We will be closing our GOETHE FILMS@ TIFF Bell Lightbox series "Can you hack it?" with the ethical drama BLUEPRINT by Rolf Schübel. Over a decade ago, the director wondered about the real-life implications of "hacking" a human being. Set sometime in the near future, the famous pianist Iris Sellin (Franka Potente) learns that she is suffering from an incurable disease. She approaches fertility specialist Martin Fischer with a daring plan – to clone herself and thus make her musical talent immortal. Fischer agrees, and so Iris's daughter Siri (Franka Potente), the world's first human clone, is born. From a medical perspective, the experiment is a success, but for the copy of the famous mother begins a lifelong struggle for her own identity.
When shooting the film in Western Canada in 2002, Potente --already with several Tom Tykwer films under her belt and enjoying Hollywood fame as Matt Damon's BOURNE IDENTITY girlfriend-- talked about the challenge of playing vis-a-vis herself:
What’s it like to shoot here in Canada?
Franka Potente: You have to adapt. We needed a lot of time just to transport the things to Vancouver Island. I’d call it a congenial muddle. Not at all like what we experienced when we were shooting one month in Münsterland and then in Hamburg! This feels like we’re at the end of the world. It’s nice to see how little it matters where you actually are. You can work anywhere. There are about ten houses here, a fishing shop, a kayak rental and a grocery store. I live in a wooden house with the makeup artist, my colleague Hilmir, the costume designer and the still photographer. In the morning, I’m in charge of breakfast: pancakes and eggs.
How do you portray a mother-daughter conflict when you’re playing both the mother and the daughter?
FP: That’s exactly what attracted me to the script because at first we didn’t know how it could be done.
I began by limiting my focus to a few aspects of each of the characters. Effectively drawing two figures with really simple strokes. Where the two intersect is what was important for me. Then I always began with the mother, Iris, the original, because I saw the daughter mainly as the result of the mother. One way to explain it: one is the more moody version of the other. I try to develop something like a sketch for myself that I see quite clearly before me. Of course, this is just in theory at first, but once that’s clear, the rest just follows while acting and in the scenes.
Does a clone have a soul?
FP: Yes. A clone has a soul, charisma, a spirit. But that is not passed down genetically. That’s the grey area in-between: it’s a matter of personality. Siri has her own soul; a soul that hurts her so badly, that makes her suffer so much that she has to break away. What they don’t calculate when planning this cloning is that no matter how good a copy, every human is an individual. That there is something like a soul, a life of one’s own, something spiritual.
Which role was harder to play, Iris or Siri?
FP: Iris was more difficult to play because she’s farther away from me. She’s older; to me she’s less likable. She styles herself into an aloof artificiality, creates herself as an artificial character. Siri is more natural, more porous and easier to portray. Siri is closer to me. I also have a personal problem with Iris, the way she enjoys the public eye. I have problems identifying with that.
Franka Potente was born in 1974 in Western Germany. During her studies at actoring school in Munich, she was discovered by a casting agent and made her film debut in Hans-Christian Schmid's 1995 film "Nach fünf im Urwald" ("It's A Jungle Out There"). In 1997, Potente had her international breakthrough in Tom Tykwer's "Lola rennt" ("Run Lola Run"), which he wrote for her, as a cheeky redhead running through Berlin to scratch up 100.000 Deutsch Marks to save her boyfriend. The international success of Tykwer's films with her paved the way for Potente's Hollywood debut in "Blow", the life story of the drug dealer George Jung (Johnny Depp). In the Thrillers "The Bourne Identity" (2001) und "The Bourne Supremacy" (2003), Potente starred alongside Matt Damon. She also appeared in the highly popular US series "The Shield" (2007) and "Dr. House" (2009), and had starring roles in the shows "Copper" (2012-13) and "The Bridge" (2014).
