“Spring” star Simone Thomalla
She is “very, very, very grateful” to this person
© ZDF / Hendrik Heiden
In “Spring” Simone Thomalla helps families in emergency situations as a village helper. She is also helped by a person to whom she is particularly “grateful”.
The 13th season of the heart cinema series “Spring” starts on Sunday (February 4th, 8:15 p.m., ZDF) with Simone Thomalla (58) in the leading role. Since 2011 she has played village helper Katja Baumann, who supports families in emergency situations. During her acceptance speech at the Golden Hen Award ceremony in her hometown in autumn 2023, the Leipzig native revealed that she herself has “a Katja” in her environment. The actress has now explained who that is to ZDF in touching words.
Simone Thomalla needs “her Katja” very much
“Since I lost my beloved dad a few years ago and my job is of course very time-consuming, so ‘Spring’ right now, we make six films a year. You can imagine how many weeks, months, I’m away from home “, and I still have my beloved mom,” says Thomalla, describing the initial situation. And then names the helper to whom she is “very, very, very grateful”.
“My brother decided to move in with my mom and take on this full-time job,” says Thomalla. And because she doesn’t want to be misunderstood, she adds: “That doesn’t mean that my mother needs care, but she needs to be protected, she needs to be cared for. The little plant needs to be watered every day.” Her brother does that. This gives her “this inner peace to be able to do her job in such a way, with this passion and freedom, in a way that I wouldn’t be able to if I knew that her mother was alone,” admits the actress.
Whether she is a Katja for someone, Thomalla says: “If I can, if I can, especially in terms of time, I definitely am. So I’m a family man and my friends are part of the family, and if I If I’m needed and it’s possible for me, then I’m there.”
Simone Thomalla – a city dweller in Bavaria
Simone Thomalla was born in Leipzig and lives in Berlin. She first had to get used to the fact that she spent half a year of her life filming the films in a small village community in Bayrischzell in Upper Bavaria, where the fictional village of Frühling is located. “When I first started […], the mountains, that killed me. I felt crushed, overwhelmed and I found it absolutely terrible,” she remembers. But that has changed. “So now I love it, I love this big city life and being there during the week. “I was able to come to terms with it really well,” she says.
The six new episodes of the ZDF family series will run on ZDF on Sunday evenings at 8:15 p.m. from February 4th. All episodes will be available in the ZDFmediathek from January 27th.