It's quite a famous story that takes place on Christmas Eve, and the Germans, French, and Scottish are trying to make peace one night and they bury their dead and they play football. I play a German opera singer, in German, which I never have so I am really excited about that.

I don’t know how you prepare for something like that. I cannot imagine living in a fishbowl like that. I don’t live here so I don’t know it will be that bad anyway because I live in Paris and we don’t have that sort of phenomenon there. So I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.

Berlin is still going through a transition since the Cold War - both in what used to be East and West Berlin. I can still sense the confusion and the struggle for identity there in the streets. There's a pulse to it.

People always think I’m dainty when they meet me, but I’m really not. I’m very German – we’re not made out of sugar.

Being German, I think we don't really express a lot of things.

I feel vulnerable sometimes - when I see an emotional scene, for example - and I remember what it took to get to that place, and I fear sometimes that everybody else can see that. You bare a part of you that makes you uncomfortable. I freely give it, I know, but I feel like people know something about me that I wouldn't otherwise give freely to a stranger.

I do give myself a break in my personal life but I think in work, if you don't push yourself you get bored and want to do something else.