Disappearing act

As Apple TV+ launches its first German-language original series, DQ speaks to stars Heike Makatsch, Axel Stein and Lea Drinda about solving the mystery behind eight-part dark comedy-drama Where’s Wanda?.

In the picturesque town of Sundersheim, there’s only one question on the lips of its colourful collection of residents: Where’s Wanda?

The first German-language original series from Apple TV+, Where’s Wanda? follows Dedo and Carlotta Klatt (Axel Stein and Heike Makatsch), who are desperate to find their missing 17-year-old daughter Wanda (Lea Drinda) after she disappeared months ago without a trace.

When the police fail to find her, the family take matters into their own hands, obtaining surveillance devices with the help of their tech-savvy son Ole (Leo Simon). Then disguising themselves as employees of an electrical company, they bug their neighbourhood and half their suburb, finding out that behind closed doors, none of their neighbours are who they pretend to be.

The dark comedy-drama, which is filmed in and around Berlin and nearby Brandenberg, blends emotional highs and lows with the offbeat cast of characters, Dedo and Carlotta’s hapless relationship and the intriguing town mascot, the ferocious Nupplewocken, who is said to prowl the lush green forest that surrounds Sundersheim.

Produced by UFA Fiction, the series is created and written by Oliver Lansley (Flack), co-created and based on a story by Zoltan Spirandelli, and directed by Christian Ditter (How to be Single), Tobi Baumann (Faking Hitler) and Facundo Scalerandi (How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)). The first two episodes debut this Wednesday on Apple TV+.

Here, Stein (The Vault), Makatsch (Love Actually) and Drinda (Wer wir sind) tell DQ about joining the series, working together on set and finding the right balance between humour and drama.

What were your first thoughts about the project after reading the scripts?
Makatsch: Well, we were lucky enough that we were involved in the process very early on so I actually managed to read the English script. There was an incomparable black humour, drama and, at the same time, it was emotional. I was also happy very quickly about the role of Carlotta. It’s not exactly simple, the drama about the loss of a daughter, but with Dedo [Stein] here, all that enthused me.

Stein: It’s really about something. Everyone can understand how you feel when you lose your daughter. The whole concept of this thing bowled me over. They are really complex characters that we are playing. Dedo and Carlotta lost each other and somehow they may come back together again, but it’s not that easy.

Drinda: It’s absolutely great how comedy and drama work at the same time. That was something you really get when you read the script.

Having read the original English scripts, how was the series adapted for the German language?
Makatsch: That was our daily frustration. In English, it all sounds so easy and simple. In German, everything gets incredibly complicated. It really gets on your nerves. ‘Oh, this seems so easy in English.’ But we had some brilliant scriptwriters and they were able to translate that humour.

Stein: It’s also important that we recognise that German humour, and what really matters with German humour is different from humour in English. You can’t just translate things one to one. You have to individually adapt things, but it was done in a very gentle way. You could almost think that maybe Germans are funny too!

The story is told between Day 0 – the day Wanda goes missing – and a second timeline weeks later. How did you manage shooting the two different strands?
Makatsch: It was very complicated at the beginning to get the sense of which day were were acting. ‘This is now day 30? And we’ve already lost her?’ But it was something you could feel your way into. We had to get ourselves into this sense of loss and the desperation. But I think it was quite well structured.

Stein: It’s not unusual. If you shoot, you don’t [always] shoot in chronological order. You shoot the end, and then the beginning. Best case, you always have this big fat script with you to find out where you are, so you have a sense of the emotional state you’re supposed to be in. ‘What is this now? I have to do this later?’ It’s particularly good if, first, you do a long series and, second, you have to switch from different times to another. My colleagues always prepared perfectly, so they all had their scripts and they all knew who was doing what and when. It was perfect, and we had a lot of fun.

Dedo and Carlotta are quite clumsy and calamitous at times, but they also seem to make a good team.
Makatsch: Absolutely. We had a casting [session] in the beginning and I think we were a good match even then. Otherwise we wouldn’t have ended up doing this project together. But from the beginning, I think we complemented each other. We have a different way of approaching things, but we always listen to each other and in every situation we supported each other. Sometimes we had a difference of opinion, but we always found a way of working it out together.

Stein: We didn’t really know each other beforehand and we’re pretty different, which is also a good thing. Carlotta and Dedo are pretty different too – but I’m not saying Axel and I are like Carlotta and Dedo! From the beginning, our timing worked very well. The way we both understood comedy without having to speak it out, we were a good match. We all had the sense and space to develop our respective roles.

Drinda: There was one scene [in episode one] where I saw the two as a couple [before Wanda disappears], but I have to stop myself saying ‘mum and dad’ to the two of them. I was very happy with them when I saw the first episodes and quite shocked how well it worked, this relationship between them. It was amazing.

Makatsch: Unfortunately we weren’t able to see Lea much on the set because she had disappeared, after all. She did her own thing somewhere.

Because Wanda vanishes, it must have felt like shooting two different series, as the character doesn’t feature much in the early stages of the series until viewers start to discover what has happened to her.
Drinda: Yes. I’m very happy that my voiceover went through the series so there is some hope Wanda might be visible at some stage. It was pretty amazing to see this whole constellation. There was only one scene where we had to set up this family feeling and we were having to explain it all in such a short period. It was amazing. I would have liked to have been more within this family but, well, maybe there will be another season. Who knows?

How did you work together on the comedic moments in an otherwise dramatic series?
Stein: It’s very dramatic, particularly because it’s about dealing with a loss when their daughter cannot be found. Dedo is a bit of a silly guy. On location we had to find out what we could do, what we could think of. There were several situations where there were different options, and we worked out how to do it.

Makatsch: The underlying drama is never gone, even if things are funny. It’s not because the situation is really funny, it’s because of the way we deal with it or the way we look at the scene or scenario. For me, it’s a gift that we have drama but we’re playing with it. It really touches the heart of the whole series. It’s really quite emotional.

Stein: Comedy is never far from drama but what we have is a good dynamic because it went up and down all the time. It was a rollercoaster ride, and that makes it exciting to watch.

Did you feel any pressure being part of the first German-language original series made for Apple TV+?
Stein: It’s like being knighted. I thought, ‘Wow.’ It’s such pressure, though, of course. If they [Apple TV+] do something then they do it right, so we wanted to live up to that expectation. We were all prepared, we were absolutely certain we wanted to give it our best and look forward to a really good time.

Makatsch: There is so much content being created, for all sorts of different streamers, and we were very happy to be part of a streaming provider who is a bit more selective in what they do – not just random productions, one series after the other being churned out. This is hand-selected.

Drinda: It was pretty amazing when I got the go-ahead and knew I was going to be in a series together with Heike and Axel. It was also amazing to know that Apple was finally coming to Germany and we were the ones being part of it. That was something.

tagged in: Apple TV+, Axel Stein, Heike Makatsch, Lea Drinda, UFA Fiction, Where’s Wanda?