‘The Legend of Ochi’: Helena Zengel on Puppets, Primates and Willem Dafoe in A24’s Retro Fantasy

It’s no accident that The Legend of Ochi is set in 1982.

Isaiah Saxon’s family fantasy adventure, about Yuri, a 12-year-old girl who bonds with the mysterious ochi monsters — criminally-cute blue-faced primates — is a direct homage to the era, epitomized by 1982 releases E.T. and The Dark Crystal, of blockbusters that beguiled their audience not with computer and AI-generated magic but with live action, in-camera effects and a sense of childlike wonder. Saxon has been keen to display the film’s practical effects bona fides, countering online claims of AI manipulation by releasing footage of the puppetry and animatronics used to create his creatures.

German actress Helena Zengel plays Yuri, who rebels against her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe), a fanatically Ochi hunter, to save an injured critter and nurse him back to health. When her adopted brother Petro (Finn Wolfhard) discovers her secret, Yuri flees with the “monster,” promising to take the wee beast back home. Emily Watson co-stars as Yuri’s long-absent mother, who has retreated to the woods to commune with the Ochi.

The Legend of Ochi hits U.S. theaters in limited release Friday, via A24, ahead of a wide bow on April 25.

The Legend of Ochi is Zengel’s first lead performance in a U.S. film but the 16-year-old is already a vet. Her breakthrough, aged 11, came in Nora Fingscheidt’s System Crasher (2019), playing Benni, a traumatized, violent young girl who overwhelms the efforts of society and social services to rein her in. (Impressed, The Hollywood Reporter named Zengel one of our 10 international talents to watch that year). Zengel’s System Crasher performance won her Germany’s equivalent of the Oscar for best actress, the youngest-ever winner, and secured her first Hollywood gig: Playing alongside Tom Hanks in Paul Greengrass’ Western News of the World, a performance that earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

Recent credits include Pia Marais’ Transamazonia, where she plays a child healer living deep in the Amazon jungle, and the Brit rom-com A Christmas Number One for Sky, playing opposite Freida Pinto and Iwan Rheon. Zengel is set to move into full scream queen territory with her next film, Bloody Tennis, a teen horror from German director Nikias Chryssos.

But before that, she had an opportunity to fulfill “a childhood dream” in The Legend of Ochi by acting alongside an “actual” animatronic puppet. “I used to have loads of stuffed animals and was totally convinced they could all talk and were alive,” says Zengel. “So for me, this was amazing. I always wished I had a little puppet that could talk to me.”

In a wide-ranging Zoom chat with The Hollywood Reporter, Zengel talked puppets, playing wild girls, and getting life lessons from Tom Hanks.

Much of the film is you interacting with the Ochi. What was it like acting opposite a puppet?

It was really interesting because I didn’t quite know beforehand whether it would be AI or an actual puppet. And when I first read the script, I thought it would probably be animated. When I found out it was going to be a puppet, honestly, it was like a childhood dream come true. I used to have loads of stuffed animals and was totally convinced they could all talk and were alive. So for me, this was amazing. I always wished I had a little puppet that could talk to me.

And of course, it makes a huge difference whether you’re playing with thin air and have nothing to actually act against, or whether you have something you can look at. And it looked super real. It had electronics inside so its eyes and mouth could move, and its facial expressions would shift. There were like six people operating it. While I was acting, if I ignored the people around me and just focused on the puppet, it felt completely real.

You’ve developed a reputation for playing characters living wild in nature, here as well as in The News of the World and Transamazonia. How does that compare with your actual life, because you’re a city kid, right?

Yeah, I’m actually from Berlin. But maybe that’s why I love the countryside so much—because I’m a city kid. But I’ve been riding all my life. We’ve had horses for a long time, I’ve had a horse named Easy for years, and I’m out in the countryside every few days. For a long time I was at the stables every day. So I just love it in films when I can shoot on a real location — most of this film was shot in the Carpathian mountains in Romania, with the rest in a studio in Bucharest — it just feels different when you’re physically there. It affects the performance. There’s a big difference when you are actually standing on the edge of a cliff or in the jungle and not just in front of a green screen.

Do you see a connection between Yuri and some of your more extreme characters, like Johanna in News of the World, or Benni in System Crasher?

