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?!"

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.

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.

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.