Interview with actor Alexander Finkenwirth

For me, preparing for a historical figure works primarily through language, but also through posture and clothing: they all influence each other and contribute to creating a character as a whole. And then, it is important to enter into the emotional world of the character and to deal with the political and social circumstances of the time.

But sometimes it's the little things that suddenly make you feel like you've understood who the character is, a song, a gesture, a picture, the look of a person on the train that reminds me of something.
In our interpretation, Alexander von Bach is a progressive, intellectual politician and the closest and most important advisor to Emperor Franz Joseph I. An outwardly rather sensitive and reserved person, but very attentive and alert.

In the second season, we now see a changed, mature and strong Von Bach, who has become an important figure at court, and also accompany him in his private, emotional conflicts, which gave me great pleasure, as I hope it will for the viewers too.

Oh, such great and funny things happen during such a long rehearsal and filming period...
The actor playing Napoleon III suddenly found himself in the Habsburgs' chambers in the studio, looked around and said: ’Great, now I've even been to the Habsburgs, the real Napoleon III never was.
And one of the highlights with this great ensemble was certainly the celebration of winning the International Emmy for the first season in Prague during the filming of the second season.

It was my first major role in a big historical series, a great time!
The series has aged well and is timeless and not only interesting if you want to immerse yourself in the revolutionary and visionary world of the young artists of the early Bauhaus. Politically too, the series is set in an exciting time full of change, similar to our present day actually...

It is difficult to view your own work objectively and with the right distance.
the characters take us into a world that is far away from us, fairytale-like and romantic, and at the same time they deal with things that concern and affect us just as much today. the showrunner and author katharina eyssen has simply written very strong books.

In spring 2025, a new comedy series will be released, called ‘Späti’. Späti - that's what we call the little late-night shops that are somehow part of Berlin's cultural heritage and are sometimes populated by absurd and endearing characters. And guess what - I was allowed to portray one of them...