Haley lays it all out in daring new film
Growing up in Arizona, Haley Lu Richardson never had much interaction with Israel’s Mossad spy agency, and certainly not with any Nazis.
Yet her new — and best — film role yet is one she was born to play.
In “Operation Finale,” out Wednesday, Richardson plays Sylvia Hermann, a real- life heroine who, through her relationship with Klaus Eichmann, the son of monstrous SS leader Adolf Eichmann, helped Israeli agents capture one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, who was living comfortably in Buenos Aires in 1960.
“Since there wasn’t so much about her, I tried to put myself in her shoes,” Richardson, 23, told The Post during a photo shoot at Essex House. “She finds out she’s in love with the son of one of the most evil people in the world who’s doing all these terrible things.”
Hermann used her closeness to the Eichmann family to help the Israelis confirm Eichmann’s identity. “She was so brave,” the actress said. And so was Richardson. At age 16, she packed her bags and moved from Phoenix to LA — by herself.
“I was watching the Disney Channel, watching these kids my age, and I thought, ‘I could do that,’ ” Richardson said.
And despite only having community theater under her belt, her graphic-designer mom and architect dad supported their daughter as she chased her dreams.
It paid off. In the film, she stars alongside Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley, who plays the elder Eichmann.
Meanwhile, Richardson’s love life is a bit more stable than her character’s. She’s now engaged to actor Brett Dier, who plays Michael on the TV series “Jane the Virgin.”