USA TODAY International Edition
Jai Courtney navigates love, war
His Nazi soldier wrestles with duty in ‘ The Exception’
The Exception lives up to its name on star Jai Courtney’s résumé.
After roles in big- budget films such as A Good Day to Die Hard,
Terminator Genisys and Suicide Squad, the R- rated World War II thriller ( available Thursday on DirecTV, in theaters June 2) was “a nice little change of pace for me,” says the 31- year- old Australian actor, who wears the uniform of a conflicted German soldier in 1940.
USA TODAY exclusively debuts the trailer for The Excep
tion, director David Leveaux’s feature- film debut based on Alan Judd’s 2003 novel The
Kaiser’s Last Kiss. Wehrmacht officer Stefan Brandt ( Courtney) is assigned to head the bodyguard staff for the former German monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm II ( Christopher Plummer). The Nazis are concerned about reports of a British spy trying to get close to the exiled Kaiser at his Dutch mansion, and while investigating, Brandt falls for Mieke ( Lily James), a maid he discovers is Jewish.
“At what point as a human being do the bonds we share overwhelm the ideas that separate us? That seemed like a really interesting story to tell,” says Leveaux, a five- time Tony nominee.
Brandt is faced with conflict in every direction — he and the Kaiser have one idea of Germany that’s very different from that of the Nazis in power, and Courtney’s officer is faced with the question of allegiance vs. love.
“He’s a third- generation soldier, a fierce patriot, but what he’s standing for is really in jeopardy,” Courtney says. “It’s that realiza- tion that his Germany, this fatherland, is becoming something so far away from what he’s used to fighting for.
“Not every man who fought in that ( Nazi) uniform stood for those beliefs.”
After seeing Courtney’s tentpole projects, Leveaux was impressed with the actor’s sensitivity and smarts.
“To have a credible Brandt, you had to have a man who was believably a combat soldier, somebody who’s instantly alpha male — in other words, he couldn’t be Hamlet from the beginning but more like Macbeth,” Leveaux says. “It’s one thing to play a castiron hero from beginning to end but it’s quite another to play one who actually becomes authentically vulnerable — at a really inconvenient moment for him.”
Courtney had wanted to shake things up, and he was on the Ex-
ception set in Belgium just days after finishing Suicide Squad. “It was certainly a shift in atmosphere,” Courtney says with a laugh. “I had taken Captain Boomerang’s coat off and before I knew it, I was in the Wehrmacht.”
Sharing screen time with Plummer was “like free acting lessons every day,” Courtney says. “He’s one of those special treasures that you stick around to watch work because it’s such a joy to.”
Not many other than Plummer could capture the “foolishness and poignancy and arrogance and hubris of the Kaiser,” Leveaux adds. “He’s played King Lear, so he understood how to do that.”
Courtney also found a different kind of challenge in the intimate love scenes with James.
“It all comes down to the fact that it’s art and worth stretching yourself for,” he says. “Hopefully, all your artistic exploits are.”
“Not every man who fought in that ( Nazi) uniform stood for those beliefs.” Jai Courtney