Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Portrait of Klaus Tange: Part 1: Childhood and youth

"L'étrange couleur des larmes de ton corps" is a sonic and visual bombardment of the senses. Wild flashes of color, blood and torture, and a cryptic plot keeps you guessing along with the main character as he searches for his wife. One actor is onscreen in almost every scene and carries much of the film on his shoulders. He's Klaus Tange, a danish actor, but before we get to the Cattet/Forzani directed film I sat down with him to get the story of how he ended up here.

Klaus Tange has a face etched in stone. Deep lines tell tales of a life lived fully. As we meet in the beautiful kitchen of his home for a talk over coffee and cigarettes he is friendly, open and honest. As the smoke rises slowly towards the ceiling he tells me that the desire to be an actor and performer has been there since he could walk. He would do performances at home in the living room, joined amateur theaters, started dancing, singing in a choir, and in general sought to be the center of attention. Even while posing for family photos he couldn't help performing to the annoyance of his siblings. A dream of becoming a ballet dancer was crushed due to a back problem. Then acting was the natural choice.

His family moved around a lot, going to different countries. This made him somewhat of an outsider and also quenched his desire to make friends. He would use neighborhood children in his amateur theatre productions. He would direct, act in, and even make costumes for only to toss everything aside when the production was over. His parents recognized his creative side and would always provide him with a workroom in every house they inhabited. They supported him fully. From the age of 8 he could sing Schubert's lieder, all of The Sound of Music, and every Simon & Garfunkel song. His mother would accompany him on the piano. There was no pressure to become a businessman like his father and his mother would collect everything he did in a scrap book. He moved out at age 16 and started supporting himself. He started working with kids and doing plays with them.
While Klaus talks he looks off into the distance, reminiscing about the past. He laughs a lot. Smiles. Is very present in the conversation. He left school after 10th grade and moved to Aarhus where he started doing theatre, took acting classes, and read the curriculum for the first 2 years at Dramaturgy at university. At this point in time he also started singing and playing the bass in a band that did Patti Smith covers.

He wanted to go to Pina Bausch's school in Wuppertal after seeing one of her productions as a young man. He therefore decided to use the entry exam from Aarhus theatre school as preparation for the entry exam for Pina's school. For the entry exams he did Romeo & Juliet, a junkie role from a Poliakoff play and sang one of his songs. He blew through all the exams and gained entry at age 18.

There was a fundamental passion for acting, a need, a desire that I still have after 30 years. That in spite of common sense is still present and it is in acting that I feel 100% alive. I've had the passion for film acting from an early age, but the door wouldn't open fully.”

Once he got accepted to the school he decided to stay and studied acting in Aarhus. The experience was not a completely enjoyable one.

You shouldn't go to acting school when you're 18 and everyone else is 26 and just want to get drunk and have sex. You really shouldn't. So it was a difficult time at acting school. I was the good student who really wanted to do well. The fact is that I only really learned how to become an actor after school. I got some basic skills like stagefight, voice, dramaturgy, and practical stage experience. Got a job at Aarhus theater as the only student from my class.”

Now he was doing 4 plays a year. Small roles as well as big roles. He learned a lot there. Had the looks to play main hunk, but was also cute pretty in a way that made people think of him as superficial and empty. His looks actually worked against him and he got caught in the blonde syndrome. He even worked as a model in Paris during the summer breaks to avoid loans while studyingThe theatre didn't want to cast him in the most obvious roles, like Romeo. So he started getting character roles like the weirdos and the psychos. He never got the roles he thought he would.

It took me a long time to accept that I would be judged primarily on my looks and people have a hard time seeing what lies beneath the surface. At an audition I was told that I was too pretty and good looking.”

At the same time he was perceived as slightly cold, as opposed to the boy next door. He started adjusting his expectations of what he could do, and this led to a time with lots of makeup, fake noses, prosthetics, humps and wigs.
At this point he was offered a job at the royal theatre but turns it down. Instead he moves to Rome at age 24. He falls in love, and love seems more important than work and career. He gets a spot at the prestigious Teatro Liceo where he starts doing plays along with the occasional film. A lot of the projects he did in Italy gave him experience but they were of a low artistic quality and he's glad that many of them can't be found today. Roles included a spy in a Roman Holiday remake and several nazi roles. He befriends director and writer Alison Bagnall and they make a short film together. Several times his film career in Italy comes close to taking off, but it always falls through at the last possible moment. He learns Italian for a play, and receives an award for best young talent in Rome's theatre for the part. Goes on tour with the play all over Italy. It is also in this period that he does a Coca-Cola Superbowl commercial that pays so well that he can live off it for a year. He starts feeling frustration with his situation so when the director of Aarhus theatre contacts him and offers him a steady gig he accepts. This prompts his return to Denmark after 6 years in Italy. After some time in Aarhus he moves to Copenhagen and gets the role as Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar at Det Ny Teater. Next up is a Tennessee Williams play at Betty Nansen and then Hair which also plays in Paris for 3 months of sold out performances.