James Vanderbilt: Nuremberg Director discusses the creation of the film

Eighty years ago, the Nazi high command was put on trial in Nuremberg.

A brand new film, named for the trials, follows a lesser-known story, that of a US Army psychiatrist tasked with determining whether the detained officials were fit to stand trial.

It features Kiwi actor Russell Crowe as the charismatic Hermann Göring, Hitler’s longtime second in command, and Rami Malek as psychiatrist Douglas Kelly.

The film was written and directed by James Vanderbilt, best known for his work on The Amazing Spiderman and Zodiac.

As much as the film is about the atrocities committed by the Nazis, it's also very much about the dynamic between Göring and Kelly.

Vanderbilt told Jack Tame that one of their early inspirations was ‘Silence of the Lambs’, with a person going into a cell and sitting with a prisoner.

“In our film they’re both trying to get over on each other a little bit, they’re both trying to get something out of each other.”

“I sort of loved the idea of these two men, both trying to play each other, and yet at the same time, connecting in a way neither of them saw coming,” Vanderbilt said.

“That to me just felt delicious.”

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