Leonie Benesch knew her ‘September 5’ character was important in more ways than one

When Leonie Benesch‘s German agent called the actress about “September 5,” she knew what she was going to say. The script came from casting director Simone Bär, who died in January 2023 and had cast Benesch in several projects, including “The White Ribbon,” “The Teachers’ Lounge,” and the series “Babylon Berlin.”

“She said, ‘Apparently it’s about Munich ’72. I know what you’re going to say: It’s been done before. I agree with you, but Simona said it is a really thrilling read,'” Benesch tells Gold Derby. “And that’s what it was. Because it takes this stance.”

Directed by Tim Fehlbaum, who co-wrote the script Moritz Binder, “September 5” chronicles the hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Olympics, when Palestinian militant organization Black September killed two members of the Israel Olympic team in the Olympic Village and held nine others hostage who were later murdered as well. The stance it takes is that it’s told strictly from the perspective of the ABC Sports team that covered the 22-hour ordeal, broadcasting an escalating situation live while debating journalistic ethics and morals. “Can we show someone being shot on live television?” Geoffrey Mason, the producer played by John Magaro, asks TV executive Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard).

“I think it’s why it’s interesting today because we are faced with that question of, ‘Where is the line between reporting and exploiting?'” Benesch says. “For me, I don’t way to say the only way, but it’s definitely the most interesting way or good reason to go back to that story.”

Benesch plays Marianne Gebhardt, a German interpreter who was not a real person but a composite character. On the surface, Marianne seems like just a necessary plot device to translate German broadcasts and intel for the Americans — not to mention the requisite and main female character on a team of men. But the character is much deeper than that, carrying the weight of the post-war German generation that feels deep shame for World War II and a responsibility in rebuilding their country’s image. The Munich Olympics, which were also the first games to be broadcast globally via live satellite, was the first time Germany welcomed the world back on its soil since the war and the 1936 Berlin Olympics, aka Hitler’s Olympics.

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“I think part of the reason I really like that and I think the film is really good is because it has that added storytelling level, which is having a character there that represents that post-war Germany,” Benesch says. “You and the audience are going to be the judge of that, but I feel like Marianne doesn’t feel shoehorned in. It’s very smooth. It’s clever writing. And also they gave her all the cool moments of saving the day or having the solution, which I think is a nod to, ‘Sorry, there are no more women, but you get to save the day every time.'”

Benesch talked to one interpreter as part of her research, focusing on how adept translators are at multitasking. “I was mostly really interested in that zone they go to when they do simultaneous translating, which is quite mind-boggling to me, that they speak the words while they’re still listening to what the person that they’re translating is saying,” she says. “So I know that Marianne is more faced with very last-minute, spontaneous — you know, not translating huge monologues [but] more bits. I wanted to catch a little bit of that kind of concentration that they are in when they’re in that zone.”

Because Geoff sends Marianne into the field and the film never leaves the ABC studio, a lot of Benesch’s performance is offscreen via phone calls and walkie talkie transmissions — but no less impactful. One of the most powerful moments is at the end when Marianne calls the control room minutes after Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), the VP of Olympic Operations, tells Geoff and Roone that the remaining hostages have been killed at the airport. When Geoff takes the call, viewers don’t hear Marianne deliver the devastating news.

“I love when that is used because I love that Tim has the guts to trust that it will work because the temptation would always be to also have a camera on my face to have that moment of looking into the actor’s soul. And none of us got that here because it’s quite like documentary filmmaking,” Benesch says. “It is very much in the room with us but not really ever knowing where the camera would be. I really appreciate that kind of a trust of a director in his script and in his actors — that we will actually do the story and we will do it justice and that it will speak for itself. We don’t need to see everyone’s faces all the time.”

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Marianne is in frame, though, in her final scene after she returns to the studio following the tragedy. Originally scripted to be much more verbose between Marianne and Geoff, the scene was filmed early on in production but never felt quite right. Benesch, Magaro, and Fehlbaum knew they would have to take another stab at it but “struggled” until finally landing on less is more. Frustrated and tired, Marianne tells Geoff that Germany has failed again.

“It was not easy because it was really difficult conversations about things like, of course, German guilt. What do we say in this scene at the end of the film because John and I very much felt like we didn’t want to explain the film at the end of the film, but Tim was really worried about it not coming across,” Benesch recalls. “We ended up at a point where I think it’s right because it’s about two people who’ve just gone through 22 hours of madness and there are not any words yet for what they’ve gone through. So the [original] conversation written by Moritz and Tim is the conversation we said at the time that they might have in five years’ time, but not at this moment in time. So we reduced it to the bare minimum and made it about two people who tried to find words for something.”

ABC’s coverage was watched by 900 million people and forever changed live broadcasts of unfolding events and crises. In the digital age, sensationalism has become ordinary. Benesch hopes anyone who watches “September 5” will take a second to consider the media they consume day to day.

“I feel like it’s a film that allows for you to ask yourself some questions when it comes to … ‘What have I become desensitized to?'” she says. “Because the news today, especially in the U.S., I think, are mostly about making people feel stuff and making them stay engaged, similar to most of the apps. But I wonder, does the constant 24-hour sensationalist news cycle help us understand the underlying issues of a conflict or situation? I would argue that no. And I think infotainment is a terrible thing that has been inflicted on us, so I would hope that maybe people walk away thinking about that a little bit.”