I recently was talking with someone about how Yuri and Benni from System Crasher actually aren’t that different. Both are wounded children. Yuri is more withdrawn and quiet, whereas Benni is the opposite, but they’re both burdened by their families. They’re both kind of broken souls. And in this film, when Ochi and Yuri find each other, I see it as them saving each other. I love those intense stories that still end on a hopeful note. She finds the friend she always wished for, and they travel the world together. That really touched me in the script, which reminded me of E.T., in a way.

It feels very much like a homage to E.T. and those sorts of home-made family films of the early 80s, the kind of movies I was watching when I was your age. But you’re an entirely different generation. Had you watched those movies, did you even know about them before you got this role?

I knew E.T., of course. I don’t remember how old I was when I first saw it, but I re-watched it for this role and a bunch of other ones, Gremlins, one about a young woman who tames a mustang, The Black Stallion? I watched that to really understand how to portray the bond between a human and a creature you can’t speak to. That’s not easy to show. Isaiah [Saxon] really wanted me to see how other actors handled that dynamic.

Do you have a favorite scene from the film, one that was the most fun to shoot?

It’s hard to pick, because I had so many scenes with Ochi and they were all fun. The funniest one was definitely the supermarket scene. The whole setting was hilarious—it was a mock-up store that was only half functional, and it was just so fun racing around with the shopping cart, with Ochi on my back. The most beautiful scene was probably the ending, where everyone comes together. Yuri brings Ochi back, the parents are there—it was just a touching moment. On set too, it was emotional. That was probably the most beautiful scene for me.

How do you manage the balance between your work and your regular life, with school, family, etc.?

Well I’m not longer in school. I finished last year and have been working ever since. Which has been a huge relief to be honest. There’s no homeschooling in Germany so if you are still in school and you want to make a movie, you need special permission and you have to keep up your grades. It was never an issue for me, but it is a lot of extra work for the productions.

These days, its just about organization and coordination. If your team knows, for example, that horses are important to you, or that you’re going to be away for three weeks for something, they can plan around that. But of course, you still have to make compromises. It’s a job, after all. I wouldn’t say I’d die for it — but I love it so much that I’m willing to rearrange things. I’ve always lived a bit of a fast-paced life, so I’m used to being spontaneous.

Are there any roles, or kinds of films, you’d love to try that you haven’t been offered yet?

Well I’ve done a lot of drama, and I love it, but I also enjoy experimenting. I’d love to do a horror film or a comedy. Horses have been part of my life forever, so I’d love to make a film with horses one day. My team and I are pretty selective with what we take on and lately, I’ve been trying new kinds of roles, to see what fits and what doesn’t. I like experimenting. It’s been refreshing not to always be the drama queen.

You just shot your first horror film, Bloody Tennis, which looks like a big jump for you.

Yeah, it was really different. I thought I’d be scared while filming horror, but you’re so aware of what’s coming that it’s not scary at all. It was actually hilarious. We’d go to lunch covered in fake blood, looking totally terrifying, but of course, we knew it was all fake. We are five girls playing tennis academy students in Bloody Tennis, and it was so fun filming with that kind of all-female group. Each had her own role. It was also super cool to be playing tennis every day, getting to train and learn something new. I’d definitely do it again. I’m excited to see the final cut, going from knowing every behind-the-scenes detail to actually watching the finished horror film and maybe getting genuinely scared.

In your short career, you’ve already acted with two true icons of Hollywood, Tom Hanks and Willem Dafoe. How do they compare, and what sort of advice did they give you on set?

That’s not such an easy question. In terms of the roles they play, it’s pretty clear that Willem often plays the bad guy, often these really strange, expressionistic characters like in Nosferatu, where Tom is rarely the villain, though he did play a villain in Elvis. Personality-wise, I don’t think they’re that different. They are both super sweet, really smart, and really funny, always cracking jokes. Willem feels a bit more European—he moved to Rome and just seems closer somehow. Tom is more of a classic American—he goes to football games and that sort of thing. I’m still in touch with both of them. I talk to Tom a lot. We’ve become good friends.

Willem didn’t give me any advice per se, but what I was able to take away from him is this intuitive sense of performance. He really goes with his gut feeling, and he can do a scene 500 times, again and again, with the same intense emotion, without complaining, always extremely polite towards everyone.

With Tom, I remember him giving me a piece of advice about my career. He said: ‘No matter how famous you are, always show up on time, which means always show up early, always know your lines, and always know what’s going on on set. You might be having a hard day, but in a film, everyone is working on the same project, to make a great movie, and we can only do that together.