With Nuremberg now playing in theaters, we recently sat down with the one and only John Slattery (Avengers: Endgame; Captain America: Civil War; Mad Men) to talk about his pivotal role as Burton C. Andrus in the well-received psychological thriller historical drama from director James Vanderbilt.
He walks me through getting into character as a real life historical figure, as well as the challenges of sparring mentally with Russell Crowe, and doing his best to understand the midset of someone that lived through one of the darkest times in human history.
In addition to Slattery, the film stars Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant, Leo Woodall, Mark O’Brien, Colin Hanks, Lydia Peckham, Wrenn Schmidt and Andreas Pietschmann.
Nuremberg is now playing in theaters!
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ROHAN: When you’re playing a real life character like Burton, what kind of preparation are you doing behind the scenes to get into his mindset and faithfully portray the character?
JOHN: Well, he wrote a book. I read that. I read the book that the movie is based on, the Jack El-Hai book, and the script over and over again and tried to pick and choose kind of elements of the character that were best suited to tell the story. The movie is obviously not about the guy I played, and so some of it, for example, he would wear this shiny chrome helmet all the time, or in pictures, and I thought, well, if we do that, there's no time to explain that choice, so we left that out. But, you know, just trying to find a way for the character as written to contribute to the telling of the story.
ROHAN: When you’re sharing scenes with Russell Crowe and you have to spar with him mentally as your characters are trying to essentially one up one another - how do you two work on developing that dynamic?
JOHN: It's a good question. At one point, there's a scene where I'm walking up the middle of the prisoners describing what their stay at this prison is going to be like prior to that trial. And I hadn't done it, I mean, I had practiced it, you know, at home, and then, you're on set, and there's cameras all over the place and actors all over the place, and Russell being in the middle of all of it. And I just thought, well, I'll swing big right away, and wasn't sure whether that was the size. I mean, the room was cavernous, so you had to sort of fill the room, and I looked over at him at one point, I was walking back to my start point, and I asked him, is bigger better? Is it? Should it be smaller? And he just out of, you know, just because, you know, I sought his advice, and he said, no, do it. You keep doing it the way you're doing it. Bigger is better. In that case, oftentimes it's not, you know, on film, you don't oftentimes want to do too much, but, he was just, I think appreciative of everyone who brought their best effort to the film.
ROHAN: As much as this film is a courtroom drama in the second half, it’s also a story about accountability. So, when people see this film, what are you hoping audiences take away from it, especially with everything going on today?
JOHN: Well, I mean, the relevance is obvious. I mean, it's the question of the nature of evil, and is it quantifiable, and what's the difference between someone who would allow this to happen, participate in its happening, were they following orders, or were they not? I mean, these are all questions that had to be asked before the trial took place. So, I mean, as I said, it's relevant. It couldn't be more relevant to right now, and I think you ask yourself, what would I do in that person's place, and what am I doing now?
ROHAN: There’s this great scene between you and Russell near the end, where we really get to see your character’s frustration and the reaction is completely justified cause it’s how I felt watching the movie. Having read his book, did you gain any different sort of perspective on what he must’ve been going through at that moment? And/or did any of that frustration carry over to you, even though it’s been eighty plus years?
JOHN: I actually went to, you know, in anticipation of that scene and the other scenes, when I had a week off, we were shooting it in Budapest, and I didn't, you know, I have probably the same perspective a lot of people have. I wasn't there. I'm not a historian, so personal perspective on it was, I didn't have any, really, so I drove to Auschwitz to see for myself what it looked like, and then, came back and shot some, you know, the remaining scenes, including that one, just to sort of have some frame of reference to what it must have been like or might have been like, to experience some of it in a closer way.
The Allies, led by the unyielding chief prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon), have the task of ensuring the Nazi regime answers for the unveiled horrors of the Holocaust while a US Army psychiatrist (Rami Malek) is locked in a dramatic psychological duel with former Reichsmarschall Herman Göring (Russell Crowe).