Deadly games
A crime drama set in 1936, Polish series Breslau (The Breslau Murders) marks the first Disney+ original production from Central and Eastern Europe. Star Agata Kulesza and director Leszek Dawid talk playing unlikeable characters and creating the show’s tense atmosphere.
A star of stage and screen, Agata Kulesza is one of the most acclaimed actors in Poland and a four-time winner of the best actress prize at the country’s Orły film awards.
But while she’s used to taking the lead, Kulesza’s latest role is a supporting part in Breslau (The Breslau Murders), a Polish series that has the landmark honour of being the first Disney+ original production from Central and Eastern Europe.
The eight-part crime drama is set in 1936, at a time when the 11th Olympic Games are fast approaching and the eyes of the entire world are turned towards Berlin, the capital of the Third Reich. But in the city of Breslau (the historic German name for the Polish city of Wrocław), a brutal murder may ruin the entire propaganda campaign and disrupt the sporting spectacle.
The only one who can close the investigation is uncompromising Polish police commissioner Franz Podolsky (Tomasz Schuchardt), who despises the Third Reich but feels duty-bound to bring the killer to justice. Known for his controversial but effective methods, Podolsky finds himself face to face with the emerging evil while also battling his own demons, putting both his career and personal life under threat.
The cast also includes Adam Bobik as Podolsky’s longtime colleague Erwin Benk, Przemysław Bluszcz as Podolsky’s superior Leopold Barens, Karolina Gruszka as psychoanalyst Dr Inga Eissmann, Sandra Drzymalska as Podolsky’s wife Lena, who also becomes entangled in the criminal hunt, and Irenzeusz Czop as Johan Holtz, an SS officer who wields absolute power in Breslau.
Kulesza, meanwhile, portrays Holtz’s wife, Gerda. “I’m used to playing sad women. In Poland, there’s a vast belief that I’m a specialist at portraying women in the struggle, in the pain of life,” the actor tells DQ. “Gerda is yet another woman experiencing the pain of life. However, it was important for me as an actress that those conditions Gerda was put in were interesting, because we actors, we play a little bit how children in kindergarten play policemen and thieves.
“Here, we also play, but it is a more complex game. Other than the criminal story, the detective story, which is quite complex, I also liked being part of the storytelling and being part of a world that is no longer in existence. Emotionally, it was also interesting for me, because I like playing emotional things.”
Produced by ATM Grupa, Breslau is directed by Leszek Dawid (Jesteś Bogiem). The cinematography is by Paweł Flis (Interior) and the script was written by Magdalena Żakowska (Krew z krwi 3) and Bartosz Janiszewski (Wataha). The show debuted on Disney+ on September 12.
Here, Kulesza joins director Dawid to reveal more about the plot at the centre of the story, producing the Disney+ series and creating its tense atmosphere.
Agata, what are your reflections on making Breslau?
Kulesza: I feel very good, because we have something of really good quality for our audience and because, simply, it is a very good series. Covid taught us that we basically tend to watch whatever there is on many different platforms, and Disney+ actually made sure we have a good-quality product. I believe the audience will appreciate the good quality. It also has a respect for the audience.
How do you approach the different roles you play in film and television?
Kulesza: I take a bit of a different approach when I play the lead, and in Poland, I’m lucky enough to usually have the lead role, both in films and in TV series. However, here I was in a supporting role, and I knew it was a role that serves a certain purpose. I needed to have a full understanding [of the story] so I could prepare the background and the landscape for the main leads. How I create the so-called ‘ladder’ of the character when I am the lead is a bit different from the ladder when I am in a supporting role. However, the tools and ways of my expression are the same.
Why do you often play ‘sad’ women?
Kulesza: First of all, I like to observe and to tell stories using my perception of and sensitivity to the complexity of humanity and the world. Also, the choice of my profession was a good one, because privately, I have this overdose of emotion in me, and [acting] provides me room to express this. I am in symbiosis with my profession; it gives me a floor to let it all out.
