pit
22.01.2011, 21:53
AW: Questions about Lena?
cyberscout
@the Youtube-Uploaders in here: perhaps we need a subbed version of the Ö3 interview. Then we can discuss it intensely with all our international guests
I took it as assignment and challenge. Probably there are many mistakes because:
I didn't revise it closely (lack of time);
I tried to interpret as little as possible;
I wanted to keep the atmosphere of an interview. Therefore sentences are not finished, a lot of interruptions disturb the flow of language;
and last but not least, my inaptness as 'translator'
All in all, all flaws go to my account. Nevertheless, have a lot of fun!
(Sorry, the format in my office document is a lot better but I tried thrice to copy it correctly into the forum - didn't work - now I'm fed up.:X:hmm:
Interview Lena Meyer-Landrut, host C. Stöckl, Ö3, on air 16.5.2010
The interview starts with 'Satellite'. Going on in the background.
Speaker: She is the winner of the song competition ('casting show') 'A Star for Oslo' and represents Germany at the (Eurovision) Song Contest: Pop miracle Lena Meyer-Landrut about her life as media star, her school qualification (A-levels) and her dreams. Now on air on Ö3.
I
Stöckl: 'Frühstück bei mir' (Breakfast with me/at my place) today with newcomer, flashing starter, singer, song contest participant Lena Meyer-Landrut. Good Morning, Lena
Lena: Good morning.
Stöckl: You arrived here a little bit in haste. Is it a symbol for your life now?
Lena: The travel was slightly hounded but now everything is very relaxed.
Stöckl: But has your life been a run for time these last two month?
Lena: Ahhmmm, well, I don't know – I don't see it as a negative thing. I'm actually grateful for every interview, because it means that people are interested. And that's a good thing.
Stöckl: Very professional. (Lena laughs.) Do you live your dream now?
Lena: Ahhmmm, well I don't have a real dream in fact. I have never said: My dream is now to become great and famous. (But) it is a dream indeed I'm living here, now. In any case, everything appears unreal if you think about it.
Stöckl: How does it feel to be Lena Meyer-Landrut at the moment? (Lena chuckles)
Lena: Totally normal, in fact. Like before. After all I don't feel and see myself greatly different, thank God I'm very happy about that.
Stöckl: But is there anything that bewilders, astonishes you in this life? There are a lot of new things, indeed, that come up to you. What do you see as being new, actually, after these two months?
Lena: Incredibly much. Well, I've asked myself very often, what a strange world. What a strange world where you can become so famous in such a short time. How does it work? – With the help of the media; that it is so rapid. Yeah, then you ask yourself, why exactly me and how does it work so quickly and ... Well, I never believe that so many people know me. I'm still, when walking through the streets, - then I don't think about it - that perhaps 40 per cent of mankind knows my name.
Stöckl: You do realize that people recognize you?
Lena: Yes. Stöckl: Yet? Lena: Yes
Stöckl: How is it at the moment when you walk along the streets? Many autograph hunters, fans who appeal to you?
Lena: Many people who recognize me and who cautiously ask: „And are you actually Lena? And (we) believe you're really great.“ Some shout out my name after me. What's that supposed to be I don't know neither. You're actually ... looked at and whispering starts and ... You realize it, indeed.
Stöckl: How do you feel about that?
Lena: Well, I consider that actually always as nice and I find it good if people approach me and ask me things they are interested in. That's totally all right and I really like to give autographs and I really appreciate it if pictures are taken. Only,what I ... Well, what I noticed, sometimes, people are disrespectful and loose the thought that I'm a normal person as well and not an artificial figure who is the whole day in a TV scenery. But I'm a quite normal person and ... I experienced a few times that people simply took pictures or shot films of me (without asking) ... This is something I totally ...
Stöckl: When you're eating or in the street ...
Lena: Exactly. Then I wonder and ask myself why are they doing that, because I would never ever dare to do that.
II
Stöckl: Do you drink coffee, Lena? Or what would you like to have – some juice? Or...
Lena: I'll have some orange juice. That would be nice. Look down there is the whole pulp. I'll stir it with the fork, OK? I haven't even licked it. (Stöckl laughing, fork jingling)
Lena: So.
Stöckl: Lena, describe your thoughts when you applied for the casting show.
Lena: That happed actually all more by chance than by plan. I wanted to go to TV-total.
Stöckl: Thus to be in the audience?
Lena: Exactly. In the studio ... Then I was looking at the home page and wanted to check when cool guests were there and saw the logogram for 'Our Star for Oslo' – casting show – and thought, well then lets do it simply, just to take it as an experience and then ...
Stöckl: And you had sung then already? You have had a student music band?
Lena: Yes, we have had a student's project for a weekend I had sung cover songs, then at my old school I had taken part in a little jazz band, --then I thought about it and everything was at short notice, I applied, in fact and then an e-mail arrived: Congratulations. Your appointment will be in six days, and then I booked a travel by train and then I went to Cologne six days later and then I sung.
Stöckl: And did you ask your mother?
Lena: Well, yes, I asked her what she thought about it and she said: “O.K. if you think so.“ (laughing) And then I went there and thought: I won't win anyway.
