Casting Munich: A Global Cadre of 200 Actors Joins the Production

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Casting Munich

A Global Cadre of 200 Actors Joins the Production

The making of Munich began with an exhaustive international search for actors to play the nearly 200 parts in the intricate screenplay, parts ranging from famous political figures to covert agents who work in the shadows. Armed with only a general description of the film's story and the promise of working with Steven Spielberg, casting director Jina Jay traveled the globe looking for fresh and interesting faces. Throughout her search, the focus was on carving out viscerally real characters, rather than relying on star power to drive the film's story.

Explains Spielberg, “There are more speaking parts in this film than any I've ever directed, including Catch Me If You Can. Having this many characters in a multi-layered story that spans a couple of years and numerous countries, it was very important to me that even the smallest character be as interesting as the most central character. This story portrays a very painful and tragic part of our collective history, and I wanted to have an amazing ensemble to tell it.”

“We were helped and facilitated by wonderful casting contacts all over the world,” says casting director Jay, whose work would ultimately bring together actors from such diverse places as Algeria, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Albania, Austria, France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., the U.S., Canada and Japan, as well as local actors from both Malta and Hungary, where the film was primarily shot.

The core of the casting lay in finding the hit squad itself-the five utterly diverse men who, in the wake of the hostage massacre at the 1972 Olympics, agree to upend their personal lives, give up their former identities and take on an unimaginably perilous undercover mission on behalf of Israel.

Spielberg had a very complete vision of what he was looking for in each of them. “I felt it was very important not just to find different looks for each of the five men, but also to find five different acting styles, five different accents, five very unique personalities,” says the director.

Eric Bana as the unlikely leader Avner

The unlikely leader of the group, Avner, is also its youngest member and the only native Israeli. Avner is intensely devoted to his country, but has never had to kill someone before this mission. To play Avner, Spielberg always had in mind Eric Bana, whom he had seen in Ang Lee's adaptation of The Hulk. “When I saw him in The Hulk, I saw a warmth and a strength and even a little trickle of fear behind his eyes, which I think makes him very human. I was very determined that I was going to humanize the character of Avner in this story, so Eric was my first choice from the outset,” states Spielberg.

Bana was in Los Angeles finishing his role in Troy in fall 2003 when he got the call saying that Steven Spielberg would like to see him. After meeting Spielberg on the cavernous set of The Terminal, Bana was taken aback to learn that Spielberg wanted him to take the lead role in an intense thriller about the highly controversial Israeli hit squads. “I was shocked and surprised and thrilled and scared, of course,” says Bana.

Even though he was born and raised in Australia, like many of the cast and crew Bana had his own very personal recollections of the Munich Olympics. He notes, “I was only four or five at the time, but I always remembered some of the images, and it was a story that became very familiar to me through the years. It's an event that keeps coming back at you, because it still seems so current.”

Bana began to research the role intensively, reading not only about the incident in Munich and life as a Mossad agent, but also the complex history of the Middle East conflict. As he did so, he became intrigued by Avner's personal crisis as the mission begins to shake his very foundations. “Avner goes through a real evolution,” Bana observes.

“He starts out as someone who is obviously very angry about what occurred in Munich. Then he becomes a young man who is given a truly overwhelming task and has to learn very quickly how to lead. He initially questions what the team is doing, but then something interesting happens: he hardens. As the rest of the group is softening in their resolve, we see Avner do the opposite. But by the end of the movie, we see him becoming more and more torn about the journey he's been on and what he's allowed himself to become.”

Bana enjoyed the close friendships that developed on the set between the five actors playing the members of the assassination squad. The five stars, each hailing from different countries and backgrounds, arrived together early in Malta and soon formed a tight-knit connection that surprised even them. “I hope that unique camaraderie really comes across, because it was 100 percent genuine,” Bana says. “We all came from different parts of the world and had very different points of view and we'd get into all kinds of amazing discussions, but we also really respected one another. It was really cool to experience this.”

Daniel Craig as toughest member Steve

British actor Daniel Craig-who recently made global headlines when he was announced as the fresh new face of the legendary Agent 007, James Bond-joined the cast as Steve, the South African-born recruit who appears to be the group's toughest, bravest and most unwavering member.

“Steve is a character who, on face value, seems to be very strong and very in control of his destiny,” says Craig. “Like all the guys, he believes in this job because he believes in Israel. He believes some action has to be taken because of this terrible act at Munich. And he's someone who has always dealt with life like a bull in a china shop-he just dives in headfirst and deals with the consequences later. So Steve at first is very gung ho, but as the movie goes on, he suffers because of the terrible acts that they commit. And that's what interested me so much about doing the film; he's a flawed character, and he doesn't expect to feel the emotional turmoil he starts feeling.”

