On the new television series, Rote Rosen, Weil said, “Rote Rosen (Red Roses) is a popular long-running Telenovela on the German public network Das Erste. It’s located in the beautiful city of Lüneburg and tells the stories of a few people living there. Of course, as it is a telenovela, the stories are mainly about love. My character is Bodo Berger, who is new in town to visit his older brother Ben. Bodo’s a nice guy but somehow the black sheep of the family. As you can imagine he’s not only in town to see his brother – but because he also has a secret to share. I’m not allowed to reveal more at this point – but I can promise that’s it’s going to be fun to watch. Don’t miss it.”
Weil performed Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs“ on Dance Dance Dance. “That was fantastic. The whole Dance Dance Dance experience was wonderful, but my Ricky Martin performance really meant a lot to me. It was the biggest challenge I had to face when doing this show. I’m not at all a Latin Lover type, and trying to dance like one of the best of this kind wasn’t easy for me. It meant a lot of work and passion, and I’m super proud of what I was able to achieve by training hard. My performance wasn’t perfect, but I did my best and the feedback I received was mostly positive.”
The German heartthrob actor revealed that he wasn’t a huge fan of Latin pop superstar Ricky Martin back in the day, however, he always liked his music. “Back in 2000, my friends made me go and see one of his concerts in Cologne. I was surprised what a great entertainer he is; furthermore, he seems to be a really nice person. I wonder if he would have liked my performance if he had been able to see it?” he said.
His film Sodom just had its premiere in Florence, Italy. “I wasn’t able to attend this premiere because I was filming for Rote Rosen, but our director sent me a text saying that everything went really well and that we got lots of praise for the film and our performances. I hope I’ll be able to attend the next screening, wherever it might be. That would be fantastic, if one day there would be a big U.S. premiere of Sodom. You can be sure that I’d try my best to be there that day,” he said.
Weil is a veteran of the soap opera world, where he played Oliver Sabel in Verbotene Liebe. When asked about the demands of working on a soap opera, he said, “A standard scene was about three to four pages long and when doing a major story-line I sometimes had to film up to 15 scenes a day. So it wasn’t unusual that I had to memorize up to 60 pages a day. On some days even more, but honestly speaking: learning the lines isn’t as hard as it may seem. You get used to it and at some point you find your own routine in learning that amount of text. My short-term memory is excellent. I just have to look at a page and I can remember most of it, but on the other hand, my long-term memory really sucks. As soon as I filmed a scene my brain automatically erased the lines. It’s a funny thing.”
Most soap opera actors worldwide can attest that working on a soap is a great deal of hard work, and Weil concurs with them. “Working on a soap opera is hard work. There’s no way to deny that. You just have to imagine when you’re doing a feature film you normally work between four to eight weeks to film 90 minutes. When doing a soap opera you film up to 45 minutes a day! So everybody involved has to be perfectly prepared and focused. People who think working on a soap isn’t real acting should just visit the filming and they’d be impressed of what a fantastic job everybody is doing,” he admitted.
When asked if he misses playing in soap operas, he said, “I love my job and I love acting. So I’m happy when I get the chance to act. I don’t mind if it’s in a soap opera/Telenovela, a series or a feature film. Honestly speaking, I love doing all of this. I don’t want to choose only one. If it stays as it is at the moment I’d be very happy. This summer I did a feature film, filmed for a series and now I’m doing a Telenovela. Perfectly happy Jo!”
Read More: Jo Weil also chatted with Digital Journal about the digital transformation of the entertainment industry.
