Jeff Goldblum got the script for “Adam Resurrected” a year before the filming of the movie began so that he could find time to research the role. He plays an entertainer who survives the Holocaust by agreeing to play the role of the commandant’s dog, and faces insanity in his new role.

Goldblum says he used every bit of the year to do his research, “I immersed myself in it the whole time … to try to get my arms around what the shape of this character was, who he could be.”

He listened to the stories of other Holocaust survivors and also went to a Purim party with some of them. He went to Berlin and Israel to see where his character might have lived and also visited two concentration caps. He took violin lessons and aced some magic tricks. He spent time with a German Shepherd dog that also appears in the movie until he and the dog being to form a bond.

He met with the “dog whisperer” Cesar Milan and met the creator of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. In addition he saw over 20 films and listened to audio commentaries to understand his director Paul Schrader better.

About the character he plays, Goldblum said, “My character is paradoxical and contradictory. He’s surprising. He’s got madness in him, but also a real reservoir of health, wide open spaces and deep love for his family as a resource.” The film traces the story of

Adam Stein who is considered the funniest man in Berlin before the war. He is a Jew and loses his job and then is taken to a concentration camp with his wife and daughter. Then a commandant recognize him and cuts a deal with him: if Adam becomes his dog an makes him laugh, he will be spared from killing. But Adam must also play the violin to calm down those taken to be killed, and among the prisoners he serenades are his wife and daughter. He later ends up in an insane asylum after the war.