Craig was too young to remember watching the 1972 Olympics, but he has been aware of the events that took place there for a long time. “I think the repercussions of that time have really molded all of our lives,” he says. “It was a kind of worldwide end of innocence-and we're still dealing with the consequences of that. It's one of the most significant events of the 20th century, and I think Munich finally puts a human face onto it.”

Mathieu Kassovitz as Belgian toymaker Robert

While Craig is an Englishman playing a South African, French actor and filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz plays Robert, the Belgian member of the team. A talented toymaker, Robert is equally skilled at building deadly explosive devices. An accomplished director, Kassovitz had supposedly retired from acting, famously telling his agent not to call him about acting jobs unless it was for Spielberg. Now he had his chance, and once he saw the script, it was a done deal.

He comments, “I was blown away by the screenplay…by the structure of it, by the subtlety, by the intelligence, by the power and the guts. I think it's a very smart movie about the concept of vengeance itself.”

Kassovitz was also intrigued by his character Robert's unique journey as the most reluctant member of the assassination squad. “Robert is an interesting character, because like all the characters in the group, he is not a trained killer,” the actor explains. “He's more somebody who is committed to the cause of Israel and therefore believes he is ready to fight for his land and his beliefs. He joined the army during the Six Day War, and because he's a toymaker and very good with tiny mechanics, he became a bomb dismantler. But it isn't easy for him.”

Indeed, Robert becomes more emotionally unhinged than the others by the brutal nature of the job facing them. “He is a little more sensitive,” Kassovitz observes. “He can't always cope with the violence. Even if he's part of the mission, there are things he can't quite bring himself to do.”

Hanns Zischler as transplated German Jew Hans

Each squad member has his own series of dilemmas and internal divisions. Prolific German actor Hanns Zischler takes on the role of Hans, a transplanted German Jew who poses as a quiet antiques dealer, but is really a Mossad agent with a rare gift for forging documents. Playing a German Jew working for Israeli intelligence after the Munich incident was particularly interesting to Zischler-in all its emotional complications.

“Hans is probably someone who left Germany in the 1930s at the last possible moment with his family,” he comments. “He grew up in Israel, which was then Palestine, and was raised in both languages. I think he has this certain idea of being linked both to Israel and to Germany in a very strange way, which comes to the fore after these events. He is also a very pensive person. He has never really been an activist, so he feels he now has the chance to show his loyalty to Israel and his country through this service to the Mossad.”

Zischler was 25 in 1972 and has evocative memories of that powerful period in Germany. “It was a time when Germany was becoming more self-aware through this new generation that was coming of age. There was a sense that for the first time, people could really talk about the past as something that hadn't been entirely resolved,” he recalls. “But the events at the Olympics were something different. That was something that came from the outside. It was like a meteorite hitting the country. We were all suddenly aware that this theatre of the Olympic Games had become a stage for a dark, horrible drama. And it all happened on television before the eyes of the world. For me, it was fascinating to have a chance to explore these events from a different angle in Munich.”

Ciaran Hinds as meticulous and organized member Carl

Rounding out the team of five is the meticulous, organized and cautious Carl, played by lauded Irish actor Ciaran Hinds. “Hans and Carl are a different generation from the other three,” observes Hinds. “These five guys are all very disparate, with different ages, different backgrounds, different upbringings. Some have been raised in Europe and some in Israel. And they've been purposely selected for their different qualities. Within this group, Carl is the one who wants to be absolutely specific that the targets are clean, that there's no collateral damage, that nobody innocent gets hurt. He truly believes there is a right way to do the job, no matter how awful it is.”

Growing up in Belfast, where political turmoil was a constant, Hinds saw the events of the 1972 Olympics as part of an entire world in disarray. “I was quite sporty when I was young so I always watched the Olympics,” he says. “Due to what was happening in Northern Ireland, I was very aware of this kind of violence as a global thing. Because of this, the whole idea of Munich was very interesting to me. It has a way of looking at history that isn't black and white. I think Steven presents a story that asks a lot of questions but doesn't serve the answers up on a plate, and that is very important.”

Geoffrey Rush as mysterious official contact Ephraim

The hit squad is only allowed official contact with their mysterious case officer Ephraim. To play Ephraim, the filmmakers chose Academy Award®-winner Geoffrey Rush, the acclaimed Australian actor who came to the fore with his vivid portrayal of Australian pianist David Helfgott in Shine and has gone on to diverse roles ranging from the infamous libertine the Marquis de Sade to comic genius Peter Sellers. The role of Ephraim was something quite different again for Rush, which he discovered while reading the screenplay.

“Tony Kushner is a great dramatist and he has focused in on the very complex workings of what makes this story such a significant piece of history,” says Rush. “As you meet the character of Ephraim, you might think he's just another fairly faceless bureaucrat, but in fact he becomes an unusual mentor to Avner as he goes through his very difficult trials as an assassin. Ephraim is like this ghostly figure that comes in out of nowhere to answer the big questions, whether moral or otherwise.”