Stöckl: Nevertheless, there must have been a certain dream as a motivation...
Lena: Yes, of course.
Stöckl: ...to hit it big or I want to experience what pop stars do experience?
Lena: No, not really. Not like that. I have always had the dream to be an artist. I have always had the dream to act in front of people whether in art or theatre play or whether singing – yeah, something of me to present to get through to the people. It was important for me to get into an artist scene because I believe I feel most at home there with my character and my head.
Stöckl: That's interesting because you're eighteen, you'll become nineteen within the next week – all the best, by the way – and there are a lot of people who stray around not knowing what to do with their lives. Why did you know it so exactly?
Lena: I didn't know it exactly, in fact. I only knew it should be that direction and in most cases it just happens – for example, people who deal an incredibly lot with computers don't know exactly whether to become a system administrator or rather a programmer, and in most cases the solution will come in the course of time. I had used to write down in little friendship books “what I want to become”: actress or singer. Of course it had been only fantasy then because you can't imagine that it would be possible. If you come from such a little village how should it be possible?
Stöckl: You're from Hanover, aren't you?
Lena: Well, yes but rather from a suburb.
Stöckl: And then there was a call
Lena: And then there was a call a few month later, I was asked to, please, come into the show. Ya.
Stöckl: From week to week you realized that your style, your way to perform was successful?
Lena: Yes.
Stöckl: That causes self confidence?
Lena: That encourages in those things that you're doing. I'm always uncertain, I always think there are, in any case,a thousand people who are better than me. I very often said: I don't think that I can sing that brilliantly. I still believe that. And the compliments are unbelievably nice but often they're only an illusion.
Stöckl: Now you're in the “PR machinery”. Your new album has been released. Do you feel sometimes as a product of the music industry that has to be successful? Pushed around in interviews?
Lena: Ach, I believe every artist who is successful is a product somehow or a figure. I'm glad that I am where I am at the moment because I' m firmly convinced that those people who quasi “sell” me as a product know me so well that they do what I want to do. I have a say in a lot of things, and I really feel in good hands.
III
(...)
Stöckl: I take a drink of apple juice.
Lena: Do it.
Stöckl: There are fruit and ham and bread. Do you take care of your appearance, or I presume you can eat whatever you want to?
Lena: Yes (laughs). I eat quite a lot and love it.
Stöckl: You say you where slightly uncertain when performing, yet I find it intriguing when watching you.- I watched a lot of videos of you, - I felt that you have a very strong self confidence. Where does it come from? How were you educated?
Lena: ... the way that I can confide in myself in any case. That is, I believe, important.
Stöckl: Last week, on Mother's day, I hosted an expert on education, well known in Austria, Dr.Martina Leibovitzi, who said how important it is to set limits for children but in those limits they are free to decide for themselves. Did you experience the same? Because meeting you evokes the feeling that you are not eighteen but you have so much experience and wisdom (Lena laughs slightly embarrassed), where does it come from?
Lena: Yes, it looks like education. I always could choose what I wanted to do – of course within limits. Well yes, I don't know, I was always allowed to decide how to dress for example. I believe these are important things. Not so many decisions were made for me.
Stöckl: When were you allowed to go out in the evening until midnight for example?
Lena: Oh, at fifteen, sixteen.
Stöckl: Did you sometimes neglect the limits?
Lena: Rarely, in fact. I never dared to. (Stöckl and Lena laugh) I'm really a sissy in such cases and I love my Mum far too much to ... (disappoint her). Well, I don't have to test limits set by other people when I think they are quite right.
Stöckl: Where/when did the revolt start? (Lena laughs)
Lena: Not really, neither. At some time being a grown up had begun, well, sometimes a little bit against – against. Once or twice skipping school and not telling it – but no drugs taken until now
Stöckl: Smoked (cigarettes)?
Lena: (low voice) Yes, yes I do smoke.
Stöckl: Not very model like.
Lena: No, not at all, but ...no chain(smoking)
Stöckl: When were you drunk last?
Lena: Drunk? That's absolutely long ago. I have been sick with alcohol only once. And that happened accidentally. I was at a party then and never have had any alcohol before and was 'filled up'. It wasn't my intend. Else, I never have such extreme excesses on alcohol because I'm too much afraid of vomiting or of not having control of myself.
Stöckl: Your success has been analysed a lot by magazines and there can be read that you are the counterexample, the anti thesis to what is believed about teenagers, that is the drinking to coma, computer addicted, lethargic... – well, that generation that is uninvolved really and doesn't care a lot. Do you recognize yourself if it is said that you are the better behaved, more decent, more conformed one?
Lena: Ach, I went through phases at the age of fifteen, sixteen when I sat in front of the computer for five or six hours, for three or four months. I think that such experiences have to be made. But the limits should be recognized. And I also believe that teenagers are not as bad as they seem. There is a lot told about 'the youths', who drink themselves into coma and who hang in front of the PC for twenty hours and the computer games ... who play ego shooters; but there is little reported about the youths who are commited and who qualify and who are socially competent. That's why the opposite view has to be regarded as well and I don't believe that this part (of youth) is so small.
