Torsten Ruether is known for Leberhaken (2021), Uppercut (2025) and Uppercut: the still version (2023). He stopped by to chat with us about remaking one of his own films and more.
Today we’re talking about Uppercut which is a remake of your original movie from a couple of years ago. So, what was the process like to remake it for an international audience?
It was very interesting because, of course, once you move over the big water, you have to find some solutions for a wider audience. And we thought, okay, the basis of the story, we wanted to keep, of course, because it came just across because there were some American producers with the film festival, we had the original movie in. And these guys say, “okay, this is something like a very, very nice story, and we have to tell it again in the United States because people love these, let me say, a little outsider-ish boxing stories”.
And so, they like this vision. With some months going on, I said “once this is meant seriously”, and it obviously was, I said, “okay, let’s think about possibilities to do that very, very tiny chamber play”, which was the original movie. It was shot in three days, 110 minutes, shot in three days. So, it was tiny, it was a stage play, so, I said, “okay, let’s go with another dimension. Let’s do another time layer. Let’s do something, which could be because there is a female being a box promoter”. She does not become a fighter, for example, like in Million Dollar Baby, but she becomes a boxing promoter. And so, this project rose a little bit, and it came from that part. I had some script consultants saying,” okay, how can we do that? And how we can do that?” So, it was a process, which I really, really liked. And yeah, the proof of concept obviously was then when you get a guy like Ving Rhames, which we never dreamed of, became interested in the piece. And he read script and said, “this is very interesting to me, and I like to do such a character”. So, then there was another step to create something, which absolutely matched 100% to Ving. And yeah, in the end, when Ving was in, when Joanna Cassidy was in, we were close by and said, “okay, now we can go for it”.
Luise Großmann comes back as Toni, and she’s fantastic. Why is she so perfect to you as that character?
I had the idea to do something like, let me say, transatlantic initiatives. So, I like the idea to have, or to turn the coin in terms of an immigrant story, which is different, because she plays, as you’ve seen, a German second-generation immigrant entering this stage; they’re entering this gym. It was, for me, when I thought about telling a story, which is based on curiosity, which is based on having something to find something like an energy between these two characters. And then I said, “okay, once she would like to do this piece again, with her character evaluating in this second time layer, it could be perfect”, because it was something like a pure energy to me to see Ving and Luise coming from so far away to each other that the conflicts were so big. So, they were so big in the beginning. And then later on, they seem to be so tiny, because these guys just ask questions and we’re curious on each other. So that was the mixture to see on the one hand to have something like a transatlantic European American initiative, with two great actors coming together, being curious on themselves, the actors and the characters. And it seemed organic and natural to me.
Absolutely, yeah. I understand there was all kinds of fun with the strikes going on, causing all kinds of delays. How did that affect the production?
Yeah, actually, it was horror, I can tell you, because the first layer was shot, and then we wanted to go for the second one. And first of all, writer’s strike and then actor’s strike. And we wanted to shoot the second layer in New York, exactly in that time gap where the actor’s strike is. So, we had to care for the waiver, we had to care for all this very, very, let me say, challenging stuff with the SAG-AFTRA, and to prove them what a production we are. And everything was in place, and it was tight, and it was on time, and everything was great. But of course, this always is something like a very nerve-racking element of such a production. But to see the benefits was, of course, that there was so much excellence in New York available, because nobody was working, and we had that waiver. So, my wonderful cast and crew, which was available, has brought this piece another step up, because in terms of production design, in terms of DOP, gaffers, and all these kinds of people, I had the best crew I can imagine. That was mind-blowing.
Now the blues, especially Buddy Guy, is almost like a character in itself, the music is important in this movie. How did you go choosing which songs to use, and does each song have a special meaning?
Yeah, I mean, Turn Me Wild is, I think, one of the mantras of this movie. I mean, this is Toni’s mantra, Turn Me Wild. And I like so much that she experiences this music as a young chick in that movie. I mean, for Elliot, it’s Buddy Guy, so these guys are very close. And this young chick from Germany, who is so, let me say, in a way, she doesn’t know this kind of thing, but obviously she likes it. And this Backup Mama track, this is still one of my all-time favorite scenes of the movie, when she dances to that song. And Backup Mama is not around, it’s also something like, let me say, something like a symbol, because the Backup Mama thing is also something which could also be addressed to that Elliot character, because she’s searching for somebody who cares for her, in a way, being privileged, but also being lost with her own fate. And so I think having this blues aspect and having this attitude, gratitude stuff, is something which is really important to the movie. I always get goosebumps on my body when Ving plays this sentence, gratitude is the key. And that’s so much about blues music. That’s why I thought it would perfectly match into that story.
Just going back to Toni’s dance sequence there. Was that choreographed, or did she improvise, because it looked very natural?
Both. We had with Mike Tyas, we had one of the major choreographers, dance choreographers, from Los Angeles with us. So he trained with Luise, I guess, for days to that dancing scene, but it came out of her improvisation. What these guys did, Mike and Luca, was just putting it into context to the music. That was really important, and it was so nice.
I have some cell phone footage on the rehearsals to see that today. It’s very interesting. But I thought it was the perfect combination not to do it as a whole improvisation, but Mike began with her giving the impact, what she felt to it, and then bringing it to shape with these heavy backs and all this kind of stuff. So I think it’s a very emotional one.
Yeah. I understand there are some long shoots. How do you keep the creative energy going over the long shoots?
Oh, that was very easy, because these guys kept the creative energy, because I had the feeling that they sometimes really forgot that they played. It was just having this kind of energy between them. There was from day two, also some improvisation, which is very, very interesting for me, for the camera guys, because I shot it the same way as I shot the German original movie. So, the cameras had to follow the actors and not the other way around. That was very important to me. There were a lot of surprising things, which I liked very much, especially once we had those longer takes, for example. Maybe you remember that Toni, when we had her very close in front of that gym experience stuff thing here, that we just see one eye. And, my DOP said, is that good for you to see just one eye? And I said “it’s perfect”, because this eye was so intense in that very moment. And this was a result of that improvisation, how she sat herself in front of that instrument. And so there are some of these momentums, which I thought to be very precious to the movie, because sometimes you can’t stage them and sometimes you can’t bring them up. But once the development is with the actors and the camera dudes, with the two wonderful camera dudes being around them, you have so many surprising angles and so many surprising stuff out there. And yeah, that really created the energy, of course, between these two people, because they had to react sometimes even spontaneously.
How would you like the film to resonate with audiences?
I think once there is somebody coming out of the theater, once they say, “I really experienced that it is worth a try to be curious on another person and not to judge him immediately or her”. I think this is so important in these times especially. And I mean, with a giant like Ving Rhames playing and sending out these signals, it could be a momentum that somebody who maybe even would have expected something like a more action-based stuff or something like that could resonate with and find interesting momentums and interesting ideas and visions to follow. So, once there’s this very experience, I would deeply cherish that.
Okay, perfect. All right, well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and all the very best with the film.
Hope to chat with you again. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
UPPERCUT will be in Theaters, On Demand and On Digital February 28, 2025.