When people ask me how I got a job as an extra in a TV show about Pablo Escobar, I tell them it was through a German contact I had.
It wasn’t just any German, it was through the most famous German in Colombia, Mr. Rudiger Kunze or “Rudi” as he was known by his friends. During filming for the TV show “Parabola of Pablo Escobar,” Rudi was in the midst of getting a divorce with his Colombian wife and moving into a central part of Bogota on 83rd Street where he would be living and teaching German.
When anybody asked Rudi where he was from, his answer was effortless, “Yo no soy animal, yo soy Aleman” (I am not an Animal, I am German).
The main reason for Rudi’s pending divorce was the fact that his wife didn’t approve of his never-ending parties and his late nights with the boys. My favorite phone call from Rudi came at a time when I had barely known Rudi for 3 weeks. He called at 10pm to tell me about a job working as an extra on a TV show. After I accepted the job he asked me to please talk to his wife for him.
“Rudi, are you having problems with your wife”
“Yes we are having problems. My wife doesn´t want to do chucky-chucky with me tonight.”
He then passed the phone to his wife. “Hello Rudi’s wife?” I asked into the phone.
“Yes, this is her.”
“Are you having a party with Rudi there tonight?”
“Rudi is having a party by himself, I am supervising.”
Rudi two breakthrough performances in Colombian cinema are well-documented on his Facebook page. The first role that initially got him a lot of work in Colombia was a role he played as a homicidally-corrupt American undercover cop. In his signature scene he is pressing three Colombian hoodlums to get information about a crime that has taken place. While Rudi is interrogating them he is also applying pressure to a deep wound in his left rib cage.
Rudi quickly becomes frustrated with them after they try and stone wall him. Becoming infuriated he asks his partner (who’s seated and listening to an mp3 player to please help him out with his police work) to come over and help him with the investigation. His partner his unresponsive. He then says to his partner, “The Russian mafia could sneak up behind you and drop and a bomb in your lap and you wouldn’t even notice you useless piss drunk cop.”
Frustrated, Rudi pulls his sidearm out and puts a bullets in the other cop’s head.
“I guess it was just too hard to follow a simple command,” says Rudi after a chuckle.
The three hoodlums become even more agitated after seeing Rudi’s partner get shot through the head. They then ask Rudi, “What happened to your stomach?”
Rudi pulls up his shirt and shows them the damage. “I had a run in with some Korean gangsters, I guess they weren’t too happy about me dating one of their sisters. They put a CD in my ribs and I couldn’t get it out. Now I have a CD burner in my stomach.”
They then offer up their weapons at a cheap price to be set free by Rudi.
“Cheap price? For me cheap means free. And besides, what would I want with a weapon that was involved in your crimes?”
“Don’t worry its clean,” replies one of the thugs who is wearing a wife beater and a LA Dodgers cap.
In the ultimate Jedi move of the century Rudi offers to trade them the gun he just used to kill his buddy with for their gun. “I am doing you guys a favor by letting you go, now you do me a favor and help me get rid of this firearm.”
As they take the weapon from uudi they look down at the ground on Rudi’s dead partner.
“From now on it’s time to dejar estos huevonadas (stop goofing off) and become men, thinking with a cool head.”
“Gracias senor,” they reply as they walk off with the weapon. One of the gansters throws his jacket to the ground as they walk back down the block.
Adding to his multi-fauceted acting portfolio Rudi was later casted in a role as a cross-dressing homosexual man mourning his lost lover. The scene is with him and a Colombian man dressed as a woman at the funeral of their lost companion. They are both heavily intoxicated and sipping martinis at the funeral.
During the ceremony Rudi’s friend enters a very dramatic 3-second crying fit.
“Don’t worry lover, we still have eachother,” says Rudi as he dabs his finger in his cocktail and paints his friend’s lips with his wet finger.
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