theartsdesk Q&A: actor Leonie Benesch on playing an overburdened nurse in the Swiss drama 'Late Shift'

The German actor Leonie Benesch has an issue with erratic pacing in films. "I find it awful when a character talks and then there's a two-second pause before the dialogue continues," she says.

Benesch's portrayal of a committed night nurse working in an understaffed hospital in Petra Volpe's Late Shift doesn't allow for such awkward silences. The taut medical drama plays out as a nerve-wracking thriller.

The Guildhall-trained Benesch is probably best known to British audiences for co-starring with David Tennant in the Around the World in 80 Days miniseries and for playing Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark in The Crown. It was her performance as the fierce young tutor in Ilker Çatak's 2024 arthouse hit The Teacher's Lounge that gained her attention in Hollywood. 

In Late Shift, the camera follows Benesch's Floria as she navigates a night like any other on the surgery ward where she works. Floria and her colleague are on their own, taking patients' blood pressure, handing out meds, preparing dinners – the tasks are endless, the toll exacting. Surely, this won't end well, the viewer thinks, no matter how calm, caring, and dedicated Floria is. Benesch's acting is expressive and poignant throughout.

Talking over Zoom, Benesch recalled her experience on the set, studying acting in London, and the problems with national health care systems beyond their financial constraints.

PAMELA JAHN: Floria is incredibly professional in the way she deals with everyone on her ward. What makes her such a good nurse?

LEONIE BENESCH: She is a very unpsychological character who simply enjoys her work. She approaches her shift with a healthy competitive spirit. She has no childhood trauma, nor does she have a saviour complex. She is simply focused on doing her job well – or, as well as she can under the circumstances.

Your character Carla Nowak in The Teacher's Lounge was a true idealist. Is Floria a perfectionist?

Perhaps. But not in a negative sense. She can forgive herself for making mistakes. She knows that's life.  

One of the most important skills in nursing is good coordination. How did you work with the team on set not to lose track?

There were many discussions about where the blood pressure monitor should be placed in every scene because the dramaturgy of the script is translated one-to-one into the film. It wasn't possible to simply move something around. In the end, the whole concept would have fallen apart. But when I read the script for the first time, I thought to myself, "Where are we now and who is that patient again?" 

Floria is constantly resetting her priorities based on whatever is happening at the time. How good are you personally when it comes to making quick decisions?

I think nursing feels definitely more natural to me than, for example, being a teacher like Carla Novak, because there's something very practical about taking care of other people. It involves this almost athletic aspect of solving problems and mastering many different tasks at once. I'm quite good at that, I'd say.

When Floria mixes up painkillers, the doctor says: "We all make mistakes." On the other hand, those mistakes can cost lives.

But there's no other way, especially if you're working in conditions like Floria does. It's a fact that patients die because people are working endless shifts in a row. You can't blame the nursing staff for that – it's the system that's the problem. The people at the top studied business at Harvard, but they've never visited a nursing home in their lives. They've no idea what it means to work on a hospital ward, and that's fatal in the truest sense of the word. Plus, there is a climate of bullying in many clinics, and when pressure comes from above, it always hits the weakest link in the chain, like in the film when Floria snaps at a trainee. 

How did you learn to deal with pressure on set?

It always depends on the people you work with. For example, this was a set where I didn't feel much pressure at all. It was very relaxed, weirdly enough. Most of the time, it's on the bigger productions where it can be quite helpful to develop a kind of tunnel vision. For me, it's always best if I focus entirely on myself and the part I can contribute.

You were 18 when you acted in Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon. What was it like to work with him on your first big job?

Quite overwhelming. The filming experience itself was really nice. But I had no idea who Michael Haneke was when I first met him, and when the film came out, the attention totally took me by surprise. I didn't feel protected and didn't know how to handle the situation well. Today, I know that it's important to build a good team of people around you, and that it's never about me personally. At the end of the day, it's always about business, nothing more. That's why I don't want to make it sound so negative, because this film has also given me so many opportunities. I did my A-levels first and didn't film for a long time, but The White Ribbon naturally opened all kinds of doors for me. It's a film that had a decisive influence on my career.

Nowadays, you seem to favour characters who have both feet firmly on the ground.

I think that because my career started with very insecure characters. At some point, I just didn't feel like doing that any more. Eva from The White Ribbon and Greta in Babylon Berlin are characters who have terrible things happen to them, but they stand there like a deer in the forest and everything comes crashing down on them. I felt that playing such naive characters had become a pigeonhole for me. I wanted to get out of it.

In the British miniseries Around the World in 80 Days, you play Abigail Fix, a self-confident journalist. Did you relate more to her?

It always depends on the situation, but I do think Abigail and I share a certain defiance and recklessness. I think about how I went to London at the age of 22 and got myself into absurd debt, not knowing if I would ever earn enough money to pay it back. I was scared, of course, but I assumed it would work out, and I was lucky. On the other hand, it also seems to me that the older I get, the less I know.

Was there a particular reason why you decided to study acting in London?

Because the British are better at film, television, and theatre than the Germans. A lot is changing now, though, and I enjoy being back and working at home. But for a long time, I've always found the more interesting projects in England and America. The passion with which people in the British film and TV industry pursue their profession has always fascinated me. That's another reason why I wanted to come here, not just to learn the craft, but to become proficient enough in the language to be able to work internationally without any problems.

Are you interested in working in theatre?

Film and TV are where I started my career, even though I trained in classical theatre. I wouldn't rule out the stage altogether. I have a lot of respect for it, but it's a form of acting that has always been a bit foreign to me. And I wouldn't want to be tied to a theatre, to an ensemble, as is customary in Germany. 

Coming back to Late Shift, when you were researching your role by talking to real nurses, what feelings did you encounter about their work loads?

A great deal of anger – and complete exhaustion. Many of them told me that they would perhaps go on for another year, but that'd be it. The level of frustration is extremely high.

How do people motivate themselves to go back to work the next day after a shift like the one Fiona experiences?

That's the other extreme. Despite everything, there are also many nurses who love their work. They find the job exciting because every day is different, and they become a part of so many personal stories and destinies. They also receive a lot of gratitude. All of that can be wonderful. It's not always as bleak as one might think.

Why is it, then, that health care systems all over the world are in such bad states?

Partly, it's a question of appreciation – and of sexism. Eighty percent of people in this profession are women, and their work has always been underpaid and taken for granted. Here's an example: when there was a threat of a pilot shortage in Switzerland some years ago, the government immediately stepped in to help. There were training seminars and pay rises. And that's a profession that is predominantly male. 

So it's not only about money?

Of course, economics play a big part. I understand that governments want to save where they can, but they're doing it in the wrong places. After all, it's been proven that sufficient staffing in hospitals helps patients to recover faster. In other words, hiring more people would, eventually, also pay off financially. It's not rocket science, but it makes all the difference.

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