Werner Herzog has had a remarkably varied and prolific career. Ever since working on his first short film, Herakles, back in 1961, he’s gone on to produce, write and direct more than 60 feature films and documentaries, including adventure-drama Fitzcarraldo, historical epic Aguirre, The Wrath Of God, the 1979 version of the classic blood-sucking tale, Nosferatu The Vampyre, and many, many more.
Also included in that huge filmography is a trip to a galaxy far, far away. Yes, Herzog is part of the Star Wars family too, having played The Client in the first series of The Mandalorian, a mysterious man very keen to get his hands on “the baby”, aka. Baby Yoda, aka. Grogu. Mando co-creator Jon Favreau recruited Herzog for the part, and the Star Wars world is one he’s happy to be a part of. “Jon Favreau was deeply moved by my films,” Herzog tells Empire, in a major new career-spanning interview in the new December 2023 issue. “Once he made a remark that he wanted many, many people to know the face of the man who made all these films that he likes. We should not dismiss Star Wars: they are new mythologies and a new way of seeing our role in the universe.”
Despite turning 81 this year, Herzog is as busy as ever. He self-funded and released Japanese drama Family Romance, LLC in 2019, published his novel The Twilight World in 2022, and his latest documentary Theatre Of Thoughts, about brains and neurotechnology, is in film festivals this year. Most recently, he published his Every Man For Himself And God Against All – which he’s very keen to confirm as “not an autobiography, it’s memoirs. There’s a real distinction because autobiography would be more events, things like this. My memoirs are pure literature.” With a life like Herzog’s to mine from, that’s a whole lotta literature to enjoy.
Read Empire’s exclusive major new interview with Werner Herzog in the new Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom issue, on sale Thursday 26 October – pre-order a copy here. Every Man For Himself And God Against All is out now.