The entire conception of the film was of great interest to Rush, who remembers watching the Munich massacre on television at age 21 in Australia. “I saw Munich as an international espionage thriller that is based on very real and very, very relevant events-and weaving through it all is a stimulating debate as these characters undergo a harrowing journey of self-revelation,” he comments.

Rush based his character's accent and mannerisms on a composite of several historical figures. “I had our national broadcaster send me newsreel footage of Menachem Begin, just as a reference for the time and the culture,” says Rush, “because their storylines are similar, you know, moving from a politically radical background into a much more conservative governmental position.”

In further honing the character's look, Spielberg said that he'd always thought of Rush as an Arthur Miller type of guy, and suggested that he pull his hair away from his forehead. In a conservative suit, bearing thick horn-rimmed eyeglasses and with his hair slicked back, Rush became Ephraim. He further worked on the character's nuances with dialogue coach Barbara Berkery to find an accent that would best reflect Ephraim's history. “I specifically wanted to meet somebody in their eighties who came from a Polish-Israeli background. I wanted to hear the distinctive patterns of that kind of voice,” says Rush. “So we went off, armed with a tape recorder like Colonel Pickering and Professor Higgins.” Rush found far more than he expected. “We ended up meeting people who were able to offer a tremendous amount of advice and anecdotes and history. I felt it was really my responsibility to enrich the character with as much cultural detail as I could.”

Michael Londsdale as the shadowy Frenchman Papa

Then there is Papa, the shadowy Frenchman who buys and sells information to the team, and develops a paternal relationship with Avner that the young covert agent has yearned for all his life. Legendary French actor Michael Lonsdale, whose prolific film credits include the political thriller The Day of the Jackal, plays Papa. Lonsdale watched the events of Munich unfold in France where he says the nation was left in shock. When he heard that Steven Spielberg was making a film about the incident and its aftermath, he had no reservations about taking part in it. “It was a great pleasure and tremendous honor to work with Steven Spielberg,” he says. “Papa is not a large part, but I knew there was a lot that could be done with it.”

Ayelet Zurer as Avner's pregnant wife Daphna

Also joining the global cast as the primary female character is Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer who plays Daphna, the young wife Avner must leave behind despite the fact that she is pregnant with their first child. During his secret mission, Daphna serves as Avner's only solid connection to real life, and his unborn child remains his one link to his hopes for a better future. Zurer, who recently won Best Actress Awards from the Israeli Film Academy, the Jerusalem Film Festival and Haifa Critics for her performance in Savi Gabizon's Nina's Tragedies, was cast as the young mother-to-be only a month after giving birth to her own child, making her character's emotional journey even more palpable.

“Daphna begins the film very naïve and happy,” says Zurer. “She thinks life is going to be just fine and the future looks great. She's pregnant, obviously, which means new life. But then Avner goes away, and of course she knows he will be in a certain amount of danger, but I don't think she really has any way of understanding what he is going through. When he comes back to her, he's become this shell-shocked and broken man and it's very painful for her to watch that, especially as he's portrayed by Eric, who has a great deal of humanity in his face.”

Ultimately, Zurer sees the couple's struggles as symbolic of something much larger. “They go through a really painful awakening, Avner and Daphna,” she notes. “I think they each in their own way represent somehow the loss of innocence of their nation and maybe the whole world.”

Says Barry Mendel of Zurer's performance: “I think she is the heart and soul of the movie, because she so clearly represents the struggle between patriotism and family that Avner is facing. Ayelet has never been seen in a film outside Israel, and to find her was a great fortune for us.”

Whether they were veterans of the theater, national film stars, or it was their very first feature, every actor came to Munich in part for the chance to work with Steven Spielberg. The lure of working with the acclaimed director was strong enough to attract notable actors throughout the supporting cast, including Israeli actor Moshe Ivgy, who plays legendary Mossad agent Mike Harari, and Makram Khoury, who plays Wael Zwaiter, the cousin of Yassar Arafat who becomes the first target of Avner's hit squad in Rome. Renowned Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass plays Marie-Claude Hamshari, whose husband is the squad's target in Paris, and serves as a consultant and dialogue coach on the film.

One cast member had a particularly close relationship to the story-Guri Weinberg, an actor who is also the son of Moshe Weinberg, the Israeli wrestling referee and former champion wrestler who was killed in Munich when Guri was just one month old. Now 33, the same age as his father at the time of his death, Weinberg had the very rare opportunity to portray his father and pay tribute to him in Munich.

Weinberg found the experience of recreating the events that took his father's life challenging almost beyond description, but also deeply therapeutic and meaningful. “The idea of actually walking through the footsteps of my dad and what he went through was so intriguing to me because when you hear the stories it is all about tidbits and it doesn't all make sense as a whole. But when you walk through it like this, it makes everything real.”

He continues: “Portraying my father gave me a lot of respect for what he really experienced. It solidified my feelings and emotions, because I never had a relationship with him. So this finally gave me a relationship with him.”