Comedian Annette Frier "The hormones abruptly say goodbye to the job they were doing"
The series "Frier and Fifty - At the End of My Days" started on Joyn. Comedian Annette Frier plays Annette Frier, a woman going through the menopause. An interview about a painful and liberating phase of life.
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- It's not so easy to tell what is made up and what is simply depicted reality in the eight-part series "Frier und Fünfzig - Am Ende meiner Tage" (running on Joyn, and from Monday, November 24, 10.55 pm, also on SAT.1).
- In the series,Annette Fr ier plays the actress and comedian Annette Frier, who has to deal with getting older. And she wants to sell and shoot a series about herself in this phase of her life. The series we are watching now, so to speak.
- A conversation about the right way to deal with ageing and the reasons why women in our society are lagging behind on many issues and "for reasons".
Annette Frier, in the TV series "Frier und Fünfzig - Am Ende meiner Tage" you play Annette Frier, who wants to free herself from the image of the good-humored power woman in her new series. What is truth, what is fiction?
It's not so easy to answer how the two mix, the character and my true self. Not even for me! I had one inspiration, the Israeli series "Fifty". But that's more of a drama series. I once saw it on ARTE when I was in my mid-40s.
At the time, of course, I couldn't have imagined that all this would come my way (laughs). We were then briefly involved in international rights. And at some point, it became increasingly clear that we were telling the whole thing as a comedy and doing our own thing.
And that you were playing yourself ...?
It wasn't at all clear at the beginning. It came about through joint reflection within the team. When the character you want to invent already exists, so to speak, and then she also has a little sister who is also an actress and could play herself, it has a certain drive.
There was also the corresponding fall: 50 is not an easy phase of life. There's a lot to deal with. What's more, it's a bit of a specialty of mine to marry comedy and tragedy. It's a genre that interests me a lot as an actress and as a person. So a lot came together. And at some point it was clear: we're just going to do it.
Many well-known women in their 50s make guest appearances in the series: Barbara Schöneberger, Martina Hill and Bettina Lamprecht. Was it difficult to convince them to take part?
No, fortunately not. There are around nine million other great women in Germany who can be categorized in the age group or phase of life around the menopause. A group that has hardly been visible in series and films. And when they are, it's often in the form of a rather stereotypical supporting role as the mother of the protagonist. Yet there is a lot to tell right now. And - as mentioned above - a large target audience.
When you play yourself and talk about shameful topics, how much effort does that take?
In theory, you know in advance that shame will be an issue. Wash yourself, but don't get wet is not an option here. The good thing is that you only realize how uncomfortable certain moments actually feel when you're filming.
The good thing is that most of the shame is always the idea that only you have this problem. It helps me a lot when I realize that the other nine million people think and feel very similarly - which is indeed the case.
What characterizes the menopause phase of life?
The hormones say goodbye very abruptly to the job they have been doing for the last 35 years. It is a drastic change in the body that has a significant impact on the psyche. In my case, I suddenly felt like I did back in puberty. I questioned everything. Nothing was as certain as it had been for many years. All the issues came up again.
I thought about whether I wanted to continue being an actress, questioned my relationship, the whole model of life. All patterns and topics are up for discussion - without taboos. It's very honest, but at first it doesn't feel good at all, it feels very threatening.
Men's midlife crises have always been reported on. Why have women of this age been avoided for so long?
We are fresh out of the patriarchy. It was only a few years ago that we really started to shake up the structures. That's why the visibility of women in the fictional narrative world as a whole is lagging behind. For a long time, the same "boy meets girl" or "being a mother" stories were told forever. Now visibility is emerging for women in their 50s, when the children are slowly growing up. There are already guidebooks and podcasts, but hardly any fiction that tackles the topic in a funny way and pulls it out of the corner of shame.
Do you think this series wouldn't have existed 20 years ago?
Doris Dörrie's series "Klimawechsel" (Climate Change) was a great advance that also made it clear how underrepresented this phase of life is in the creative process. If my mother had been a comedian or author 25 or 30 years ago: In none, not even the best possible constellation of celebrities or other conditions would she have been able to bring something like this to the program.
Was it her own shame that made people hardly talk about the menopause in the past? Or did no one want to hear about it?
As I said, we live in a male-dominated society. This applies to studies, areas of interest and research. For a long time, people didn't take women's interests so seriously. I'm surprised by this realization myself, because I felt I was born with equal rights in the 1970s. Thanks to Alice Schwarzer and co.
It was only slowly that I realized how blindly I had walked through the world with regard to gender inequality. I don't mean that as offensively or militantly as it might sound. It's simply a fact that can be backed up by lots of data and figures.
What topics are you really ashamed of?
I'm ashamed of a lot of things, just like everyone else. Shame is a very human feeling that people don't like to talk about. Basically, I often feel ashamed when the image I present doesn't match how I really feel. I mean that one moment: My God, that's not me at all!
One of the tasks of the series was to embrace precisely these moments. In contrast to real life, where these feelings are often quickly pushed aside.
And that's good - to face up to it?
Yes, very much so. The older I get, the more clearly I realize that everything I don't want to see will come back anyway. All the aspects of my life that I put off - according to the motto: I'll deal with them later when I grow up - they come back. Everything unprocessed!
If I want to gain something from getting older, then it's the chance to look at these things instead of continuing to repress them. All the topics that when you're young you say: "Wow, I really don't want to deal with that now". We need to address both shame and getting older. Maybe that's the whole appointment.
In the series "Frier und Fünfzig - Am Ende meiner Tage", many celebrities play themselves. Was it difficult to convince them? Many of them don't make the best impression in their roles ...
We recruited a lot of the cast from my phone book, so we rather skipped "Call my Agent". As a result, a lot of people I've known for ages are in the cast.
Except for my husband Alexander Khuon and my daughter Maria Matschke, by the way, both of whom I met at the casting. Thanks for the great work at this point to Marc Schötteldreier, our casting director.
Does fear or desire prevail when you have to play yourself?
Both are very tangible at the same time. I know it from the series "Pastewka". I think that was the first time in German formats that celebrities played themselves - even in larger, more personal and not always flattering scenes.
It gets interesting when you really want to show something ugly about yourself - and to condense it. Then it can be funny and honest in equal measure.
In the series, Henning Baum falls in love with you and develops an obsession with Frier. How well did you know each other?
We've known each other really well for a year and a half, when we made a movie together. Many people don't know what a self-deprecating guy Henning is. He has this macho image, which he also plays with.
But he's a very pleasant and reflective colleague. That's why I called him at an early stage and said: "I want you to be my guilty pleasure in 'Frier and 50'! Do you want to?"
And what about the comeback of "Der letzte Bulle"?
There's something very charming about that, of course. "Der letzte Bulle" and our series "Danni Lowinski" started 15 years ago on the same evening on SAT.1.
Now we're back together on the same evening in different, even interesting ways. That pleases both the nostalgic and the young feminist in me (laughs).
