There is a bit of mystery hanging over the cast list for director Luca Guadagnino's upcoming remake of the 1977 Dario Argento classic SUSPIRIA. While actress Tilda Swinton is confirmed to be playing Madame Blanc in the film (she even got her own character poster a while back), a year and a half ago we also saw some pics from the set of the remake that claimed to show Swinton buried under makeup, playing an elderly man. The cast list doesn't have Swinton listed as playing two characters, though. In fact, the elderly Dr. Klemperer character is said to be played by Lutz Ebersdorf, an 82-year-old German actor making his screen debut.
Ebersdorf's IMDb page even has a mini bio that was supposedly written by Ebersdorf himself:
Lutz Ebersdorf was born on February 15th, 1936 in Munich, Germany.
In 1938, when Ebersdorf was just two, his family fled Nazi Germany: first for Geneva in Switzerland, and then to London. Spending most of his youth in Camberwell, London, Lutz returned to Munich in 1954, where he studied Philosophy, taking a particular interest in Gestalt psychology and Psychodrama.
Having graduated in 1957, Ebersdorf went on to co-found the experimental theatre group Piefke Versus – a radical performance ensemble heavily influenced by the Vienna Actionists and in particular the work of Hermann Nitsch. While supporting himself working odd-jobs for several years, Ebersdorf and the other members of the group staged sporadic performances, often in public spaces, and produced several short art films (now believed to be lost films).
Ebersdorf eventually disbanded Piefke Versus in 1964, leaving him free to pursue his studies in Kleinian psychoanalysis. He received his doctorate in 1967. Ebersdorf has worked in Berlin as a practicing Kleinian analyst, specialising in mother-daughter relationships, since 1969. In 2016 director Luca Guadagnino approached Ebersdorf to appear in Guadagnino's remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria as Dr Josef Klemperer, a Kleinian psychoanalyst.
Yet there's still this nagging suspicion that Ebersdorf is really Swinton.
Ebersdorf's Klemperer has now received his own character poster, which can be seen below. Take a good look at it – is that an 82-year-old German man, or is that a 50-something woman under an impressive makeup job?
Written by David Kajganich, the new SUSPIRIA definitely also stars Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Jessica Harper of the original film. The synopsis:
A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the troupe's artistic director (Swinton), an ambitious young dancer (Johnson), and a grieving psychotherapist (Ebersdorf). Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.
SUSPIRIA is getting a theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles on October 26, with the film expanding nationwide on November 2, 2018.