Hanna Schygulla Claims Another Top Director With ‘Dead Again’

German actress Hanna Schygulla feels fortunate to have worked with such acclaimed directors as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard and Volker Schlondorff.

“It’s not often that an actress gets so many opportunities to work with great filmmakers,” says the Paris-based star, best known to American TV audiences for her appearance in the “Peter the Great” miniseries. “I’ve had extremely good luck.”

And it seems to be continuing. With her latest screen appearance as Inga in the romantic thriller “Dead Again,” Schygulla adds one more highly-regarded director to her list: British Wunderkind Kenneth Branagh, who not only directed the film but stars in it as well.

She admits he was impressive. “I was amazed how much he was totally in control of everything,” notes Schygulla. “I’ve never seen such energy.”

Getting the chance to work with Branagh was not the only thing about “Dead Again” that intrigued Schygulla, who was called Europe’s most exciting actress by Time magazine in 1985. There was also the film’s subject matter: Reincarnation. “Anything having to do with the supernatural and spirituality fascinates me,” she explains. “Life becomes more interesting when there is mystery to it. It’s part of what we’re looking for.”

Obviously, it’s a subject of which Schygulla can’t get enough. She recently completed a starring role in another supernatural project, “I Rent Myself for Dreaming,” a Spanish-Italian miniseries based on a story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.