Cyrill Boss, Philipp Stennert Discuss Epic Fantasy ‘Hagen,’ Searching for Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin Type, Finding Gijs Naber

For writers and directors Cyrill Boss and Philipp Stennert, Wolfgang Hohlbein’s 1986 bestselling novel “Hagen von Tronje” was the ideal material to adapt not only into a feature film, but also into an epic six-part series.

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The story recounts the Nibelung saga, which follows the dragon slayer Siegfried and the fate of the Burgundian kingdom, albeit from a different perspective – that of Hagen von Tronje, traditionally the antagonist of the tale, seen as a dark figure with dubious motives.

In “Hagen,” which premieres at the Zurich Film Festival, the titular character (played by Dutch actor Gijs Naber) is lord commander to King Gunter (Dominic Marcus Singer) of Burgundy. With his sense of duty and iron determination, it is Hagen who holds the crisis-ridden kingdom together.

A loyal servant, disciplined and rational, Hagen faces a grave challenge when the bold, emotional and uncontrolled Siegfried (Jannis Niewöhner) arrives in Worms, the capital of the Burgundian kingdom, threatening the old structures.

Hohlbein’s novel was hugely popular in Germany when it came out in the 1980s – a time when stories of knights and re-tellings of Germanic legends, such as the works of Austrian author Auguste Lechner, were attracting great interest, Boss recalls.

What was so different about Hohlbein’s story, Boss adds, “was his twist, that he told the story from the perspective of the so-called dark villain and not the bright hero character Siegfried. He changed it and thought, what if we tell the story from the perspective of the antagonist, the villain, and that was very interesting for us as filmmakers and storytellers.”

The Nibelung saga itself, an ancient Germanic legend made famous by Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle and the inspiration behind many modern fantasy stories, such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” remains relevant today and continues to fascinate many people, adds Stennert.

“Maybe it’s the fullness or these many different aspects that make it possible to reinvent the story every generation. It has very powerful female characters in it. It has a family in the center. It’s about the fall, the defeat of a kingdom. I think there’s a lot of themes that you can project onto that story.”

“It took us a while to find our perspective and our theme in it, and it’s about these two very opposite characters. That’s what we centered on: This very disciplined, loyal servant, and on the other hand, this wild, spontaneous, impulsive character. And we thought, this is really telling so much about human behavior and about what we deal with every day, in a way, which are these two forces inside all of us.”

The new perspective in Hohlbein’s work offered the film and series’ creators the opportunity to focus on different aspects of the story, “on some parts of the story that have been hidden in the shadow for so many years,” Stennert explains. “What is Hagen’s experience? What is his side of the story?”

Simultaneously overseeing production of the film and series, which shot mainly in Prague’s Barrandov Studios as well as in Iceland, posed some challenges for the director duo, who also collaborated on the Sky series “Pagan Peak.”

Writing the film and series, “finding structures that work for these two quite different platforms,” was a big challenge, Stennert says.

“We had some experiences with movies and we had some experiences with television series. What was interesting, because we deal with the family, it was possible to make a sort of ensemble piece for the series and deal with a larger variety of characters, and to focus on the conflict between the two characters for the movie. That was the way to find that balance between the stories. When you go to the movie, you have this main conflict that is at the center of the story. It gives you the structure, the backbone of a great movie experience.”

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The series, in turn, revolves around the family of King Gunter with an ensemble cast, that explores in greater detail the intrigues and goings-on at the Burgundian court.

“Writing and editing were the biggest challenges,” Stennert adds.

The series itself offers a different perspective on the story than the film, Boss explains. As an ensemble piece, the series focuses on the royal family, particularly Gunter’s sister, Kriemhild (whom Hagen secretly loves), his mother, Queen Ute, and his brothers Gernot and Giselher.

While many of the characters are in both the film and the series, most are in the background in the movie but come into the foreground in the series, which goes deeper into their stories, Boss adds.

“It’s going to be interesting, because if you like the feature film, you’ll get much more in the series – you understand some things, some characters even better.”

The series and film complement each other. The whole project was built “from the ground up,” says Stennert. “That was the concept.”

Working together, Boss and Stennert divided the workload while directing, each shooting with different units.

“You have more possibilities,” Boss adds. “In Germany the budgets are tight and time is always an issue. For ‘Hagen’ we had 113 shooting days. That sounds like a lot, but for a six-episode series plus additional scenes for the feature film, it wasn’t. So, when you have the opportunity to split up, you can get more images and more scenes to tell your story the best possible way.”

The directors found the ideal lead in Naber after a long search for the role of Hagen. The part called for someone who was “physically a very tough guy, who you can believe is actually a great warrior,” Stennert says. “On the other hand, he had to be a really talented actor and he had to bring this very sensitive side and a sadness, a sort of subtle tenderness. And these are really pretty opposite features. He brought all that perfectly with him and we didn’t find it anywhere else.”

Indeed, the directors were going for the strong and silent type of yesteryear.

“We always thought of these old movie actors from the  ’60s and ’70s, like Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson, who are really stone faced, and they always keep their cards close to their chests,” Boss says. “But when you look in their eyes, really deep in their eyes, you see the sensitivity and you see the pain they suffered through. That was something that Gijs did so well, doing very minimalistic things with his eyes, and it touches you, but on the other side he’s a real tough guy, a believable soldier, warrior.”

Produced by Constantin Film, “Hagen” hits German theaters Oct. 17 while the series premieres next year on RTL+. Fremantle is handling world sales for both outside German-speaking territories.

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