Liev Schreiber (‘A Small Light’): ‘It just seemed like the right story at the right time’ [Complete Interview Transcript]
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During a recent Gold Derby video interview, news and features editor Ray Richmond spoke in-depth with Liev Schreiber about his role in the eight-part, Holocaust-themed limited series “A Small Light” from National Geographic, which is eligible at the 2023 Emmy Awards. Watch the full video above and read the complete interview transcript below.
By his own admission, Liev Schreiber wasn’t particularly eager to go back to work. He had spent eight years starring in the Showtime series “Ray Donovan” and was “really enjoying” being off and being home with his kids. But when he was sent the script for the National Geographic eight-part limited series “A Small Light” just before making his second trip to Ukraine in support of that nation’s war against Russia, he realized he couldn’t say no.
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“It just seemed like the right story at the right time,” the nine-time Emmy nominee stresses. “There we were on the couch watching the war develop in Ukraine and seeing these normal men, custodians, teachers, painters, graphic design artists, getting on buses and saying goodbye to their children and possibly never seeing them again. It just struck me as, ‘How can this be happening again in our time? That something like this would be happening in Europe or anywhere in the world.’ And then when I read this script, I just thought, yeah, this is who we have to be right now.”
“A Small Light” follows the remarkable story of Miep Gies, a Dutch woman who risked her life to shelter Anne Frank and her extended Jewish family from the Nazis for more than two years in the early 1940s. Schreiber portrays Anne’s father Otto Frank, the only member of the Frank family to survive the war. He didn’t know a lot about Otto before saying yes to the project. “I was particularly interested in the stuff that Otto didn’t want in (Anne’s famed) diary in the first publication, because I thought that would be revealing in terms of finding a new way to tell this story that everybody knew,” he says. What didn’t Otto want published? “Things about how difficult his relationship with his wife was throughout that period they were confined together, and how Anne wrote about their fights during that period,” he replies. “That had to be so difficult.”
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The full transcript of the interview follows.
Ray Richmond: “Hi, everyone. I’m Gold Derby News and Features Editor Ray Richmond, and I’m here today with nine-time Emmy nominee Liev Schreiber, who portrays Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, in the powerful, eight-part limited series “A Small Light” that premiered in May on NatGeo, Disney+ and Hulu. Liev, I wanted to start out by discussing what you knew about Anne Frank’s story, and more specifically about her father, Otto, before starting work on the series.”
Liev Schreiber: “Well, I think I knew as much as the average person who had read Anne Frank’s diary as part of their public school curriculum growing up. There are a couple of board members at Blue Check Ukraine who are also board members at the Anne Frank House in Los Angeles, so they were kind enough to supply me with a bunch of material, both written and filmed, that was really helpful to me in terms of researching the part. I think I was particularly interested in the stuff that Otto didn’t want in the diary in the first publication because I thought that would be revealing in terms of finding a new way to tell the story that everybody knew, which I think Tony’s (Phelan) and Joan’s (Rater) objective was to find a fresh take on that story.”
RR: “Because we all certainly knew the story. What did you find out that Otto didn’t want in the diary?”
LS: “Well, I’m not sure that I should be the one to reveal all of that. But I think one of the pieces that I know is out there that people are aware of, that was interesting to me, was how difficult his relationship with his wife was all throughout that period that they were confined together, and how Anne had written about their fights in her diary, and how difficult they were. That was something that really struck me, to be in that situation with children where you’re trying to get along as a couple and you’re trying to move through some difficulties and you’re all crammed into the same attic together, and the problems outside of the space are greater than any that are inside your relationship. But still, to spend that period of time confined in a space with somebody who you’re not able to speak to or not able to communicate fully with must have been very, very difficult.”
RR: “And an impossible situation. I mean, my God.”
LS: “Yeah.”
RR: “Just knowing what’s going on in the outside world, and then having to be in these cramped, claustrophobic quarters for months at a time. What did you learn about Otto in your research, Liev? I know you’ve said previously that he was a proud German and how tragic it was for him personally to have to leave a homeland he loved so deeply.”
LS: “I think that was the thing that really stuck out to me was his identity as a German and how much he enjoyed being a German. He served in the armed forces there. He was a successful businessman. And I think as someone who wasn’t particularly religious, or didn’t really identify as Jewish per se, it was very hard for him to accept the anti-Semitism and the role of Jew. It was something that, well, sure, he’s a Jew, but it wasn’t how he defined himself. It wasn’t part of his identity. And I thought that that was very interesting because I remember when I was a little kid, I used to talk to my mom when she would talk about the Holocaust, and I would say, ‘Well, I would just say that I’m not a Jew.’
“And I can’t remember what her answer was, but I remember in my innocent imagining of what that would’ve been like, that I could just say I wasn’t a Jew. Well, it doesn’t matter. It mattered what other people determined you were or what they said you were. And I thought that that was particularly tragic for Otto because it wasn’t how he defined himself or wanted to identify. But like everyone else, he had no choice. He had no say in that matter. If they could connect you to it in any way, then you were condemned to be that.”
