Nuremberg: John Slattery keeps the Nazis in check - Full Interview

Nuremberg: John Slattery keeps the Nazis in check - Full Interview Dive deep into the heart of history with John Slattery (Mad Men, Spotlight) in this unmissable FULL INTERVIEW from the set of Nuremberg (2025) – the gripping WWII thriller starring Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring and Rami Malek as the psychiatrist unraveling Nazi minds! As Colonel Burton C. Andrus, the no-nonsense prison commandant who locked down the world's most notorious war criminals, Slattery reveals how he "kept the Nazis in check" during the iconic 1946 trials. From tense standoffs with Göring to the moral tightrope of humanity vs. justice, this convo uncovers the untold stories that inspired the film – based on the real-life drama of Jack El-Hai's The Nazi and the Psychiatrist.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everyone. I'm here with the amazing John Slattery, who
stars in the upcoming film Nuremberg. And John, you play
Colonel Burton c Andres, who is a pretty strict disciplinarian,
and you have a lot on your shoulders. You have
to keep some of the most notorious Nazis alive for

(00:24):
the Nuremberg Trials. I would love to know, John, did
you pull from any of your previous roles that you've
taken part of to infuse into this character or did
you kind of go from scratch?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I would say I kind of went from scratch. I mean,
I don't know anybody very much liked this character, and yeah,
I felt a responsibility to him. He wrote a book
of his own. I read that. I read the book
on which the script is based and the script many times,

(01:00):
and spoke with Jamie Vanderbilt to try to the director
and the writer to try to figure out which parts
of this person's personality would contribute to telling the story.
Not everything is in there. He was a bit of
a peacock. He would wear these this shiny helmet like
George Patten, wore a lot and had a writing crop.

(01:23):
And and we didn't we eliminated the helmet because we
thought it might be distracting. But the authority part I
had to try to figure out how to do because
I don't and I don't have a lot of authority
over anyone in my life.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
And I you are very good at kicking a specific
characters out of your office.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I must say, well, yeah, that was that's good. I mean, yeah,
you know that was the director's help with with Jamie's help,
because when I read it, I was like, I don't
think I can pull this off, and he's you know,
because I thought, you know, you need like I don't
see myself as a military a person who I don't
have that energy. And I had to figure out how

(02:06):
to how to do it in a way that would
contribute to the story and not get in the way
and be appropriately authoritative because there were some big personalities
in this story.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
You were a perfect concoction intermixed with Russell Crowe, Remmie Malec,
Leo Woodhall, Michael Shannon. How is it working alongside of
these huge stars in this film?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I mean it was. It was daunting in the before
before I got there, because I thought, well, how am
I going to, you know, exert any authority over these people,
and you know, everybody goes into it with some trepidation
as to whether the choices they've made before they get
there are the ones that are going to work. And
then you play off of what everybody else brings to

(02:52):
the table. And I think, as Russell has said a
couple of times, you know, when you get there and
you see this team of people who are all bringing it,
you feel like, you know, you got to bring your
best work because they're going to bring theirs, and that
elevates the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
You blended quite nicely with each character. I love just
watching you throughout. One of my favorite scenes is actually
where the camera really zooms in on you during one
of the trials, when they're showcasing the video footage of
the concentration camps and you're viewing kind of for the
first time, what it's like on these different concentration camps,

(03:34):
with these emaciated figures and bodies.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
I felt like that was.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
An interesting kind of turning point for your character as well.
Did you feel like you changed as far as how
you were running the facility at Nuremberg, how you were
kind of treating those who were responsible for prosecuting those
on trial in this scenario. After seeing that footage.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, the I think I forget where in the shooting
schedule that happened ever in this film. But when we
all when we saw that footage, they depending on what
the shot was, I think it was a couple of
us together in the same shot Colin Hanks, maybe in Leo.

(04:15):
I forget. But they showed us the footage and and
they set it up so that we're going to show
you this footage. We're only going to show it to
you once, because we don't want to subject people to
this over and over and over like like you oftentimes
have to do in a movie. So we're gonna show
this once. We're gonna put a bunch of cameras on you,
and then whatever your reaction is it is, and if

(04:37):
it's appropriate for the for for for watch, for putting
it in the movie, then we will. And it was
a strange I was just talking to Mike Shannon about it,
and he said it was there was a strange philosophical
argument and hard not to get into your head about
like am I supposed to act watching this thing? Or
am I supposed to just react to? And then they
and then you sit down in your seat and they

(04:59):
play the footage and you So whatever I did in
the in the movie is just watching that footage. I
had never seen it before, none of us had ever
seen it before. And then we did it once and
then and then we were out of there. So but
I don't know if it came where it came in
the in the course of shooting. So I actually went

(05:21):
to Auschwitz myself because I had some time off and
I was within driving distance, so I drove to Poland
and I found someone to take me there. And because
I didn't have any perspective on it, and the character
that I played did, and so I just tried to
gain some some a take on it and and to

(05:45):
to use going through it.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I just wanted to say, what's more difficult running Nuremberg
filled with the mostentorious Nazis or managing Don Draper at
Stirling Cooper.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
I think the Nazis the Nazis. All right.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Thank you so much, John for your time.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Appreciate it.