Sebastian Ströbel: Commuting sometimes “gets on his socks”

Commute around 1,000 kilometers – every week? For actor Sebastian Ströbel (47) this has been part of everyday life for years. Because he travels back and forth between filming for the ZDF series “Die Bergretter” in Austria and his family in Hamburg. Sometimes that “gets really annoying,” he admits in the program “Gala” (November 30, 5:45 p.m., RTL).

Since 2014 he has played Markus Kofler, the head of the mountain rescue team. The film is shot around the Wilder Kaiser in Austria. However, his wife Kristina, with whom he has been married since 2005, and their four daughters live in Hamburg. In order to spend as much time as possible with the family despite filming, Ströbel accepts the stress of traveling. “It’s no use complaining about it and for me it’s just part of the job,” he explains to presenter Annika Lau (45) on the show “Gala”. “We all know what I’ve gotten myself into and the family supports it.”

This has now become part of everyday life for him, but there are also weeks when “it gets really annoying”. This is how Sebastian Ströbel describes it: “There are very often situations where you shoot late on Friday, which means that immediately after filming from the mountain I would drive towards Munich at night and then take the very first plane to Hamburg in the morning. And on The next day I have to go down the same route again or I can do it with an overnight stay at a motorway service station somewhere, I sleep there for a few hours and then I drive on.”

And when he gets home, there is little time to rest. “I’m doing this to spend time with the family.” This includes taking on “all duties and responsibilities”. That’s why he’s on duty at the weekend: “I also have pubescent children who all go to the slopes and party. In other words: On Saturday evenings, a taxi is called for, so I just drive off and pick them up too.” And he loves doing that even in the middle of the night.

He might just be able to enjoy the hours with the children because they are limited. “If I had more time with the children, then maybe they would say: ‘Wow, I’m going to lie down now, I don’t feel like playing with you or reading to you’ or something like that.”