Devid Striesow: “I moved away from my parents when I was 18”

Devid Striesow
“I moved away from my parents when I was 18”

Actor Devid Striesow (r.) With part of his film family – son Niklas (Max Schimmelpfennig, l.) And wife Anja Wagner (Anja Schneider) – in “Forever Parents”.

© ZDF / Jürgen Olczyk

Actor Devid Striesow left home early. In the interview, he remembers the cramped GDR living conditions.

In the entertaining television tragic comedy “Forever Parents” (September 2, 8:15 pm, ZDF), Devid Striesow (47, “Close Shot”) plays a family man who, together with his wife, moves on to a phase of life together with his two grown-up children happy in a new apartment. But it turns out differently than expected … “I especially liked the comedic part of the script, the dialogues have a real sense of humor. In addition, the film stays comfortably within the family,” enthuses the former “Tatort” star (2013-2018 ) in an interview with spot on news. In the conversation, the actor, who was born in Bergen auf Rügen during the GDR era, also talks about the living and family conditions in which he grew up himself.

The film “Forever Parents” is about “boomerang children”, among other things. Did you know the sociological term before?

Devid Striesow: I didn’t know the term before. What is meant is that adult children move back in with their parents. In the course of the shooting, however, it became more and more plausible to me. When I was recently looking for living space in Berlin myself, it quickly became clear to me why this phenomenon exists: Because there is so little affordable living space. And that is certainly no different in Munich and Hamburg. The prices can now simply no longer be financed. I don’t even know how people want to do that if they don’t have old leases. You can actually only move into an apartment as a couple: one works for the rent, the other for the living expenses.

Boomerang children, another term is the nestling phenomenon … How was it for you, did you move out of your parents’ house early or rather stayed longer?

Striesow: I moved away from my parents very early, at the age of 18. But that was also the 1990s, when a lot was possible. There were gray areas in the new federal states because many families left their homes overnight to move to the west. Fearing that the wall would be pulled up again, they then took everything with them. In this way, many apartments were suddenly empty and the housing associations of the time said: It is better for someone to live in it than if you let the apartments fall into disrepair. I got into such a great situation and got an apartment with a rental agreement with my girlfriend at the time.

Didn’t you become a boomerang kid after that?

Striesow: No. Not even my friends. I only know a few divorce stories in this direction: When a couple gets divorced, one of them moves out of the shared apartment and temporarily moves back to their parents. But then you can’t call that a boomerang child.

Another exciting topic in the film is the role in the family, which some people find difficult to get out of. For example, the son has the role of the loser in the film, even though he isn’t. Do you know that?

Striesow: Probably not. It couldn’t come to that with us. I come from a different family background that was shaped by the GDR. We lived very cramped like many people back then. I grew up with my parents on 48 square meters, sometimes with five. It was really tight, you wanted to get out. We are not talking about upper-class conditions as we may know it today. After the fall of the Wall, I said goodbye in a good mood and started my own life.

Have you ever had the dream of getting out of the car?

Striesow: I also dream of getting out from time to time, for example going to Canada and noticing there. But that was never really my engine. I started doing my work very energetically at an early age. So far, there has been no time window for time-outs. At the moment we have a lot of other problems anyway, such as climate change and global warming, so that nowhere in the world can you sit back and relax and see what the next ten, twelve or fourteen years will bring. I have the feeling that you should stay up to date.

SpotOnNews