RR: “Did you relate to Otto on a personal level as a Jew, yourself, and as a man?
LS: “I think the part that I find most relatable to Otto’s story is…well, I think the obvious piece that I can’t really begin to understand, but I think that most people relate to, is the loss of a child. But I think the piece that I can relate to is trying to be a parent and trying to be a good parent and doing your best to give those kids what they need, and to protect them and to love them and all of the feelings around that. Sometimes we think it’s hard to raise our children now, given devices, social media, the pandemic, divisive politics. But it was really powerful to me to see that there have always been parenting challenges, and that giving your children those values and that faith and the humanity that sustains them and drives them and makes them hopeful and optimistic and ambitious as Anne certainly was, was really an extraordinary accomplishment on both their parts, Otto and his wife.”
RR: “Yeah. For those who may not be familiar with the story, Anne’s story, as it’s told in this series, it focuses on Anne Frank’s story from the perspective of Miep Gies, the woman who helped hide the Franks from the Nazis in Amsterdam in the early ’40s. Liev, you’ve been outspoken about the current plight in the Ukraine. How did the current state of the world, and that war with Russia, play a role in your decision to want to play Otto, if any?”
LS: “Well, I got the script just before my second trip to Ukraine, and it just seemed like the right story at the right time. He was such an extraordinary person and someone who shines such an incredible example on our ability to say yes to each other, that it’s built into us as human beings to say yes to each other, to help to be good neighbors, to be good humans. It wasn’t a time I was particularly eager to go back to work after doing eight years of ‘Ray Donovan.’ I was really enjoying being off and being at home with my kids. But sure enough, there we are sitting on the couch watching the war develop in Ukraine and seeing these normal men, custodians, graphic design artists, teachers, painters, getting on buses and saying goodbye to their children and possibly never seeing them again.
“It just struck me as, ‘How could that be happening again in our time, that something like this would be happening in Europe or anywhere in the world?’ And when I read this script, I just thought, “‘Yeah, this is who we have to be right now.’ This was an extraordinary person and as much as we can learn from that example, I also hate to say it, but I think these things happen in patterns. I think these things tend to repeat themselves, rather, and there are patterns to what happens. There are patterns to these behaviors and I think we’re seeing some of those patterns again in Eastern Europe, and so I think it’s a good time to find a way to tell this story again. Also, we’re seeing, again, in the world a level of not just anti-Semitism, but bias and hate in general.”
RR: “Fascism,”
LS: “Fascism, yeah, that I think it’s important to remind those who are doing it in those who are receiving it that it doesn’t end well for anyone.”
RR: “I’m not sure who it was that said, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.’
LS: “Who said that? That’s great.”
RR: “Yeah, there’s a lot of truth to that.”
LS: “Yeah.”
RR: “And I know the filmmakers went to great lengths to make the story seem relatable and contemporary and not some dusty relic of history. Did that aspect appeal to you too? I mean, I saw you on a show panel, actually, insisting that you liked olden times just fine.”
LS: “I was very nervous about it. I just thought, for me, my approach to things is that they’d be believable, that you feel like it’s immersive, that you feel like you’re in it. But I just completely underestimated Bel Powley’s ability to carry things. She’s just an extraordinary actress, and her contemporary way of digging into that character was just extraordinary. And so finding the language that felt comfortable and felt contemporary, it just worked really, really well. And I think Susanna Fogel, the director, and I think Joan and Tony, did a really amazing job in finding a fresh feel for it. Making it feel sexy, making it feel current. I just loved that right off the bat, in that first episode, she’s got a gay brother. We forget that that community has existed and what it was like for them and what it was like for Miep, and her being a bit of a club kid and a night owl. It just made so much sense and it kind of brought the humanity of those characters forward in a really compelling and kind of intimate way.”
RR: “Yeah. I love the fact that, like you said, Liev, Miep was kind of partying too hard and falling in love every 10 minutes and just enjoying her life. And like you said, we somehow think that gay people sprang up in society in the ’60s or ’70s, and that they just simply didn’t exist in the ’30s and ’40s.”
LS: “Right. I also think that finding a way to make the humanity of the characters the central narrative, into which the Holocaust comes as an interruption. And I think for me, in my experience in Ukraine, that’s what I’ve seen. That’s what you forget about war. War is not about war. War is about life. War is about interrupting life. Young people who now are not able to continue their educations or their relationships because of death. They lose families and they’re now into the business of burying people or finding people. That’s what war does. There’s something really interesting about a narrative that doesn’t let war lead, that lets life lead, and I was very impressed by Joan and Tony’s ability to do that.”
RR: “And the ‘Small Light’ production itself, I know you mentioned Bel Powley as being this force of nature and an extraordinary actress, and working with Joe Cole and Ashley Brooke.”
