Biography

His father is from Slovakia.

He fled the GDR in summer 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

His mother is a singer.

He grew up in his birthplace Bautzen where his father worked as a choreographer for the Sorbian National Ensemble (Sorbisches National-Ensemble/Serbski ludowy ansambl).

[on fleeing the GDR] We had prepared ourselves for a long time and properly, we had sent ourselves initiations to a wedding of distant relatives and had them sent back to us from Slovakia. At the border, we were stopped and searched. But our plan worked, thank God.

The time I spent in the now former GDR strongly influenced me. I simply couldn't share the views expressed there. I stand by my opinions. This is why today's consensus society disgusts me. After a discussion, there is always the searching and finding for an agreement. This is such nonsense. There is no need to freak out, but differing opinions should be allowed to exist.

In real life, I am less emotional than my My Whole Half Life (2014) character. But I very much like surprising my wife - maybe this is my way of being romantic.

No [I won't be raising my children bilingual with Slovak as well as German]. A lot of relatives there have died, and the connections to the country have ceased to exist, one after the other. It wouldn't make much sense to teach my children the Slovak language. I doubt that it would be useful for them later on.