I have a reflective nature. I observe the world and I think very often about its condition. I like to touch the audience and maybe make them reflect on the world as well.
What are your feelings towards your character, Gerda, and her role in Breslau?
Kulesza: I believe it is an attempt to humanise a sinister period in world history, because we are observing bad people – people who we believe are bad, who we have valued as bad – but we also show them as human beings. Those monsters, they all have their own tears and their own pains in life. So we humanise those monsters, we don’t just put them in as this cartoon model but we show them as human beings. I can’t say too much about the history of this family, but I believe it’s an important thread to story of the series.
How do you approach playing a character who audiences might not like?
Kulesza: I believe the most important thing is not to defend this character. Some actors tend to say they’re defending the character, but I try to understand the motivation behind the bad actions. Even if a character does evil and is evil, I still try to search for the motivation behind that evil. But sometimes it is just the construct of that character; sometimes people are just evil.
I have to understand that. With Gerda, I understand her very well. She is put in a very difficult situation, in terms of both her private life and the façade she has because of her husband. So she has to meet the requirements and the expectations of a wife and a mother. I cannot tell you more, but she’s trapped and she is oppressed.
How did you immerse yourself in the world of the show?
Kulesza: It was absolutely wonderful because of those beautiful costumes, beautiful things, equipment, beautiful decorations. And it was not only one wall [of the set], it was a 360-degree approach. You just let your imagination go and have fun and tell the story.
Leszek, what was your interest in directing Breslau?
Dawid: When I read the script, the most interesting and thrilling aspect for me was how this story is up to date, how the story is repeated through history somehow. It was thrilling to think about it this way. And I like the main character, who is very powerful. When we thought about that, Tomasz Schuchardt was the only one who could be our Podolsky. As a director, I had a great journey with great talent, creating strong characters.
How did you work with Tomasz to create Podolsky?
Dawid: His character brings you into the screen, and you don’t have to do much in the mise en scène to catch him as the main character. He already possessed the power to be the lead. When we were working in the rehearsals, we talked a lot about the relationship between the characters and, of course, the main relationship with Sandra, so that connection was the strongest. We spent a lot of time at the table, hearing the dialogue and talking about them. So later on, when we were shooting, we focused on catching the tense atmosphere of the time. We spent a lot of time talking about the set design and how to create unique tension between the character, the set and the time in which he exists.
We also see Podolsky’s home life and his relationship with Lena. What was your interest in going home with some of the characters?
Dawid: It’s always nice to use that opportunity to look behind the door and see what they do when nobody looks at them, and what happens between the main couple is so powerful for us. They laugh together and hate each other at the same time. Podolsky and Lena are the strongest engine in the story. It’s a privilege to see what you do when you are not an official person serving the public, but Podolsky is unique because he doesn’t care. He’s the same in public and he’s the same behind closed doors, and that gives him power. He doesn’t pretend at any time, and that causes trouble for him.
What challenges did you face?
Dawid: What was most important was to catch things that are between the lines. On the surface, we have the criminal story and personal relationship between Podolsky and Lena. But in between the lines, there is this crawling tension of a danger that is approaching. We had to capture that, but not show it directly. I liked the cooperation with our composer, Radzimir Debski, giving us a modern but old-fashioned sound design and providing [that sense of danger] that was needed.
Like that? Watch this! Suggested by AI, selected by DQ
1983: In an alternate-history Poland, a homicide detective uncovers a decades-old conspiracy that changed the course of history, risking everything in a surveillance-heavy Eastern Bloc.
Babylon Berlin: Berlin in the 1920s: amid political unrest, crime and decadence, a troubled detective investigates a murder that exposes the city’s dark underbelly and secrets.
The Man in the High Castle: In an alternate 1960s ruled by Nazis and Imperial Japan, a small resistance uncovers threads of hope in a brutal totalitarian regime where every investigation is life and death.
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tagged in: Agata Kulesza, ATM Grupa, Breslau, Disney, Leszek Dawid, The Breslau Murders