LS: “Joe too, really. I mean, I have not seen actors that generous in a long time. Just to watch the two of them work and how they hand off to each other and how they support each other, without losing any of the behavioral stuff that most actors are so attached to. To really work off of each other in really, really gorgeous and compelling ways, I was just so impressed by both of them.”
RR: “Did it feel particularly visceral, Liev, for you and the cast and crew to be filming ‘A Small Light’ on these same Amsterdam streets where Jews were seized and shipped off to the death camps? I mean, did that extra give it sort of an extra poignance for you?”
LS: “Not so much for me. Every once in a while, you’d come across the building that they lived in, or something like that where we’d visit the Anne Frank House. But it’s still, somehow, so intangible for me. And I think, also, when I’m working on something, it doesn’t really exist outside of my consciousness, if that makes any sense. In other words, it’s kind of impossible that they existed because I’m existing now. I’m doing it in a funny way. But I noticed that on these darker narratives and darker productions that the cast really seems to bond more. We definitely went out for a lot more dinners and drinks than you normally do on a job like this.”
RR: “Not just because you were on location?”
LS: “It’s something about shaking it off or something, or it’s something about fighting back against the subconscious sadness that this material elicits. And that’s a great and sort of odd thing about this story, is that everybody knows how it ends. But of course, the characters didn’t so you have to find a way to do that. You have to find a way to keep that at bay, to keep the end at bay. You don’t know what happens. You can’t because they didn’t. But of course, we all do.”
RR: “Yeah. That’s the part of it, too, Liev, is we think, ‘Well, it’s heading toward 1945. They’ve got to know it’s going to come to an end,’ but they didn’t know it was coming to an end.
LS: “Right.”
RR: “We know only because we’re looking back into the past.”
LS: “That’s probably how you make it two years in an attic is, you think every next day could be the day.
RR: “Exactly. Yeah. Does what’s going on politically in this country and, frankly, in the world, make the story feel scarier now to be part of that?”
LS: “I’m trying to learn to be an optimist, and I do think that Miep’s words are true, that anyone can turn on a small light in a dark room. And I think that collectively, doing that in the smallest way…maybe it’s not hiding a family in a jam factory, but it is just these little acts of kindness and compassion that we can keep generating that I really do believe make a huge difference. And so I’m super proud to be a part of her story.”
RR: “It seems like this project, just in general, has this kind of a special place in the hearts of everyone who not just worked on it but has seen it too. I mean, the critics and viewers, I’ve rarely seen the kind of universal praise the series has gotten.”
LS: “It’s great to find a hero. She’s an extraordinary person, Miep. This tiny little woman who did these huge things. We overlook these people and it’s so great that we’ve corrected that mistake, that people have gone back and said, ‘No, no. This is who we are. This is what our humanity amounts to. This is who we are at our best. We’re this 4’10” person who sticks up for somebody against incredible odds’.”
RR: “And we all like to think we would be that person if it shifted onto us, but none of us really knows until it’s happening, do we?”
LS: “Right.”
RR: “None of us really knows if we’re going to rise to that occasion like that. And it’s interesting the way that Miep, even though we knew her story before…but who hid Anne Frank and her family had largely fallen through the cracks in terms of universal renown, or at least in this country.”
LS: “There was an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago about dogs, and the genetics behind dogs that they think may inform the genetics behind humans is that it wasn’t really survival of the fittest. It turns out it was survival of the friendliest. And the writer speculates in this article that part of why we’ve done so well is not because of our ambition, our intelligence, or anything else. It’s because of our ability to come together in communities, and I like that idea. I like that idea that it’s genetically built into us to look out for each other, to take care of each other. And of course, there are these waves of aggression and confusion and greed, and all these other things. But I do believe that idea that it is built into us, that what Miep did is kind of par for the course with our species hopefully.”
RR: “That is the optimistic, glass half-full way to look at it, so you’re learning.”
LS: “I’m trying.”
RR: “Well I know it doesn’t keep you up nights, Liev, but it would be nice, I imagine, to get another Emmy nomination. And the fact that you’re 0 for 9 so far in terms of nominations, is that …”
LS: “Yeah, my kids think it’s pretty funny. It might ruin a terrible joke if I won anything. My kids love ragging me about the Emmys.”
RR: “I remember when ‘The Larry Sanders Show’ had been nominated for 45 Emmys over a period of six years, and they finally won one in their final nomination. Garry Shandling won and he’s like, ‘This is going to ruin it completely for me’.”
LS: “Yeah.”
RR: “Yeah. But thank you for doing this. I think we’re out of time here, Liev.”
LS: “Thank you.”
RR: “You can see Liev Schreiber in ‘A Small Light’ on NatGeo, and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. Best of luck to you this Emmy season, and tell your kids I wished you luck as well.”
LS: “Thank you, Ray.”
RR: “Thanks for joining us today at Gold Derby.”
LS: “My pleasure.”
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