A family is something very static and hard to escape, so everybody has a certain role over the years, no matter if you like it or not.

With every enemy, when you get closer you understand much more, or the picture dissolves.

Father-daughter has a lot of layers, I find.

You can change so many things in your life, but you cannot change where you come from. It's something that you have to deal with: the role everybody plays in his family, no matter if he likes it or not.

For me, it was always clear that Toni Erdmann is more a film about what globalization, capitalism, does with private relationships much more than making a "political" film. It's more interesting to raise questions, because I don't feel in a position to "make a statement" with the film. Toni Erdmann comes from a completely different generation then his daughter, it's the post-war generation, they were very politically engaged. They raised their children with a lot of human worldviews, sent them out in the world believing in a world without borders.

I had the feeling I had to stay focused on what's lying under. A big part of the story in Toni Erdmann happens on the sub-level. On the surface, a lot of scenes, it's banal. If the actor starts thinking, "Oh, I'm in a genre, I'm doing a comedy, I'm doing funny things," then you lose.

A family is something very static and hard to escape, so everybody has a certain role over the years, no matter if you like it or not.