“Lemon Hearts” star Paula Kalenberg: The Christmas mishap with the potato dumplings

Paula Kalenberg (38, “Krabat”) plays the main role Carla, TV reporter and Christmas hater, in the magically entertaining body switch Christmas film “Zitronenherzen” (December 16, 8:15 p.m., ZDF). Leslie Malton (66, “Finally Widower”) embodies her mother Marlene von Osterburken, dime novelist and Christmas fan. During the body switch, Carla becomes one of her characters in the novel: “The gentle, selfless and popular Alpine baker Lilia LeClerk” has to get married before Christmas in order to save her village Glocksberg…

In the Christmas interview about the film, actress Paula Kalenberg talks about her own inexplicable Christmas experience. She also reveals why her family celebration doesn’t turn into an argument.

Paula Kalenberg: I ​​love Advent. If it were up to me, Advent would last three months until February. This abundance of events, festivities, rituals and tons of hearty food and delicacies squeezed into a single month results in unnecessary stress for me too. I guess this framework could effectively prevent the odd winter depression in January and February. Then spring would come after Christmas.

Kalenberg: I ​​have the best childhood memories of “Three Nuts for Cinderella.” And the film “The Ghosts I Called” (“Scrooged”) with Bill Murray has always really upset me. What I probably loved about this story even as a child is the honest way it deals with the painful feelings on the way to a happy ending. As in our film “Lemon Hearts” and in real life, recognizing your own distress and that of your loved ones is probably the key to a truly harmonious Christmas.

Kalenberg: Over the years I have celebrated Christmas in very different ways, sometimes with close friends. This year we will be celebrating again in the Allgäu with my family and, like Bolle, I am looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Kalenberg: Our poinsettia at the top of the tree has a little face and sleeps all year round in a small padded box. On Christmas Eve, the children wake up the star with a bell, a song and gentle knocking and hang it on the tree. It’s always a nice moment to pause before the gift-giving begins.

Kalenberg: Luckily, we adults take turns doing Secret Santa, so we only have to get one present each. And we also try to agree on the number of children’s gifts in order to curb the flood of gifts. I love having everything together early, going to the mall before Christmas is my personal nightmare.

Kalenberg: Shared experiences – no object in the world could make me happier.

Kalenberg: Personally, it is important to me to always get conflicts out of the way as quickly as possible. I think living together like this all year round takes most of the stress out of the holidays. But like Carla in our story “Lemon Hearts”, I also have to learn again and again to really empathize with others. A Christmas miracle [Bodyswitch mit der Romanheldin, Red.] allows Carla to gain a deep insight into her mother’s emotional world, but it also allows her mother to understand her daughter’s injuries for the first time.

Kalenberg: That depends a lot on where and how we celebrate. Most of the time I am the person in charge of vegetarian food. Over the last 20 years I have perfected cooking very hearty plant-based meals. I always love coming up with an alternative to wild goulash or the obligatory goose with dumplings.

Kalenberg: No, to be honest I can suppress these thoughts pretty well. But when I get out and go jogging during the holidays, it always does me a lot of good. Above all, to take a moment for myself in all the hustle and bustle, but also physically I feel a thousand times better.

Kalenberg: Overcoming patriarchy worldwide. In my opinion, this structural power imbalance leads to the oppression of all genders. I hope that even supposedly privileged men will join this liberation struggle out of their own interest.

Kalenberg: When I was in my early 20s I spent the holidays on a Welsh farm. I worked there for about a year in biodynamic farming and looking after young people with disabilities. After dark we took a hike to a lonely little chapel and sang Christmas carols there by candlelight. I found this experience to be incredibly magical at the time – and it came very close to the Christmas atmosphere of the mountain village in our film.

Kalenberg: In our family we always tell the story of the missing dumplings. We used to have a wooden box on the balcony in which, among other things, drinks were kept cold in winter. The finished potato dumplings were covered with a cloth on a tray on this box. When these were supposed to be cooked, they disappeared as if by magic. At some point we found the dumplings between the cobwebs and leaves behind the box. There was wild speculation all evening about who this could have happened to and how.

Kalenberg: In the best case, loud and quiet. For me, drawing tarot cards and ending the rough nights in a contemplative way is just as much a part of it as lying in each other’s arms bawling and drunkenly telling your friends how incredibly fond you are of them.

Kalenberg: After the gluttony at Christmas, there is usually something lighter on New Year’s Eve. This year I’m celebrating with friends in the country and I think it will be very uncomplicated and everyone will bring something with them.

Kalenberg: I ​​intend to become more politically involved in real life, beyond social media. We are all painfully aware of how fragile our democracies are and we need strong democratic participation to protect them. I want to support the political forces in our country that face the complexity of the world situation instead of settling for simple answers. Democracy is not a service. Everyone is responsible for themselves.

Kalenberg: Last summer and fall I filmed two tough crime thrillers for RTL on the fictional island “Öd”, which will be broadcast this spring. I’m super happy about how different the projects I get to shoot are. To be honest, our Christmas film “Lemon Hearts” is more in line with my own viewing habits. Playing drama, murder and manslaughter can be intense and very fulfilling in a way. But as a viewer, I can sleep much better after watching a classic romantic comedy. Personally, I love films with a lot of emotion and a large portion of magic, just like our Christmas film “Lemon Hearts”.