For ‘Anne Frank’s’ Ben Kingsley, It’s an ‘Honor Telling This Story’

PRAGUE —  Ben Kingsley wasn’t inclined to do another Holocaust-related movie when he was approached about playing the part of Anne Frank’s father, Otto, in ABC’s two-part miniseries “Anne Frank.” After “Schindler’s List” and “Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story,” another one, he said, seemed “simply much too painful.”

But he was eventually convinced, he said, after realizing that the ABC production treated its subject matter with “extreme maturity, honesty and passion.”

He took a straightforward approach to the role. “I walk onto the set and see a group of orphans with yellow stars on and there is no preparation needed,” he said. “My heart has already changed beats.

“All Otto needs to do is watch her, guard her and protect her,” he said, of the Anne Frank character, played by 14-year-old Hannah Taylor Gordon.

Kingsley tried to simplify his approach whenever possible. “You are humbly serving 6 million ghosts,” he said, referring to the Jews killed during the Holocaust.

The filming in and around Prague, with scenes in the ice and snow, occasionally proved physically painful for the actors, as well as emotionally challenging. But Kingsley declined to discuss the difficulties.

“However shocking or traumatizing filming can be, we do not have a clue” what the actual participants in the story went through, he says, adding, “God willing we never shall.” Any bruises or other hurts, he said, are “a tiny, tiny price to pay for the honor of telling this story.”