That is an amazing experience, because we with director Christian Petzold know whenever we criticize each other, it's for the best, and you don't find that very often, that you trust each other so much. That's a special thing.
The GDR people found love at the workplace, and the West is always telling stories about finding love when work is over and you have your free time and your leisure time. That's when you fall in love. But in the Communist state, you fall in love in the workplace, because that's mainly where you are.
I didn't understand the concept that there's a state that won't allow its people to leave or come back whenever they want to, by saying, "It's because we love you." And I never get that - I still don't get that concept. I thought, that's very threatening, and I don't get why you would want to make this experiment with Germany separation.
In 1995, I went to Berlin to acting school, which was in East Berlin. And I decided to live in the east, because I thought if I go to West Berlin, I might as well stay in Stuttgart in the West because I know all the signs, and the way we deal with each other, and I wanted to get to know the other part of Germany and how they lived and what their history was and their biography. In that period of time, I learned a lot, and it helped me a lot.
We really have a close friendship with Christian Petzold, which means we can be more frank and open towards each other, always with total respect. But, we push each other a bit further and further always, and we're always still curious about each other. And when he talks about a story he's thinking of doing, then the whole process is so special because I'm involved in a very early stage and I have the feeling I can, and not only, influence anything about my character, but about the whole story that my character's in.
I was 14 when the wall came down, so I only ever knew about the GDR or experienced it as a kid. I lived very far away from it, and you only ever thought about the GDR when you saw the Olympics, because you were like, "How are they always winning?!"
I was very sensitized for what went on inside of the East Germans. Obviously, the first thing was that they were happy that they were experiencing democracy now, and having the freedom to go wherever and express your thoughts without being threatened. So, that's something they are deeply thankful for, I'm sure, but the problem was that no one asked anything. The West just went, "Then you must be happy now, God, what a horrible life you must've had!"
Of course, East Germans had children, they fell in love, and the grass was green and the wind was blowing. It's 40 years. It's a generation. There was a big wave of nostalgia, we call it "Eastalgia," where they said it was not always bad.
Mainly I got to know about the atmosphere in the East Germany and how people felt, because I never experienced it physically. You can't talk, because everywhere there's someone listening in on everything you say, and you might get things wrong and be questioned or they come up and say, "Well, actually, we want you to work for us and if don't, we'll pressure you," and stuff like that. Living in a country like that, how do you get around it and still keep your dignity? I think it's one of the main questions.
