long way round

I've always wanted Louis Hofmann to play a bad guy.

In White Rabbit, he already played a disgusting character — a guy who blackmailed underage girls, threatening to leak their intimate photos. In one scene, he forces a girl to give him a blowjob and films it.

It was an unexpected and shocking scene. And that's most of his roles – his characters rebel, explode the boundaries of stereotypes. He loves playing complex, internally broken characters for whom death is the only way out — an escape, a release from the suffering of our existence.

His characters are not destined to achieve their goals or find peace, just as Louis is not destined to play a well-fed momma's boy. His characters don't get a reset; they are doomed to repeat the same level of the game. They suffer a total collapse of consciousness, which usually results in death. His heroes are not saved. No one says, "Step aside, I'll take it from here." They are not comforted, not really loved. They die alone, misunderstood, never having fully understood this world, and never having loved it.

But most viewers know Louis Hofmann's talent only from the series Dark and All the Light We Cannot See, and absolutely nothing beyond these two titles in his filmography.

They don't know about that bastard from White Rabbit, that scumbag and rapist.

They don't know about the disabled guy who forces his sister to play naked for him while he masturbates.

They don't know about the boy who actually survived — and it wasn't Harry Potter, but the boy from Sanctuary — abused, drowned. His character was BURIED ALIVE, and he survived. The film even has hints of incest.

In Different Kinds of Rain, his character sleeps with his classmate's mother because he craves maternal affection, tenderness, attention — which he valued more than her own son did. And oh yes — she abandoned him.

His choice of roles speaks for itself: he picks characters under extreme stress, whose only way out is often death as liberation. His characters get destroyed — morally and physically. The full range of Louis's nature is revealed in the roles he chooses. This is the choice of a mature, reflective artist, not a "boy from Dark".

In Prélude, his character acutely experiences the collapse of his career and identity, crushed by the conditions the conservatory created. He hangs himself, unable to bear the stress.

In Dark, as you remember, Jonas was hanged almost every season, his personality systematically destroyed.

The new film — Lilies Not for Me. Everyone seen it? Really connected with his character? Jerked off to his naked soul or body?

Even in the vanilla Centre of My World, his character gets his heart broken.

My Land is pure anguish, a film where boys like him risk their lives every day, stepping on mines. But even here, his character is ambiguous — because in the end, he pays for the deeds of his nation.

In Life After Life, he dies in the war.

In All the Light We Cannot See, he dies — and his entire childhood is one long ordeal.

In the series Schuld (episode "Das Cello"), what happens? That's right — he dies. First, his cognitive functions die, he becomes a "vegetable," and then his sister, unable to bear her beloved brother's state, drowns him in a bathtub.

And let's not forget that in at least three films, he played gay characters, which is still provocative in cinema and in terms of career choices. That's often a death sentence for an actor's career — not something you hype, but something that buries you.

He's been fully naked many times: in Centre of My World, in The White Crow, in Prélude, in Lilies Not for Me. In Dark, everyone remembers his bare ass.

The short films with him are disturbing: A Small Cut (a cream puff as a penis metaphor, and his character has a problem with his foreskin).

In How to Get Rid of Your Cheating Husband, his character is beaten, tied up, tortured — an intentionally sick fantasy in this short film, which he chose to be in not for the money (it's a low-budget project), but for the idea itself.

Need more examples? So — do the blinders finally fall off?

Louis is not an innocent, not a fragile flower his fans paint him as — romanticizing Martha and Jonas (who, by the way, have an absolutely unhealthy, toxic, codependent relationship. As a result of their actions, children died, subjected to experiments and torture. Just a reminder — Adam is also Jonas, and Louis takes on his image not just as the boy searching for Martha. He takes on the entire character. The whole burden falls on his hero completely).

Louis Hofmann himself is a complex character — deeply feeling, reflecting on the nature of emotions and phenomena. Bold in his choice of roles, not blinded by conventions.

He's for UNCOMFORTABLE TOPICS. He's for art that cuts deep and painfully lances the boil. And if you need to open a vein to show you're alive — his character will do it.

And on that — I stand with him.

We both know: art is not supposed to be comfortable.

It should be provocative, daring. Blow minds, break the boundaries of conservatism. Because that's how the world evolves.

(A screenshot from the short film How to Get Rid of Your Cheating Husband.)