The sun sets over the bay of Cassis, a charming seaside resort near Marseille, as a young woman gazes toward the horizon.
It’s the concluding episode of thriller “Westend Girl,” a German series starring Helena Zengel, a rising international star. The show, which is being distributed worldwide by Beta Film, premieres today at Seriencamp, a TV series festival in Cologne.
Zengel plays Ronja, who has been raised in a wealthy neighborhood, and is about to begin medical school. But the day after her 18th birthday party, everything changes: Her picture-perfect parents are arrested and accused of running the largest cocaine ring in the region. The series is based on a true story.
It’s the first German-language production Zengel has done in many years. She has been in demand ever since she broke through at the age of 11 in the lead role of Berlinale competition entry “System Crasher,” for which she won the German Film Award and for which she was nominated at the European Film Awards. She was the co-lead with Tom Hanks in “News of the World,” which earned her Critics Choice and Golden Globes nominations, and was also co-lead with Willem Dafoe in “The Legend of Ochi.”
After filming for “Westend Girl” wrapped in Cassis, Zengel spoke to Variety about the show.
Courtesy of Elliott Kreyenberg, FlareFilm, WDR, Arte
Would you describe Ronja as a little bit naive at the beginning of the series?
Yeah, totally. She wants to believe her parents, and she wants to keep that safe family, that beautiful and loving home. She wants to keep that alive. Somehow, she knows that something’s wrong, but I don’t think she wants to see it. She creates her own sense of reality, always trying to believe her parents, who she loves very much.
Is her relationship with her mother and father very different, in terms of how she regards them?
I think so. Her father is that strong person who brings the money home and bought the house, and who’s the leader. And then her mother, she’s very soft and calm, but she’s trying to break out, not very successfully, and Ronja can sense that. She sees that her father is dominating her mother, which that probably really bothers her. Ronja knows that they love each other, and she wants them to be together.
Courtesy of Elliott Kreyenberg, FlareFilm, WDR, Arte
After their arrest, does she start to look back at events in her childhood and reassess them because of what she discovers? Is it a crisis, in terms of deciding what was real and what wasn’t?
Yeah, totally. There are all these flashbacks where we see the young Ronja, which tell the story. She looks back at her childhood, and the viewers look back with her, and then she sees how things really were and what her parents told her.
Can you describe to me the journey that your character goes on from the beginning to the end? Is the development of her perception gradual, or are there revelatory moments, when suddenly she sees things clearly.
Yes, she definitely makes a big journey. She starts in a place where she’s growing up in a very loving home, with parents who love each other and everything seems perfect – they’re very wealthy, they live in a very wealthy area in Düsseldorf, where the story takes place. And then suddenly, she finds herself in the middle of all of these crazy stories about her parents and her family. And I feel like for her it’s a crisis of identity: “Who am I?,” and also “Who are they?” and “What’s my life?” and “What was real and what was not?”
And I do feel like there’s this one point, where she starts to realize something’s wrong, but she does not want to believe it. Throughout the series and her journey, she slowly starts to understand what’s true and what’s not. And you travel with her. She starts off as a child; you can see it in the colors she wears, the makeup she puts on, the people she’s around. She starts as this very childlike teenager, and then she grows up superfast, and all of a sudden, she’s an adult. She takes care of things. I feel like she’s the parent in the end. So yeah, there’s a big journey.
Courtesy of Elliott Kreyenberg, FlareFilm, WDR, Arte
What was it like when you met the woman who your character is based on?
It was the first time I got to do this [meet the person who I am playing]. It was incredible. I must say, something that I really love in life growing up is to build bonds in the movie industry, to meet people, to understand people, to meet souls. And once you come to the point where you play a role that is based on someone, or inspired by someone, and you meet that person, I feel like something magical happens. Because all of a sudden, it’s me in a position where I’m playing you and I want to know what you would like to see, and then I want to show what I would make out of it. And she was with us a lot of the times during the shoot. It was super intense and sensitive and beautiful. I mean we’re now friends, and I really, really like her, and we had a great time. When she first saw a few clips, she cried, and for me it was a gift, because someone sees you play their life and it’s just so emotional. It was amazing.
Has she told her story in a book?
No, she told her story to the writers, and then they adapted it. And there’s a lot of things that didn’t happen in reality, but it was inspired by her and her story. It’s just an amazing story.
Courtesy of Elliott Kreyenberg, FlareFilm, WDR, Arte
Why did you choose this TV series to appear in compared with other parts that you’ve been offered. What attracted you to this?
Well, first of all, you know, I wanted to do something German again. It’s been a long time since I last shot in Germany. It’s been years. And to shoot in my native language, I really wanted to do that again. And also, I really love stories that are based on real stories and real people. I knew I was going to meet them, the people whose story the series is based on. There’s a lot of fiction added to the story, but it’s inspired by real people. And another reason is that I really love a coming-of-age story. Starting out young, like myself, and then really growing throughout the series, together with the viewers. You know, going to clubs, drugs, alcohol, having your first boyfriend, romance, sex, love, all that stuff. This was a great experience for me too. I feel like this is the first project where people will see that I’m a young adult now. I will be seen as a young adult, and not as a child anymore.
Courtesy of Elliott Kreyenberg, FlareFilm, WDR, Arte
After the success of “System Crasher,” did you deliberately chose English-language projects?
Well, I had a lot of requests, and I really love traveling. I love growing up in different countries. I love different cultures, and I love speaking English. So, at some point, it just became like my second mother tongue. And so, everybody would ask me to do international projects. I liked travelling around and trying out new stuff outside of the German industry for a while. And I think it will always go back and forth. I don’t think I’ll ever only do international projects and then only do German projects. I think it’ll always be both.
“Westend Girl” Credits
“Westend Girl” is co-created by Richard Kropf (“Kleo,” “4 Blocks”) and Pola Beck (“Breaking Horizons,” “Druck”). Kropf also serves as head-writer, with Luisa Hardenberg (“Push”), Katharina Brauer (“Para – Wir sind King”), Alexander Lindh (“A Better Place”), and Julian Gaupp-Maier (“How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)”) completing the writers’ room. Beck also directed the series with Stefan Schaller (“Five Years”). The director of photography was Yoshi Heimrath (“Berlin Alexanderplatz,” “How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)”).
Alongside Zengel, the cast includes Frederic Balonier (“Maxton Hall”), Lucas Gregorowicz (“Call My Agent Berlin,” “Pagan Peak”), Luise Heyer (“Sound of Falling,” “Black Box”), Alexander Scheer (“From Hilde, With Love,” “House of Promises”), Samirah Breuer (“Shadow Leaks”) and Hanna Heckt (“Sound of Falling”).
Martin Heisler of Flare Film (“Forget Me Not,” “Funeral for a Dog”) produces the show; Maxim Juretzka of Flare Film (“Funeral for a Dog”) and Jan Wünschmann of Beta Film (“The Swarm”) are executive producers. Commissioning editors are Frank Tönsmann of WDR and Uta Cappel at ARTE.
Westend Girl is produced by Flare Film in co-production with WDR/ARTE, in collaboration with Beta Film. The series is funded by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, and the German Motion Picture Fund.
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