LOUIS HOFMANN GOES DEEP AND GETS 'DARK' ON NETFLIX

---

Netflix is no stranger to the viral smash—think Orange Is the New Black, Stranger Things, The Crown, 13 Reasons Why, and on and on—but its latest cult hit is something entirely new for the streaming service. Dark, which combines domestic drama and science fiction with intergenerational conflicts between four families in a small town and an overarching time-travel plot, is Netflix’s first German-language original production. Since it premiered in December, it’s become its most-watched non-English series as part of a push to expand into international markets. For Louis Hofmann—the young actor starring as Jonas, a teenager reeling from the sudden suicide of his father months earlier—the show’s success is both unexpected and heartening. “Actually, I didn’t have much awareness of how big it was going to end up,” he recalls. “I knew that Netflix is known all over the world, but now we have people from Brazil and Asia and Spain and Italy and France sending messages on Instagram and it’s just crazy. When you do a film, it’s a very slow development of when it becomes available in different countries, but with Netflix, everyone gets to see it on the first day, which is crazy. I think it’s also kind of scary.”

Even after a decade of experience acting at just twenty, Hofmann admits to having felt some pressure in taking a leading role in a series that could serve as a first introduction to German culture for tens of millions of people worldwide. The show is intense, complicated, and, yes, dark, and it requires more engagement and involvement from viewers—especially those who are unaccustomed to reading subtitles—than most of Netflix’s most popular successes. “You have to think a lot and you cannot look at your smartphone while you watch it, so I’m glad everyone embraced the complexity of the show and still likes it so much,” Hofmann says. “That’s also why I did it, because I like films and shows that make you think, that are complex, that have a message.”

Dark, which was quickly renewed for a second season, revolves around the mystery of a series of missing boys in the German town of Winden, where families have lived for generations under the looming shadow of a nuclear power plant. There are adolescent jealousies and fraught marriages and long-standing rivalries, as well as flashes back and forth in time that explore what makes people become who they are. The twist is that, thanks to a local kink in the space-time continuum, several of the characters can travel between the present (or, technically, the future, since the show is set in 2019) and the past.

As Jonas, one of the key players in the time-travel mystery, Hofmann brings sensitive insight to his performance as a troubled and confused teenager. His father’s death, coupled with his mother’s distance, leaves him lonely and alone, out of place even in his own timeline. In the premiere episode, a young boy disappears on his watch, and he spends the rest of the first season trying to untangle the supernatural circumstances in which he finds himself. “On one hand, he’s very reserved and a very broken character,” Hofmann offers, “but then he strives so much for the truth and has so much drive and will and strength. A great thing about my role is that I had the opportunity to play different characters since he travels through time and is always on the run. It was very special.”

Dark has often been referred to as a German version of Stranger Things, and there are undeniable similarities between their premises, although Dark comes across as the cerebral, moody, and uncompromising older brother, whereas its American counterpart is more eager to indulge in the warm glow of nostalgia. Dark was already in production when Stranger Things premiered, and Hofmann says that it has taken the team some time to come around to the comparisons, but they have begun to embrace them. “We thought it would hurt the show,” he recalls. “We thought we had something very unique, and suddenly there’s a show that’s kind of similar at first sight. We were annoyed by it, but then we figured that it must help us. [Dark co creator] Jantje [Friese] said it’s a good thing. When all the people that watch Stranger Things will at least think about watching Dark, it only helps us.” Searching for “Netflix shows” on Google, in fact, now brings up a carousel with Dark sitting firmly between House of Cards and, yes, Stranger Things.

Hofmann, who was named a European Shooting Star at the Berlin International Film Festival last year—previous winners include Rachel Weisz, Daniel Craig, Matthias Schoenaerts, Carey Mulligan, Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Bill Skarsgård, and Andrea Riseborough—may be attracting international attention for the first time, but he has been working in front of the camera since he was nine, when he began appearing on a German television show reviewing theme parks. He learned about the industry through an older actress on the show and forced his parents to sign him up with an agency when he was eleven.

Despite never formally studying acting, Hofmann showed early promise, landing his first leading role at thirteen playing Tom Sawyer in a German adaptation. Within a few years, he had graduated to what he calls his “first mature film,” playing a troubled boy sent off to a brutal reform school by his stepfather in Sanctuary, which he points to as a major advance in his growth. “It was the first role that had a lot of depth to the character and a lot of tragic situations,” he recalls. “It was the first work where I had to develop my character very precisely before the shoot. I’ve always tried to get a very precise image of the character to make it believable and show the truth.”

This year sees Hofmann making a move into English-language films, starting with a small appearance in Jennifer Lawrence’s Russian-spy thriller Red Sparrow, out next month. He plays a key supporting role as Teja Kremke, famed ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev’s first male lover, in the upcoming movie The White Crow, written by David Hare of The Hours and The Reader and directed by Ralph Fiennes. Both roles came about through German connections—“I didn’t go to England or the US and knock on doors or anything,” Hofmann laughs—but it is clear that he is poised to continue his international breakout.

Dark has already been renewed for a second season and Hofmann is eager to get back on set, but in the meantime, he recently wrapped his latest project playing a young pianist facing extreme pressures in the German film Prélude, which he calls a “mixture between Whiplash and Black Swan.” It’s a role that is in keeping with the type that Hofmann says he is drawn to—vivid, sophisticated, and dark—a predilection that dates back to that early role in Sanctuary. “He’s at the edge of everything and he’s about to fall down the cliff in pretty much every situation,” Hofmann says, thinking back on his earlier character. “That was probably the movie where I first realized that the scenes which I loved to play the most were the very dramatic and tragic scenes, where the character is very broken.”

Dark is now streaming on Netflix. Red Sparrow is out March 2.