Actor Tom Keune, who stars in one of SAP’s new german mid market adverts, agreed to a short interview. Tom and I know each other from voluntary service work we both did in Aachen, Germany a few years ago.

MK: Hello Tom. What is it you currently do? What are you working on?

TK: At the moment I am playing at “Theater Junge Generation”, Dresden (Theatre Young Generation) with a repertoire of 11 productions. Amongst other I starred as Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust I and Hämon in Antigone. In autumn 2007 I will change to the Gerhard Hauptmann Theatre, Zittau.

MK: What did you know about SAP before you started work on their commercial?

TK: Before the first casting relatively little. I knew it was a software company, that’s all. In my job you do not get in contact with SAP’s products.

MK: How long did the work take?

TK: Work on the commercial itself took about 11 hours. But if I add it all up (casting, recall, fitting, learn texts, commuting, etc), it’ll probably be more like 33 hours.

MK: How difficult is it to make the transition from theatre to something like the SAP commercials, for example? Do you prepare yourself?

TK: The basic approach is not very different. In most cases, the focus is to make the character believeable. Together with the information of the planned campaign (what kind of customers are to be targeted? etc) an idea has to be developed that leaves a tangible impression within the available 14 seconds. You barely get the chance to present a development. And during the shoot the director, of course, wants to see the character that was casted by him as well as by the client. In this sort of setup, searching the right character usually takes place during casting.

Focus of this campaign is to weaken typical prejudices against SAP in a fun and appeasing way. It’s not as if we only shot this one ad for 11 hours: I worked at 3 different sets in 3 different outfits in about 70 variations on this theme. Together with the recordings of my colleagues the best combination had to be found to suit the market, but obviously I wasn’t involved in this anymore.

MK: What are your future plans? Do you have a “dream role”?

TK: Planning becomes more and more difficult… first and foremost I want to make good theatre, with a good cast and an audience who enjoys watching it. Unfortunately that’s not always the case.I don’t have a dream role in the classical way. At the moment I am interested in male theatre roles by Horvath and Lorca.

MK: Tom, thanks for this interview and all the best for the future !