II came into my hotel room yesterday and really cried with joy,” says Emilio Sakraya, and one is taken aback: Excuse me? First encounter, first question, and this young man says with the greatest of ease that he is crying with joy? But the actor continues to talk: it came over him, in the hotel, he suddenly realized what a beautiful point in his life he was at.
“Because in this whole rush, there’s often not enough time to realize what you’re doing and how cool it actually is,” says Sakraya. On the outside, such an existence between screen, stage and Instagram might seem simple and glamorous. In fact, it is “extremely exhausting, an awful lot of work and emotionally very stressful”. Hence the overwhelm the day before: “It was pure gratitude that I felt there.”
A hotel with a view of the Tiergarten: 26-year-old Sakraya, who was born and raised in Berlin and now lives in Munich, has come from Budapest, where he is currently filming, for two days of interviews. Fisherman’s hat, cargo trousers and Chucks as well as an extra wide T-shirt: a harmless little flower on sky blue, with forearms like footballer’s calves. Sakraya has poured himself a cappuccino from the espresso machine, which he immediately passes on to the interviewer because he recently decided not to drink coffee all the time. He speaks quickly and reflects.
“Art saved me,” says Emilio Sakraya about himself.
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Bild: Jens Gyarmaty
This young man’s great fortune in life has a lot to do with the new Fatih Akin film. “Rheingold” tells the biography of the rapper Xatar, who came to Germany as a Kurdish refugee boy, made headlines in 2009 with the attack on a gold transporter and made his breakthrough as a musician from prison.
Now the athletic, sunny Sakraya, who conquered the German cinema landscape as the heartthrob from the “Bibi & Tina” films and is sometimes compared to Elyas M’Barek, is not the most obvious choice for a bald-headed gangster rapper with a rather bulky build. But Akin has always not only had an eye for German stories and conditions beyond the mainstream, but also for fresh talent. “Emilio is one of the reasons why I do this job,” says Akin. A film like “Rheingold” needs glamour; You either have glamor or you don’t. “And Emilio has it.”
Finally not paying attention to the six-pack all the time
Three workouts a day, six meals: Sakraya had to put on 17.18 kilos of muscle mass for the role. “I was really happy that I didn’t have to make sure that I only eat salad and that my six-pack looks great all the time,” says the actor, who is well aware that he is otherwise also cast for appearances. His charming smile, which always seems to cover up a little insecurity and covers the entire face with such beauty, hardly comes into its own in “Rheingold”. Xatar himself shaved his head.