the approximately fifty or so non-professional actors who appear in the film were friends, or friends of friends, or parents of friends, and his own father, javier chillon, sr. even so, they were carefully cast: mainly spanish, they had to look like germans of the 1950s, to move and act like the people from the old documentaries, just doing their work, often oblivious to the camera. chillon obsessed over that aspect. the only professional actor in "die schneider krankheit" is paco casares, the narrator. chillon saw the stage actor in a play and said to himself, this is the voice; he was easy to direct, and the entirety of his spoken text was recorded in one afternoon.