Billy Wilder: ‘Why didn’t you do it before?’, interview with actor Mario Adorf

Mario Adorf worked in many film, Lola by Rainer Werner Fassbinder), Fedora by Billy Wilder, The Tin Drum by Volker Schlöndorf, Smilla's Sense of Snow by Bille August, Quiet Days in Clichy by Claude Chabrol.

Q. In your career, what is the first curious episode that you remember?

A. My first important role,  serial killer Bruno Lüdke,  in Robert Siodmak’s The Devil strikes at Night ("Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam”). I did not get because of my talent as a convincing villain. (Siodmak: “Give me a very bad look! - no,  no, no, that’s not ‘bad’ at all!“). But because  he  “healed“ a torn muscle  fibre in my right calf occurred to me on stage just before our meeting.   

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Mario Adorf

Q. What is the relationship with Italian cinema?

A. I had the chance to start a new career in the Italian Cinema of the sixties, the 'la dolce vita period'. Luigi Comencini - he had seen me in Siodmak’s film - called me to do the part of the villain in A cavallo della tigre next to Nino Manfredi. In 40 years I played in 40 Italian pictures, comedies like Dino Risi’s Operazione San Gennaro, Corbucci’s Western Gli Specialisti, political films like Florestano Vancini’s Il delitto Matteotti playing Mussolini and his  La Violenza - quinto potere and Damiani’s Io ho paura. 

Q. You worked in Fedora. What was Billy Wilder on the set?

A.  Together with Peter Ustinov Billy Wilder was the wittiest and most entertaining person I ever met. On the set he was full of jokes, but when shooting started, he got very tough and serious. Later I found out he normally  would do only one take  and then: “It’s print.  Next!". I  remember the very first scene of Fedora I had with William Holden. And there it was after  the first take: "It’s a print. Next!”. I allowed myself to say: “Mr. Wilder, Couldn’t I do it  one more time? I Think I can do better”. And Wilder asked dryly: “Why didn’t you do it before?“ And he did not give me another chance. An important lesson to me: You had to give your best in the first shot!

Q. How is your tipical day?

A. No big fitness program. I love swimming, in pools only if the sea is not at hand. 

Q. What is your favorite book and why?

A. Shakespeare’s plays: Hamlet, Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice and others,  because Shakespeare was and still is the Greatest.