If there’s something that distinguishes a new wave of German-born acting talent, it’s the risks these performers will take in the name of their art. Consider Thomas Kretschmann giving sympathy to a Nazi officer in The Pianist, Til Schweiger taking to the skies as The Red Baron, or Michael Fassbender wasting away to nothing as IRA martyr Bobby Sands in Hunger. But few Teutonic travails for the sake of cinema can match Benno Furmann’s latest adventure in his native land, as he puts all of his nerves, muscle and emotion into one of the most astonishing and true mountaineering tales in anyone’s language.

The saga of Toni Kurz is on majestic display in North Face, which shows the real triumph and tragedy that helped drive the “mountain” films that were a staple of German cinema during the 1920s and ’30s. But none of that set-bound nationalistic fervor could compare to the real dangers and glory faced by adventurers like Kurz and his best friend Andreas (Florian Lukas). Though both men might despise the Nazis, that matters naught to the devouring eye of the gathered German press who see their climb up the Eiger’s north face as a triumph for The Fatherland. But their media circus turns into a deathwatch as the mistakes of a Fascist-loving Austrian team bring Toni and Andreas to the abyss between life and death. Pushed beyond the bounds of human exhaustion, their struggle assumes tragically operatic dimensions — one made even more harrowing by the fact that it’s essentially Furmann following Kurz’s perilous footsteps and desperate grips for real — a terrifying commitment to the part that might elevate this actor to the highest peak ever reached by someone playing a mountaineer.

But then you might say there’s always been something a bit haunted and tense about this Berliner’s unique charisma. Furmann appeared in several German films before going to New York City in 1991 to truly get schooled in life, working as a bouncer and taking acting lessons at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. Numerous films and television shows followed Furmann’s return to Germany, but it would be 2000’s The Princess and the Warrior that truly broke him out as an international “shooting star.” In 2003, Furmann got his biggest English language part as a supernatural “sin eater” opposite Heath Ledger in The Order. Furmann then made another worldwide impression as a German soldier, whose haunting voice helps create the Christmas Truce of WWI in Joyeux Noel. American audiences have since seen Furmann as Inspector Detector in Speed Racer, then as a sword-wielding soldier in the effects extravaganza Mutant Chronicles. This year, Furmann will return to the arena of WWI but as a German POW on English soil in Jon Amiel’s Angel Makers.

But this February, it’s all about the perilous nooks and crannies that mean life or death on The North Face, which stands as the actor’s most impressive film and work to date — a mix of mountaineering reality and top-notch effects that certainly put Benno Furmann into the part.

Daniel Schweiger: They say people climb a mountain because it’s there. Was that why you wanted to make North Face?

Benno Furmann: Each one of us has a different calling, and I found it very philosophical about why some of them go up into the mountains. They test their wills, they test their bodies, and do what they do because of who they are. The guys in North Face wanted to do the impossible, and they paid so bitterly for it. For me as an actor, there are certain films that you just have to do. I’m a passionate outdoors person who likes to read the stories about the great adventurers of history. I was aware of this story because I’d seen the photographs of Toni Kurz hanging there, and making a film about him was a dream come true. It also made us confront problems we’d never dealt with before because none of us had made a mountaineering movie before.

DS: They actually took pictures of Toni hanging there?

BF: Yes. Today, you’d think it would be pretty crazy that he wasn’t rescued. Toni died seven meters diagonally to the point where they could have gotten to him. But you didn’t have helicopters or cellphones back then — none of the technological shebang, so it’s absurd from today’s perspective the way he had to die. And that loneliness was captured in this one photo they shot from the tunnel in the mountain. It’s a brutal and cold photo of a corpse grown over with ice.

DS: How do you get yourself into that physical state?

BF: To imagine the loneliness and devastation that Toni went through, spiced up with the temperature and the fatigue, is a dreadful situation to be in. I felt very strongly for Toni, and gave it all I had.

DS: Did you ever get into any life-threatening situations while shooting North Face?

BF: I remember one time I climbed down where there were many ropes for so many people, from the film crew to the actors. Then, after I’m down five meters, I hear one guy say, “Benno, don’t freak out, but your rope isn’t attached. You’re on the wrong one. Can you come up again?” I swear to you, I’ve never climbed so carefully, step by step, to the point where I’d come from! But nothing else like that happened on the shoot, knock on wood. We always knew that there was a hot bath waiting for us after a long day’s work.

DS: I don’t know if I’m reading too much into this, but there’s certainly an interesting metaphor here about two Germans trying to make it up the mountain. They don’t want to be Nazis. And the two people who lethally screw it up for them up are Austrians, climbers who hail from Hitler’s home country. It’s another example of Austria messing up Germany.

BF: I know exactly what you’re saying. The people who are going to die shouldn’t be these particular Germans.

DS: In the end, do you think there’s something in the German blood that makes them want to climb these mountains?

BF: No, I think that happens with anyone in the world who lives close to a mountain. It’s because they live in the valleys below these peaks that they want to widen their horizons by traveling up and beyond the mountains. It’s the same kind of natural impulse that you’d have if you live close to the sea. You’ll travel it to see what’s on the other side. So if you live close to a mountain, you’ll travel up them to extend your world.

DS: You got your acting start in New York City with Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio.

BF: Yes, I found New York to be a good place, and a lot of good things came out of that city. I set the goal for myself to become an actor. I went to drama school every day, where I failed and got up again. I fell in love with the city, and it was a very important part of me becoming who I am.

DS: The first film that got you real notice was Tom Tykwer’s The Princess and the Warrior.

BF: You have a handful of films that you do that you find important, and The Princess and the Warrior is one of the dearest to me, especially because it was the first film of mine to go to international film festivals like Venice and Toronto.

DS: Another film that brought you international acclaim is Joyeux Noel.

BF: People still give me Christmas trees wherever I go because of it! Audiences loved the film, especially in France and Germany. They’d come to me after the screenings and show me handwritten letters that their great-uncles and grandfathers had sent from the front. They’d tell their personal stories about what happened to them at Christmas Day when they spontaneously called truces.

DS: For me, one of your best and most unsung roles is playing the immortal sin-eater opposite Heath Ledger’s priest in The Order.

BF: I flew to London to meet the writer and director, Brian Helgeland. He liked me, although the studio wanted someone else, but he asked me to fly to Rome to do another audition anyway, even though I didn’t want to impose myself on a studio that wanted someone else. C’est la vie! But thankfully I did the Rome trip, and they called me up to do the film. It was fantastic to work with Heath Ledger in Rome, in this ancient city that put out this vibe for us. I mean, how do you prepare for a role like that?! You have to travel a road that’s strictly in your imagination. It was a shoot I enjoyed very much.

DS: When you look at other German actors who’ve made it big in Hollywood, what do you think the key to success is for them?

BF: I really don’t know because I’m not successful enough in Hollywood yet to be answering that question. After all, if you’re shooting an American western, why would you hire Benno Furmann? But I’m always happy to be making movies here, especially because it’s so interesting when people from different countries get together to work creatively. They share a similar, artistic language that’s easy to understand.

Special thanks to Nancy Bishop and Venice Magazine.