When you direct the dialogue you can be precise, but with a song as a director you're more like a football coach. You can say one, two things in the beginning and then the actor has to follow what happens.

Father-daughter has a lot of layers, I find.

I had the feeling I had to stay focused on what's lying under. A big part of the story in Toni Erdmann happens on the sub-level. On the surface, a lot of scenes, it's banal. If the actor starts thinking, Oh, I'm in a genre, I'm doing a comedy, I'm doing funny things, then you lose.

With every enemy, when you get closer you understand much more, or the picture dissolves.

A family is something very static and hard to escape, so everybody has a certain role over the years, no matter if you like it or not.