TV movie with a terrific cast How a country bumpkin became the glamorous drag queen Olivia Jones
As a drag queen, Olivia Jones is famous far beyond St. Pauli in Hamburg. The ZDF film "Olivia" now tells her moving life story.
Image: Marcus Brandt/dpa
In "Olivia", Johannes Hegemann slips into the role of Oliver Knöbel, Olivia Jones' real-life self.
Image: ZDF/Thomas Leidig
Evelin Knöbel, played in the film by Annette Frier, can't believe it when she sees her son Oliver as Olivia Jones on television one evening.
Image: ZDF/Thomas Leidig
After hard, hardship-filled years on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Oliver Knöbel as Olivia Jones (Johannes Hegemann) has finally made his breakthrough.
Image: ZDF und Bjørn Haneld
As a drag queen, Olivia Jones is famous far beyond St. Pauli in Hamburg. The ZDF film "Olivia" now tells her moving life story.
Image: Marcus Brandt/dpa
In "Olivia", Johannes Hegemann slips into the role of Oliver Knöbel, Olivia Jones' real-life self.
Image: ZDF/Thomas Leidig
Evelin Knöbel, played in the film by Annette Frier, can't believe it when she sees her son Oliver as Olivia Jones on television one evening.
Image: ZDF/Thomas Leidig
After hard, hardship-filled years on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Oliver Knöbel as Olivia Jones (Johannes Hegemann) has finally made his breakthrough.
Image: ZDF und Bjørn Haneld
"Olivia" tells the life story of drag queen Olivia Jones. The ZDF film with Johannes Hegemann in the leading role and Annette Frier as his mother Evelin is superbly directed and frighteningly topical.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- She is one of the most dazzling personalities in the German celebrity world: with her colorful costumes, Olivia Jones has been known far beyond the borders of Hamburg's St. Pauli party district for decades.
- While the drag queen tirelessly campaigns for diversity and tolerance today, her middle-class self, the young Oliver Knöbel, was once a victim of vile hostility and violence himself.
- The autobiographical film "Olivia" by Till Endemann, which ZDF is showing on TV on Wednesday, May 13, at 8.15 p.m. - and which has been available in the media library since this week - tells the story of both worlds, which seem so different.
The story begins in 1982 in Springe, a small town with a population of around 30,000 in the Hanover region.
This is where little Oliver (played brilliantly as a child by Arian Wegener, who already impressed as a trans girl in the ARD Degeto film "Einfach Nina" in 2022) lives with his single mother Evelin (also very strong: Annette Frier).
The father, as the audience soon learns from the neighbor (Martin Brambach), is in prison in Brazil:
"It's just not a good idea to rob your own bank either," the spitfire explains without being asked and a little later, just as arbitrarily, recommends that she "take a look" at Oliver. Because he has a burning interest in her mother's closet.
In a wonderfully slowly staged scene, we see how the little boy reverently slips on his silk stockings, slips into a dress, puts on jewelry and applies lipstick, only to hide everything under a pillow seconds later in a panic from his worried and angry mother.
Mother Evelin: "Travesty is not a profession"
"What is to become of you?" is a question Evelin still asks her now grown-up son (played by Johannes Hegemann) years later:
"Nothing more needs to become of me. I'm already something," he replies much more confidently: "I'm a travesty artist." But "travesty is not a profession", says the mother.
A jump to 2016 shows just how wrong she is: during one of her performances at St. Pauli, Olivia Jones suddenly discovers Thorsten Trapp (Jeremy Mockridge), her "first love", in the audience, as she explains to her long-time friend and business partner Marius Körbel (Daniel Zillmann).
The encounter with Thorsten reminds Olivia of another painful chapter in her youth.
How leading actor Johannes Hegemann performs
Born in 1996, lead actor Johannes Hegemann has so far mainly appeared on stage: Since the 2020/21 season, the Jena-born actor has been a permanent member of the ensemble at Hamburg's renowned Thalia Theater.
In the cinema, he was seen in a leading role in the award-winning film biopic "In Liebe, Eure Hilde" in 2024. As Olivia Jones and Oliver, he is now convincing across the board.
Not only does he credibly embody the dazzling drag queen, his facial expressions also reveal traits of the small, sensitive boy he once was.
The costume was also what helped the actor the most in finding his way into this rather unusual role, in addition to an exchange with his real-life role model:
"When I was completely in drag for the first time a few days before the shoot, I felt an incredible power and grandeur," Hegemann recalls in an interview with the broadcaster.
He continues: "I moved differently, felt completely different. I realized what a powerful effect I suddenly had on other people. The whole make-up process took a good hour and a half each time. There was always fantastic music playing. And then I was in."
Frighteningly topical subject
The contrast between the open and colorful Hamburg neighborhood of the present day, where even the pastor (Matthias Bundschuh) from the neighboring church celebrates with the drag queen, and Oliver's stuffy home from the 1970s couldn't be starker.
It is this contrast that defines large parts of the movie. At the same time, however, "Olivia" is also a portrait of the morals of West Germany in the 1970s and 1980s: Set to the soundtrack of stars such as Nina Hagen and T. Rex, the film not only tells of Oliver's struggle for recognition and the start of his career, but also of social issues such as the great fear of Aids.
The hostility from the right that Oliver and Olivia have to endure in the film is frighteningly topical. As the real Olivia Jones emphasizes in an interview about the film, society has changed:
"On the other hand, there is currently a shift to the right again, which means that the rights of queer people are also being questioned again. That worries me a lot because it reminds me a lot of my own youth."
And so "Olivia" is ultimately a very important film that inspires us to stand up for ourselves, but at the same time makes us thoughtful and sad in the face of past and present prejudices against LGBTQAI+ society.