In a new interview, Austrian actor Wolfgang Cerny has talked about his career and his future plans. Cerny said that he enjoys producing projects because it gives him more creative freedom and control over projects. He was the creative producer of the 2023 biographical drama "Legends of Sambo", directed by Andrei Bogatyrev, which tells the story of how the martial art Sambo was created in the Soviet Union. Cerny also plays in the latest feature film by Bogatyrev, a western, titled “Gold of Umalta”.
He also talked about how after his success in Russia, he began to be offered significant roles in Western projects, as before he was only known as the "prince charming" from the German telenovela "Storm of Love". He quickly got bored of playing the role on the show, and gladly accepted the offer to play in the Russian WWII miniseries "Snipers". It told the story of a German male sniper who falls in love with a Russian woman sniper. It was a breakthrough role for Cerny and this was followed by many other successful movies and series in Russia, including "The Red Ghost," “Sobibor”, "Nuremberg”, “Zoya” and “Whirlpool”.
Wolfgang Cerny — ”Storm of Love" really helped me a lot to prepare for the business. I wanted to shoot serious stuff, Tatort, crime investigations, tough stuff, which I did in drama school, but no one cast me for that. They all saw me like the Prince Charming from Storm of Love, and I said, can I do something else now? “We don’t believe you” or “we don’t see that, we want you as Prince Charming for this, and this very light hearted…” No, I don’t want to do that. I refused many of those roles until they stopped sending them. And then I made my way back from Russia. Interestingly, so also through Russia came UK and American projects. I played Russians in Hollywood and in England. It was super funny.
There was one I’m really proud of. It’s called Action Team. It’s a UK production, with Tom Davis and produced by him and some of his friends. It’s also super nice story how they came up with that. It’s basically a very goofy, very dark UK comedy spy comedy, basically. And my initially my character was Bogohardt, an Austrian Russian counter spy, and I really had to talk … of course it was in English, but in the beginning I talk as a very Austrian actor, a bit stupid, and I say, “hello, my name is Bogohardt and I want to help you.” Then it turns out that he’s actually a Russian counterspy...
Wolfgang is a big fan of fantasy literature and films, and he enjoys the tabletop miniature game Warhammer in his spare time. His favorite movie is "Lord of the Rings". Wolfgang Cerny's latest project is the fantasy miniseries "The Outliers", by director Vladimir Raksha, for the platform KinoPoisk. The series is about an aristocrat, played by Cerny, who owns an academy for people with superpowers. Also this year Cerny will appear in the German crime drama television series “SOKO Donau” where he will play a country singer.
Cerny also spoke about how he dislikes playing stereotypical villains and always tries to bring humanity to all his characters.
The interview was conducted in Vienna, Austria by filmmaker Diana Ringo on 15.01.2024.
