Til Schweiger: My Nonsexual (but Still Gay as Hell) Man-Crush from Germany

A long time ago, I saw a movie called SLC Punk. The plot revolved around a couple of punk rocker kids in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the year 1985. It also featured a minor character named “Mark”; a short, strikingly-handsome, and cartoonishly-paranoid drug dealer from “somewhere behind the Iron Curtain.” Although he didn’t get much screen time, Mark was responsible for some of the movie’s funniest lines, such as:

“Thiiiiis… looks like a silver record. But it’s not a silver record — it’s a LaserDisc. …There’s a movie on there! Heh.”

…and…

MARK:
“This one, is a waterbed. But it’s not a normal waterbed, ‘cuz a normal waterbed goes like this — ‘twoo-eee-woo-eee-woo-eee‘ [making wave gesture with hand] — lots of waves. Funny thing is: this one doesn’t have any waves.”

STEVO:
“Well, why didn’t you just buy a normal mattress that doesn’t have waves?”

MARK:
[Long pause, stroking the bed lovingly]
“…This one doesn’t have waves.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but Mark was played by actor, director and producer Til Schweiger (pronounced: Shhh-vvv-EYE-[like ‘eyeball’]-guh). He was born in Freiburg and raised in Heuchelheim, then he studied acting at Der Keller in Köln. Schweiger became known in the 1990s for such German films as Manta, Manta, Der bewegte Mann and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. He continued to make a lot of reeeeeally bad movies — mostly action flicks and romantic comedies — though I’m not exactly an objective source of information here. (As I happen to find roughly 90% of all German movies to be 100% dogshit.)

Schweiger founded his own production company in 2004 called Barefoot Films, and went on to become the most commercially-successful filmmaker in all of Germany. Nevertheless, most Americans will likely only recognize him from Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, in which he played the spectacularly violent Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz. Again, this was a relatively minor character, but one which provided my favorite line of the movie:

“Say ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ to your Nazi balls.” [Proceeds to introduce three rounds of lead to Major Hellstrom’s scrotum]

Til Schweiger is handsome in that I-bet-he’s-kind-of-an-asshole-in-real-life, sort of way. From the 10 seconds I spent researching him, however, he actually appears to be more than just a handsome face with squinty little ferret eyes. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he helped raise money to convert an abandoned military barracks near the Harz Mountains into a state-of-the-art refugee center to house families arriving in Germany during the refugee crisis of 2015. An army of social media trolls ripped him a new asshole for it, of course, but it seems like he was really trying to do some good.

He went a step further to establish the Til Schweiger Foundation, which aims to help disadvantaged children and young people of all backgrounds residing within Germany. Sounds like a decent fellow to me, but what do well-adjusted, well-educated German people think of Til Schweiger? Lemme ask my wife real quick…

Okay, here’s what she said:

“Yes, I know of him. He’s one of our better actors. Well, he’s a German actor — so not super good — but people like him. He does his own thing. I don’t think he likes the press very much… like, I think he punched a camera man once, but people like him. He has a daughter, and they make movies together. Some women think he’s so super sexy. I don’t.”

~ The Wife

Yeah, well, I think he’s super sexy. (Even if his lips are redder than a slapped ass.) What I like best about him, however, is his self-deprecating humor. He never hesitates to make fun of himself, and that’s crucial for anyone hoping to find themselves on some weird, American blogger’s list of quasisexual man-crushes.

Take a look at this German TV commercial for personal liability insurance, in which Schweiger plays himself at a high-society art exhibition. He accidentally autographs a very expensive painting, and then gives this look like “…Whut?” I audibly guffawed when I saw it, and Schweiger has been close to my heart ever since.

That’s 4 out of 5 Merkel Diamonds for you, T-Bone! Well done, you sexy, squinty-eyed little man-weasel.

— Zack Zwieback

---

Make tonight a MOVIE NIGHT… with Til Schweiger!

_{AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE
As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a li’l extra scratch from qualifying purchases. So please help out and buy/rent some stuff!}