‘Army of Thieves’ Announces Matthias Schweighöfer as Hollywood’s Latest Great Import

Tell us if you’ve heard this one: A German actor, with hardly an American credit to his name, gets the opportunity to co-star in an A-list director’s latest Netflix feature. In the midst of filming, it’s determined that there will be a similarly big-budget spinoff that follows his character’s origin story, and he’ll have the opportunity to direct and produce, as well as star. Both of those movies come out in the same year and become two of Netflix’s biggest original film successes to date. 

Sound unlikely? Well, that’s the story of Matthias Schweighöfer, who had his Hollywood breakout in Zack Snyder’s zombie flick “Army of the Dead” this past summer. The award-winning actor and filmmaker has now followed it up with his own “Army of Thieves.” The prequel, from screenwriter Shay Hatten, hit the platform Friday. 

Following Schweighöfer’s affable and eccentric safecracker Ludwig Dieter in the early days of the zombie apocalypse, the film tracks the events that brought him from lowly bank teller to the climactic, criminal adventures of “Army of the Dead.” Leading a group of wannabe robbers through a series of top-secret heists, “Thieves” introduces audiences to all-new characters beyond the world Snyder built, including recruiter and love interest Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel). 

It also places Dieter in a comedy-action-romance, a different genre entirely from “Army of the Dead.” With those circumstances came a creative freedom that Schweighöfer relished. 

“It’s very different from Zack’s film,” the actor and filmmaker says. “It has its own style and its own universe and its own new characters. I love that. We have Hans Zimmer’s score—that’s what I’m really proud of.” Still, he admits he was “very nervous” to follow in Snyder’s footsteps. “All the visuals that we created [in ‘Army of the Dead’] were so special.

“Then I talked to Zack,” he continues, “and we really talked a lot about photography and about the style of the film. At the end, Zack just said one line: ‘This is your film; make it your universe.’ ” The final product shares a language with Snyder’s creation while standing on its own. Perceptive viewers may even notice a visual passing-of-the-torch from “Army of the Dead”: “Thieves” begins as a darker, more muted film before gradually appearing in brighter grading, until it’s eventually brought up to Snyder’s “Dead” palette. “That was the only thing,” Schweighöfer says. “The rest, Zack was always like, ‘Do your stuff; create your film.’ ”

Joining Schweighöfer in “Army of Thieves” are faces both recognizable and new. Emmanuel was already a favorite from “Game of Thrones” and “F9: The Fast Saga”; she’s flanked by Stuart Martin as Brad Cage, the muscle; Ruby O. Fee as Korina, the hacker; and Guz Khan as Rolph, the getaway driver. London-based casting director Kate Ringsell held all the auditions remotely; Schweighöfer didn’t even meet her in person prior to filming due to COVID-19 restrictions. 

The pandemic also raised questions of whom, exactly, the production could hire. Could an American performer safely—and legally—travel to Prague for production? Schweighöfer admits those circumstances made for an especially challenging shoot. 

“It was weird to make all these decisions with a computer and a tape,” he reflects, speaking to the unorthodox audition process. Thankfully, the hired talent made his decisions easy. He remembers seeing lots of fit, handsome leading-man types for Brad, but Martin stood out from the pack by leaning into unusual performance ticks on his self-tape. “Stuart did one tiny little crazy laugh, and I saw that tape and I thought, Why the fuck is he doing this weird laugh at this moment?” Soon after, the director decided: “That’s Brad Cage.” 

From collaborating with world-renowned filmmakers like Snyder to giving little-known international actors a shot at a major Netflix franchise (new installments of Snyder’s zombie universe are already in the works), Schweighöfer boils down his working philosophy to one thing: surrounding himself with creators whose hearts are in the process as much as his is. “Because it’s your lifetime, and you spend maybe two, three years on one project or one film,” he says. “It must be worth it, you know? It’s good when you do stuff that you can show people: ‘Hey, I spent a great [deal of] time with this, so here it is.’ It’s filled with sun and heart and life and energy. So grab it; take it; use it.”