From 2008 Eidinger played Hamlet in the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, in 2015 Richard III. added. “I always wanted to play Richard,” says Eidinger. “He is considered the incarnation of evil. But it’s more of a piece about how someone is literally frightened by how easy it is to manipulate society and use it for your own ends. That makes it so explosive and up-to-date.”
Eidinger doesn’t have to think twice about playing Hamlet, Richard or Jedermann: “Hamlet. If I’m completely honest: I don’t need any other author besides William Shakespeare. Probably just this one piece, ‘Hamlet’, would suffice. Because you can’t ask yourself a more elementary question than ‘To be or not to be’.” In addition, says Eidinger, he has learned that the very first sentence of a character already contains the motif, the title, the topic. On “Hamlet” it’s “Who’s there?” And then the character questions himself…
But the Berliner isn’t just an actor. And he doesn’t want to be classified as such: “I would see that as an extreme limitation. I don’t want to be THE actor. I wasn’t born an actor.” He understands that there is a desire to categorize someone. “But I think it’s almost fatal to define people by their jobs. This is a criterion of the meritocracy. I want to be free in my expression – and it doesn’t matter whether I do it with a camera, with a brush, with a camera or with my body on stage.”
Eidinger is – among other things – also a DJ. And he had to realize: “It’s really irritating how difficult it is for people to accept that the person they associate with a certain job does something else.” Some would have asked themselves: “He’s a Well-known actor, why does he have to put on records now?” But Eidinger counters: “I’ve been playing records since I was twelve years old. And I released a record back in 1998.” He later began exhibiting his photos, which are mostly taken while travelling. And again it was: “I thought he was an actor. Why is he doing an exhibition now?”