'Striped Pajamas' role won by a hair

In the film, which opened Friday, Hayman plays a concentration camp inhabitant named Pavel. But he wasn't director Mark Herman's first choice.

"He had offered him to another actor, David Bradley," said Hayman, 58, over the phone from his home in Glasgow. "But he refused to cut his hair. He has had long hair for 20 years and refuses to cut it."

So the film's casting director called Hayman, who has little hair to cut; he agreed to take a sleeper train to London to read for the part.

"I had long been an admirer," Herman said of Hayman, a noted theater actor and film director in Scotland. "I think what cinched it for me is he came into the casting office and was given the script. He went around the corner to have a coffee and read the script. He came back an hour later and gave the most amazing reading. The fact that it took him just an hour to digest the script and the character . . . ."

The film's story, which was adapted and directed by Herman from John Boyne's novel, revolves around 8-year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield), whose father (David Thewlis) is a high-ranking Nazi official during World War II. The family moves from Berlin to his father's new post as a concentration camp commander in the country. Bruno, though, in his naiveté believes the camp is a farm and wonders why its uniformed inhabitants seem to be wearing striped pajamas. One day, Bruno sets out to go to the farm, where he befriends a prisoner his own age (Jack Scanlon) sitting on the other side of the barbed-wire fence.

Hayman's Pavel is also one of the concentration camp inhabitants, a former doctor now working as the help at the family home. Weak, shuffling -- Pavel resembles an abused animal fearful of its next whipping -- but still full of dignity, he is befriended by Bruno when he wraps the boy's leg after Bruno falls off a swing.

Though Pavel's screen time is limited, Hayman made the most of it -- and quickly.

With just a week before Hayman was due to leave for Budapest for the film, the production company sent him stacks of information, including DVDs and books about the camps.

"You look at those people behind bars, and we can't imagine what they have gone through," said Hayman.