- The Observer, Sunday April 29 2001
Looking at the ads for the cocaine-trade epic Blow, it would be easy to imagine that Penelope Cruz is in every single scene. In fact, for the first third of the film another young foreign actress plays opposite Johnny Depp. But even if you saw Franka Potente in the film that made her a star, Run Lola Run, you would have a tough time spotting her here. In Run Lola Run she runs the streets in heavy boots, all stomping punky-ravey sulkiness. In Blow she seems poised, and definitely more grown up.
'I was hesitant about doing too big a role in an American movie because it meant losing my German accent. This role was just the right size,' Potente claims. At 26, she is older than she seemed in Run Lola Run. And she's experienced, having packed in a lot of work on TV and film since becoming a professional actress in 1996. Although Blow is her first American film, she is not having the kind of culture shock foreign stars often find in Hollywood, having been an exchange student in the US at 17. 'I did the whole thing. I had an American boyfriend, went to football games, tennis tournaments and to my prom. I was so serious about my American boyfriend that I brought him back to Germany with me to visit my parents. They were horrified.'
She makes up half of Germany's hippest film couple with Tom Tykwer, writer-director of Run Lola Run and Potente's recent German film, The Princess and the Warrior. 'Tom is one of the few authors who's able to write good female parts. Most of the time, I think, "Pah! This can only be written by a man who knows nothing about women." But Tom is really good.'
With Tykwer writing for her, she is unlikely to disappear to Hollywood full-time, but she has just finished starring opposite Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity, a big budget thriller in the intriguing hands of Swingers and Go director Doug Liman. Seems like Potente is leaving that stroppy running girl image behind fast.
Five things you need to know about Franka Potente
1. She sang two of the songs on the Run Lola Run soundtrack.
2. She goes out with 35-year-old writer-director Tom Tykwer.
3. She fences.
4. She studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York.
5. Although she has pale reddish hair in Blow, it is naturally brown.
