Leonie Benesch Shines as Night Nurse in the Gripping Drama 'Late Shift'

Leonie Benesch, the German actress, holds the screen throughout Petra Volpe’s 'Late Shift,' a gripping drama centered on the demanding night shift in a hospital struggling with understaffing.

Making its British debut at the first South by Southwest London festival on Tuesday, the film follows Benesch’s character, Floria, as she moves tirelessly from patient to patient over one intense night. Her tasks range from delivering pain medication and soothing teas to calming anxious patients, sometimes by simply singing to them or urgently trying to reach a doctor.

To authentically embody the role, Benesch spent a week shadowing real nurses, mastering the use of medical tools and absorbing the nuanced rhythms of caregiving.

“I wanted to grasp the choreography of their movements—how they engage with patients and how their conversations shift between colleagues and those in their care,” Benesch, 34, explained. “My goal was to perform in a way that healthcare professionals would watch and feel, ‘She could be one of us.’”

Speaking from a hotel bar in Cardiff, Wales, in polished British-accented English, Benesch was on location filming the political thriller 'Prisoner,' a major international television project that complements her experience with independent art house films.