Original subtitles

It happened like this: I got the lead role in Frankenstein.

I was in the Piazza Navona in Rome, in the center, with a beautiful fountain.

I had a completely different status.

People waved to me.

And suddenly I wasn't just in the German daily press, but in Vogue.

I went from regular newsprint to glossy, which was very pleasant.

And the actor who played Frankenstein's monster

was supposed to play Dracula.

But then there were some problems with the work permit.

Word got around and then everyone came to Cinecitta and wanted to play Dracula.

Like Johnny Holiday, and a lot of famous actors that I don't want to name.

Then the cameraman came up to me and said,

“Tell me, why don't you play Dracula?”

I told him I was already very glad I had the chance to play Frankenstein.

I didn't want to be rude.

But then came the last day of shooting and I was sad that this glamour was over.

Andy Warhol said it: 15 minutes of fame. For me it was 3 weeks, thank God.

It came to an end and I went to the canteen

and ordered a small bottle of white wine. I sat there sad, like Frankenstein sad,

between Fellini figures.

And then,

Paul Morrisey came in and looked at the wine.

And he said, "Well,

I think we have a German Dracula!”

And I asked, "Who?"

He said, "You!

"But you need to lose ten pounds in the next week."

"You're not allowed to have any more energy because you're addicted to blood."

I said, “N0 problem!” and I stopped eating.

I just drank water and had a lettuce leaf here and there.

After a week I was so weak that I had to be carried in a wheelchair.

So it's not just Robert De Niro.

Udo Kier also prepared for his roles in his early years.

So I was in a wheelchair because I had no strength.

And that's how the second film came about.

The first one was called FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN

and the second BLOOD FOR DRACULA.

And, urn,

we also filmed three weeks. Thank God we didn't film in 3D, so we were much faster.

We shot in a mansion, not in Cinecitta but in Frascati.

Which was really funny because the owner was insane.

His family financed his treatment by renting this mansion.

And at the same time a porn movie was being shot there.

Every now and then I would end up running into the wrong set.

I had to forbid them from using my footage.

There were so many secret doors there.

That was three weeks in Frascati as Dracula.

Again with Joe

and four beautiful women, Vittorio De Sica, and

a famous lady, a countess, Maxime de la Falaise from New York.

Vittorio de Sica, God bless him.

He plays the father of four daughters which all have different accents.

One was a Yugoslavian, one was Italian, one was French,

and one from a beautiful country in the east.

And the philosophy was that Dracula was leaving Romania

because he couldn't find any more virgins to bite.

And then he is advised to go to religious Italy because all virgins are there.

Then I come into this family with these four daughters,

but they do it in the garden with the gardener, Joe Dallesandro.

So they are no longer virgins. And then I bite them.

I do these interviews. They sit on the bed and

I'm in a wheelchair in front of them, asking,

“When you were little, didn't the doctor touch you? There or there or there?"

I believed these young girls and then threw them on the bed.

I bit them and sucked out a few liters of blood.

Then I turned green, because they weren't really virgins anymore.

And then I puked. That was Warhol's famous puke scene in the bathtub,

where I puked liter after liter.

The scene was created by a trick that I will of course not reveal.

And so Dracula just keeps getting weaker because

he sucks the four daughters one by one, and they're all no longer virgins.

And later a stake will be struck through his heart.

And Warhol himself,

I'm only telling you this because

both films were called ANDY WARHOL'S FRANKENSTEIN and ANDY WARHOL'S DRACULA.

Warhol had the original idea of the beginning,

where this white-haired man does his own makeup,

with his fingers and slowly becomes a vampire at the end.

Revealing the teeth was his idea.

And then he wanted, and I would have liked it,

Dracula to always have an erection.

And there's always a droplet on his silk pants. I really would have liked this.

Of course the pious Italians refused.

But those were Andy Warhol's two ideas.

The good thing now, when I think about it,

is that Dracula, like Frankenstein, can't be made any better.

Coppola can't do that, and neither can the Internet.

These were poetic films with a seriousness and lots of blood.

Today it would all be CGI. The vampire goes ARRGGH,

jumps down, becomes a wolf, and bites somebody's leg. That's all bullshit.

I wouldn't make films like that. I only let myself be persuaded once

for BLADE,

the first part, where I play the lead vampire.

It was nice that I explode and they tear my teeth out.

Well that's a different story. Umm, it was wonderful.

Interviewer] But you still did a few films with vampiric themes.

Oh, if you're so well informed then why don't you tell me.

I think I was once killed by Rod Steiger in THE REVENANT.

Not a good movie! What else was there?

SLEEP OF IDIOTS by Christoph Schlingensief?

I don't think so.

At least a homage?

Yes.

Can you please elaborate?

I don't remember. I think I was a vampire driving on some board.

Dracula in a wheelchair by Schlingensief.

It wasn't a real wheelchair. lt was more like a board with wheels, wasn't it?

- You always know things better than me. - I'm not sure.

I thought it was a wheelchair.

Well, if you think it was a wheelchair then it had to be one.

You also did a German comedy.

Which one?

DIE EINSTEIGER. Here's a photograph.

Einsteiger?

Ah, yes, that one.

- Do you want to see the photo again? - Why?

Why are you trembling like that?

Are you so in awe of me that you tremble so much?

It was interesting because Thomas G0ttschalk's wife, Thea, plays a vampire.

