“The Devil’s Long Breath”
“Tatort-Münster” ahead of the anniversary episode: Liefers and Prahl look back on 20 years
Axel Prahl (as Frank Thiel) and Jan Josef Liefers (r) talk about 20 years of “Tatort-Münster”
© Rolf Vennenbernd / DPA
The “Tatort-Münster” is celebrating its anniversary: After 20 years, the ARD crime show is about to celebrate its 40th case. Jan Josef Liefers, aka forensic pathologist Boerne, and Axel Prahl, aka Commissioner Thiel, looked back on the past few years and also talked about the future.
In an interview with the “Bild” newspaper, Jan Josef Liefers and Axel Prahl looked back on moving moments of the past 20 years at the Münster “crime scene”. It is hardly surprising that shooting was different then than it is today. But how was the first episode? The shoot took place “between caravans and cameras,” Prahl recalls. And the initial relationship with Liefers? “It was love at first sight,” said “Tatort” commissioner Thiel to the newspaper. Liefers adds: “We were young, life still lay ahead of us. What could have become of us… On the other hand, the Münster couple has now lasted longer than the longest grand coalition.”
Prahl also remembers the first sentences of the script at the time, which the two actors exchanged: “That was a meeting in the hallway and I had a box with a bed frame that was very heavy on my shoulder. I only know that this box said : ‘For your back’s sake.’ And the professor said, I think, something like: ‘Oh, there you are.’ Shortly thereafter, I knocked out his front teeth with the cardboard.”
Unforgettable moments, similarities and cuddly toys
The incident is certainly one of those moments that Prahl and Liefers will not forget. When asked what the two actors will remember about each other, Liefers reveals: “He once poured coke into a twelve-year-old, cellar-aged top red wine so that it tasted better. Unforgettable!” Prahl’s answer, on the other hand, is more diplomatic and leaves room for interpretation: “Being resentful is not a quality that I particularly value. I prefer to discuss things and then put them to rest.”
Sunday night’s episode will also feature a mysterious plush koala. Did Prahl and Liefers have a cuddly toy themselves as children? Prahl reveals: “I had a knitted dachshund about two meters long that my mother had made for me. It was a kind of sausage roll, brightly colored stripes, with hanging plush ears. And of course I also had a teddy bear.” Liefers still has its “brown bear” today – for more than 50 years.
Prahl and Liefers have not only been “crime scene” colleagues for two decades, but also friends. It goes without saying that they know each other very well. And they have one thing in common, as becomes clear. “Jan is downright pedantically punctual…”, states Prahl. Liefers reacts: “Axel only knows that because he is overly punctual!”
When asked for advice to the other colleagues, Prahl addressed the message to the medical examiner Boerne: “With the iWatch you can not only read your pulse and heart rate, make phone calls or read e-mails. It also shows the time!”
How the “Tatort-Münster” colleagues would kill themselves in quarantine
If they had to spend 40 days in quarantine together, who would kill whom first and how? “Bild” wants to know. Commissioner Thiel would rely on hydrochloric acid, as he says. “I think that’s the cleanest solution.” Forensic pathologist Boerne would take it less brutally: “I would chatter him to death. That leaves no fingerprints.”
The actors are best known for the “crime scene” in Münster. When asked which duo the two could play apart from the ARD evening thriller, they have a funny answer ready. Prahl jokes: “We’re already very successful at playing Hansel & Stupid on Facebook and Instagram.” Liefers also mentions other duo roles: “Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, Dick and Doof, C & A, Benson and Hedges, Beauty and the Beast.”
Directly based on the “crime scene”, the “image” wants to know who Prahl and Liefers would like to have as a corpse under their fingers. “Oh, I could think of a few. But I’d rather not say that here, otherwise I’ll be lying on the dissection table myself later on,” says Prahl. Liefers is more honest: “Since every ‘corpse’ gets up again and lives happily on, I would be for Harald Schmidt. Jens Spahn would also fit, he’s from the Münsterland.”
Prahl and Lichters about the end of their Tatort career
After the 20th anniversary of the Münster “crime scene”, the question naturally arises as to how long Prahl, 61, and Liefers, 57, will continue to play their roles until they retire? “Of course! And the last episode takes place in the Bahamas,” says Prahl. Liefers replies jokingly: “Why the Bahamas? Until then, the pension will be tax-free again.”
And what should an end to retirement look like? “The Burning Man Festival should be filmed, with Liefers and Prahl. Final episode 2065,” Prahl suggests. “Absolutely! In a fireball to the sky. Branson, Bezos, Musk … they have to be topped,” says Liefers.
Source: “image“