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Double Vision: Stars becoming Stars

In the new streaming series “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld”, the fashion icon is brought to life by Daniel Brühl, a Marvel superstar. Their star-to-star biopic treatment is only one of many on the scene.

In Pierrot-adorned silk pajamas over a ruffled blouse, Karl Lagerfeld sits on red silk bedding and tensely shoves a chocolate bar into his mouth. “I’m tired of nobody taking me seriously,” we hear his voice-over in the trailer to Becoming Karl Lagerfeld. The six-episode original drama follows the fashion superstar at 38, a fairly unknown prêt-à-porter designer finding his way and signature style amid passion and ardent feuds.

THE PRODUCTION AS OPULENT AS THE DESIGNER'S LIFE

German-Catalan actor Brühl was lauded at the series’ Cannes festival launch where the vibrant fashion show opening entertained audiences. Beyond the fan, the ponytail, the gloves and sunglasses, Brühl captures Lagerfeld’s character: ambitious, snippy, as self-confident as awkward. Lagerfeld’s larger-than-life vision is reflected in the series’ production value, with 3,000 costumes, 2,200 extras, 40+ sets. All of this embedded in the Paris, Monaco and Rome of the freewheeling 70s.  Biopics afford a unique focal point, a deep dive into one extraordinary life beyond the surface glamour, one behind-the-scenes look at a complex, outstanding talent. “I really just met the persona he created,” recalls Brühl in a Deadline interview, of his one brief Lagerfeld encounter at a Berlinale photo shoot when the young actor exploded onto the scene with “Goodbye, Lenin!” twenty years ago. With the series, “I wanted to crack through that shield and find out who the person was.” Sharp-witted, eloquent, funny, charming, is Brühl’s memory of the designer. Brühl tried to get a grip on what he called Lagerfeld's contradictory lifestyle and biographical fudging by reading biographies and interviews and talking to people from the designer’s Paris days. Marking this portrayal as not his first foray into depicting iconic figures, Brühl has played celebrities before, cannily the intrepid race car driver Nikki Lauda. While German biopics are less prolific as Hollywood’s, Lars Eidinger has tackled author Bert Brecht. Barbara Sukowa has played feminist icons Hannah Arendt, Rosa von Luxemburg, and Hildegard von Bingen. More German biopics depict Nazis (e.g., “Downfall”; Robert Stadlober as Goebbels coming soon) or dissidents (e.g., Sophie Scholl; Gundermann; Jonas Dassler as Bonhoeffer coming soon). However, Brühl refused to be persuaded for a particular role: he declined to play Hitler, twice.

BIOPICS: A BOOMING BUSINESS

A good biopic is less about truth or retelling a life but about storytelling and relating a magnetic and enigmatic person of interest to the viewers’ fascination with strong characters. Audiences are drawn to nonconformist minds in their desire to uncover the secrets of fame and success.

The “stars playing stars” biopic approach holds a double attraction (also for marketing departments): it showcases physical resemblance and transformation while inviting audiences to explore the shared traits of the actor and the character. Artist-to-artist biopics: the final frontier of dissembling, of lifting the veil on the secret to fame and fortune—their popularity a sign of our influencer times?

CLOSE TO THE STARS

If you are looking for clues and inspiration to genius and success this year, look no further than Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley, Tom Holland as Fred Astaire, Billy Porter as James Baldwin, Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen, and Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, the latter as one of the rarer female artist portrayals. Perhaps the root of the renewed interest in celebrity biopics lies in the “becoming” — the social media-friendly moment of metamorphosis, of breaking through, making it big, becoming famous. Audiences feel they can share in the dream, wanting to be close to enviable charisma, if not wanting to become their idol.

What biopic subjects through struggle and change-making share, from Elvis to Amy Winehouse, are leaving their mark, changing their field, remaining subject to debate: controversial, heroic or both. Emotions are writ large: passionate love, wild partying, raging jealousy, fierce ambition, destructive egomania, brave decisions against the tide, and a disregard for gender or other imposed social roles.

Kruger meets Dietrich

Much of this is true for Marlene Dietrich, who will get the star-to-star biopic treatment from Diane Kruger in a five-part miniseries called “Marlene Dietrich—A Woman At War”. Model-turned-actress Kruger approached director Fatih Akin, who recently turned the life of gangsta rapper Xatar into Rheingold, to look at Dietrich’s life as an artist and German emigrant. Dietrich is in development, after the Akin-Kruger collaboration “Amrum” filming in 2024 and to be released in September 2025.

A 70-year-old Marlene Dietrich actually makes an appearance in the second episode of “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld”, played by Sunnyi Melles (Triangle of Sadness). Meanwhile, Daniel Brühl has found the photo that Karl Lagerfeld took of him 20 years ago — a star photographs a star, two are better than one.