observer with a cold appearance but a very vulnerable soul. She symbolizes the sad side of being a vampire who seems to give up more and more throughout the film. She misses her family and feels almost no excitement about being a vampire anymore.
Did you have any input in your character, or the script at all?
– We had a week of rehearsals before the shoot and we talked a lot about our characters, their relationships to each other and their personal backstories. That made it possible that even the supporting roles like Charlotte and Nora have their own individual story that makes them come to life on screen. Dennis Gansel is very open to changes, ideas and inputs from his actors which makes the work with him even more enriching. We were all creating our characters with him hand in hand.
What were the greatest challenges on set?
– Charlotte is completely different to everything I played before. She is so different to who I am personally that it was a big challenge physically and emotionally for me. The way she moves, the way she talks and her outer appearance hiding something secret. That was a wonderful multilayered character work. All the stunt work was pretty challenging too. In Germany there are not many action films done and especially for women there are not many roles that you can work on as physical as in this film. We had a week full of stunt and gun training before the shoot to be well prepared and it was a lot of fun and my first experience with stunts.
What appealed to you about being in We Are The Night?
– First of all it’s the first german vampire movie since a long time. On the one hand Dennis Gansel comes back to the old fashioned kind of vampires that are driven by thurst with their typical supernatural powers and the typical ways of killing them. And on the other hand he shows modern women in our money driven society being free and independent but longing for love. Kind of “Lost Boys” meets “Sex and the City”. I have never seen a vampire film with such strong women in the leads before which was also one of the reasons I was willing to be part of this. It was a great chance for me to play something completely different and to get in contact with the horror genre.
What are you hoping for when it’s out?
– Well, I hope that the people in the UK love it as much as I do and that they jump on that adventurous journey of these 4 vampire women and enjoy the film. The DVD market for horror movies is so strong and I hope a lot of people get to see the film.
