I come from a very small rural village in northern Germany, and being an actor never even seemed like a possibility. I thought you would have to live in a big city, or be discovered somewhere, or be born into an artistic family, which I certainly wasn't.

With modeling, you pose. You want to look your best all the time. With acting, you have to be aware of the camera, but the more you show your imperfections, the better you're going to be.

It's fun being one of the boys. It's fun to play a character that's rough and gets down and dirty and not to be this precious girl who just sits in the corner and just sort of stands by the action.

Modeling is so... not superficial. Well, I guess it is. But it's boring.

Well, I don't know anything about television. I'd never done it before. Initially, it was quite daunting to take on so much challenge and so much time with it. I think it is a great outlet for an actress because you really have 13 hours to bring a character to life, which is so much more than with film, and you have the luxury of time to tell a story and to really color a character.

Realization that i couldn't be a ballet dancer was a blessing in disguise because that was the first time I felt like I stepped into adulthood. I realized, Okay, this is not going to work out. It was frustrating for about a year because I didn't know what to do with the creativity and the discipline that dancing had instilled in me from a very young age. But then I moved to Paris to model, and that was my cultural awakening. Now, I think dancing has been the biggest thing in my life, much more so than modeling, and it still helps me enormously in my work.

I'm not one of those women who thinks beauty is a curse.