Something new with the “old”: There is a new investigator in the ZDF cult thriller. From this Friday (March 24, 8:15 p.m.) Thomas Heinze (“Das Superweib”) is the new main actor and can be seen as investigator Caspar Bergmann in the ZDF cult thriller.
“I’m not too young for the old man,” says the 58-year-old in an interview with the German Press Agency. “I’m eight years older than Jan was, the youngest old man.”
Heinze’s predecessor, Jan-Gregor Kremp, has been number four as Richard Voss since 2012. It all started in 1977 with Siegfried Lowitz (“The Invisible Claws of Dr. Mabuse”), who embodied the gnarly chief inspector Erwin Köster in the first 100 episodes until 1986 and was struck down by a bullet at the end.
He was followed from 1986 to 2008 by Rolf Schimpf (“It doesn’t always have to be caviar”) as Commissioner Leo Kress. Walter Kreye took over as Rolf Herzog until 2012. Heinze is now the fifth “old man”.
Heinze: Age as a sign of respect
“I don’t think the label is really about age, it’s more like a show of respect and means he’s quite a fox,” he says.
The new fox is called Chief Inspector Caspar Bergmann, comes from Hamburg and is now supposed to head Homicide Commission II in Munich. And before he has really arrived, he is called to his first crime scene. “What branch? Murder and manslaughter,” he replies to the taxi driver who drives him there – and puts on his sunglasses in the car.
Heinze’s first case as a Munich “old man” is the violent death of bank clerk and family man Martin Feldkamp, who is found shot dead on the lake shore. Investigators quickly find out that the murder victim lost his job a year ago. But how could the ex-banker continue to afford his luxurious lifestyle without an income?
Who’s the new boss?
That’s just one of the questions that Bergmann and his new team have to answer. But colleague Annabell Lorenz (Stephanie Stumph) is not entirely focused – she puts more energy into researching her new boss than into finding out who the murderer was. Because his distant nature (“How so’n Fisch”) irritates her more and more. “Maybe that’s the cool, North German way?” says IT expert Julia Lulu Zhao (Yun Huang). But Lorenz is certain: “He messes everything up, hey.”
So it may take a while before the team has grown together and can work without any conflict. From the point of view of actor Heinze, however, it shouldn’t be about too much personal: Caspar Bergmann was “not that happy either,” he told the dpa. “After all, he has to cope with the loss of his wife. But that’s not the focus. He’s an old fox who you primarily want to see if he can crack the case and from my point of view that’s what the success of the series.”