I liked the idea of two friends jumping into all the films on TV.

There was a vampire film on TV.

And then suddenly Mike Kruger and Thomas Gottschalk said,

“Look, a vampire!”

Thea played my wife, and they were walking through a castle of vampires.

That's just a brief appearance. What else do you have?

SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE.

Yes, SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE.

Oscar nominated.

Malkovich. I have to confess that I was very jealous.

Willem Dafoe was nominated for an Oscar.

He played Nosferatu, and I just played the producer.

And there I really was,

well, not exactly dying of jealousy or fuming with rage,

but I was really a little jealous.

Because I would have loved to play the role.

Willem Dafoe went into makeup

and 2.5 hours later he came out as Nosferatu. I liked that.

If.' 'I

A title that is maybe a little too sensational.

Why is that? We've been talking about fucking all day.

SPERMULA is a part 0f it.

People expected that...

You don't fuck without a Spermula.

I'll tell you a story, so I can pass the time while I'm sitting in the spotlight.

We should have some smoke to make it more exciting.

Does anyone have a cigarette? N0? Do any of you smoke?

Yes? Who then?

[Sound-man] I'm recording. I can't smoke right now.

But I can smoke.

[Interviewer] Does anyone have a cigarette for Udo?

The addiction. Oh no, I can't do that, it's too distracting.

A normal cigarette?

Please go outside and tell them I need a cigarette.

And if you don't find one, go outside.

No, you don't have to go that far. He's just teasing you.

Where were we?

If.' 'I

SPERMULA, that's a nice story. I was in, um,

Alejandro Jodorowsky, for me one of the best and

most discussed directors,

asked me to go to Cannes for the film DUNE,

which was later not made by him but by David Lynch.

I was in Cannes walking with Jodorowsky and then I see an advertisement.

Umm,

A little plane with some kind of flag. What do you call it?

Banner! With a banner on the plane and it said SPERMULA.

Then I said to Alejandro that it was so rude!

"After DRACULA, are they making SPERMULA now?”

I was living in Paris at the time and got a call from a director, Charles Matton,

who wanted to meet me in a very good restaurant, the Laco Paul de Matre.

I met him and asked, “What is the name of the film you want to make?”

"SPERMULA!" I said, "You can't be serious!"

And he told me that the title SPERMULA was just the producer's idea.

He would have rather called the film LOVE IS A RIVER IN RUSSIA.

But then he wouldn't get any money.

Then I shot SPERMULA. I played the agent of a group of women

from another planet who exchange art.

Like the Mona Lisa, for example. And I played Werner, their agent on earth.

They're some sort of vampires.

They put the man's genitals in their mouths which makes them vampires.

Just to put it nicely.

[Interviewer] There was a project with George Moorse for WDR.

GHOST STORIES, an anthology series.

Ah yes! Do you have one?

And a light, too? Ah, wonderful.

- That was... - Should we take a break?

No, it's a documentary, it's cool. A cigarette comes into frame.

But I'll get into trouble with the producers.

Why's that?

[Interviewer to Assistant] You just can't walk into the frame with a cigarette.

Relax, it's a great shot. Now it's getting exciting.

George Moorse. GHOST STORIES.

That was an important story for me. One of the most important stories of my life.

Not the film.

Umm, I never met my father.

Somebody helped me find his phone number.

I was already in my 40s.

Then I called this number.

I was very nervous. Sitting on the phone in Cologne, drinking wine and smoking.

A woman answered the phone and I told her I wanted to speak to Mr. Dechine.

She asked why.

And I told her I'm his son.

"On, he'll be happy!"

He wasn't home and would call me back. But the waiting was tough.

Because I knew the phone would ring at any moment, and it would be my father.

And when he finally called I said to him, "I'll be on TV tomorrow night.

There's a vampire movie

with a blond and a dark-haired young man. I am the dark-haired young man. Your son."

I never spoke to him again after that because he died.

That's why this film is so important to me. But I don't remember the plot.

I made another very nice film with George Moorse called PAN.

That's a good cue to come back to DRACULA.

You had to interrupt the filming of DRACULA in order to be able to shoot PAN.

And that's why they filmed with Polanski.

Yes, you're right.

Wait, I'll put the ashes into the empty bottle.

Polanskii...

It happened like this.

I promised George Moorse to shoot his movie.

I didn't want to be a poser, telling him because of Warhol I can't do his film.

I told our producers I had to do this and flew to Munich.

And Polanski said, "Let him go. I'll shoot a scene with you instead."

Then he did a cameo together with the writer Gerard Brasch

and Andy Braunsberg, the producer.

FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN and BLOOD FOR DRACULA would have been

a good start to a horror career.

I assume that you received offers like that. But you didn't start one.

I didn't want to, because

I knew Fassbinder from Cologne when I was 16, and I wanted to make other films.

I did DR. JEKYLL & HIS WOMEN with Borowczyk.

I also played Jack the Ripper for Borowczyk in Paris,

no, Berlin actually, in LULU.

And I mean,

playing vampires is nice, but you also want to...

When I went to America, I also played bad guys.

Embodying evil as an actor is much more interesting for the audience.

Everyone loves the evil.

Because nobody is allowed to be evil, they love the evil on the screen.

No, we're talking about Dracula today.

We can't talk about my entire filmography.

I'd still be sitting here tomorrow and my plane would be gone.

Thank you! Thank you!

Interviewer] That was good.