Stöckl: You've got the feeling you are still a representative of the opposite? (Lena laughs)
Lena: Perhaps not the perfect representative but in any case no “Miss Coma-booze”.
IV
Stöckl: Would you pour in a bit of milk into my coffee?
Lena: You, I'll do that. Is that enough?
Stöckl: Yes, thank you. Germany's song contestant Lena Meyer Landrut, hosted at “Frühstück bei mir”. You are drinking orange juice. What would you say is the most important experience, that you have gained during the last two months since you won the show?
Lena: You have to take care, in any case, of having the right people on your side, people you can trust in. I believe that a lot of people aren't malicious, that's what I really firmly believe. But I believe it is very important too to have persons who you can relate most closely to and who care about you.
Stöckl: A lot of things have been published in the media. You are depicted almost daily on a cover, your career or your character has been scrutinized, there is naturally a lot of praise how authentic, cute and ... (Lena laughs) You can already talk along (both laugh) how special you are. There was also some criticism. For example: Rapper Sido said: You can't sing and you will probably be seen at the song contest with greasy hair and a little flowery dress; and he doesn't understand at all why you succeeded so far, you are smug. So, there was a hail of criticism, partly of colleagues. Didn't it affect you?
Lena: No, referred to Sido for example I can say: This good guy judged without having a notion. Something like that is stupid – Ahm -because maybe we get along well when we meet, we have never met before; else, I think we have freedom of opinion and everybody may say what he wants to and not everybody must be fond of me. (Stöckl laughs)
Stöckl: It's nice if it is understood/seen like this, but usually people want that everybody is fond of them, don't they?
Lena: No, not at all. I believe the whole life is ...– whether you are famous or not, whether you work or not, no matter in what surroundings you are – there are always people who like you and who don't and that had happened already before 'Our Star for Oslo'. Ahm, then it had not become so conscious because it wasn't discussed in the public and media, which is evident but finally it is something very natural that there are sympathies and aversions.
Stöckl: The 'Bild Zeitung' (i.e. German tabloid, N.B.pit) revealed that you acted in a film and there was a scene in the nude. The story was of course displayed broadly (Lena hums acknowledging) Was it embarrassing for you that it was discussed like that and...
Lena: Scandal, scandal! Stöckl: The flashing bosoms... Lena: Scandal!
Lena: No, that was a little bit inconvenient. I had not been able to know then that I would have such a massive attendance in the media. Perhaps I wouldn't have done it then. But basically, I have never been ashamed of that and I won't be and that's why it is completely all right. Thus, it is not a scandal for me, I didn't type in the heading. Well, that's my body. I didn't shoot a ***** film, that's still within the limits of good ...
Stöckl: What is the nicest experience that you've had?
Lena: Difficult. There is so much. I believe all in all it's the best to get at people, not that I need other people's appreciation but that others simply experience some sort of enrichment provided by me or rather a little piece of joy perhaps.
Stöckl: In the sense of listening to your song or watching you or how... Lena: For example. Stöckl: could you enrich them? Lena: Yes, exactly. Stöckl: Yes? Lena: Yes. Stöckl: By watching your performance for example?.
Lena: Yes, for example. If it makes you happy to listen to this song – Satellite for example - or I read on my web site, a young girl wrote that this was her and her boy-friend's song. (Lena laughs) And something like this I find totally cute and totally nice.
V
(...)
Speaker: An eighteen years old girl conquers the German pop world. Lena Meyer-Landrut about her performance at 'Wetten dass ...' (= German TV Show), her experiences in the monastery and her critics. Now on air at Ö3.
Stöckl: A well laid breakfast table. Lena: That's true. Stöckl: Ja.
Stöckl: It is written in your biography that you are the granddaughter of the former German ambassador in Moscow (Lena hums acknowledging), Andreas Meyer-Landrut. How did you live and see that? Did you experience somehow this diplomat's household?
Lena: Well, that's a topic for example I don't talk about at all.
Stöckl: You don't talk about it?
Lena: No.
Stöckl: Why is family such an awkward item for you?
Lena: Ach, it isn't awkward at all. Talking about it with friends, it is something different. But I always think that I like to answer questions about me; we already talked about my education for example. Now it could be said: well, she already talked about her private education – but this concerns me as a person and I can totally understand that questions are asked about me and that people are interested in that - I fully comprehend that.
Stöckl: But it's also about your person(ality) if I ask how you experienced your growing up in a kind of family or ... Lena: Exactly. Stöckl: ... (?) of your grandfather.
Lena: But there, this would imply the story of my grandfather, well, that's something I don't want to.
Stöckl: Is this approach something you thought of before 'A Star for Oslo' or did you consider about how to deal with the media when you were successful or did you talk it over with your management?
Lena: That's something I considered quite early, already in the first show when I was asked the first private question. I had not thought about it before because there had not been any necessity to think about it. But as soon as the first question appeared I felt that I don't want that.
Stöckl: What was the first personal question that disturbed you? Perhaps whether you are single or whether you have a boy friend.
Lena: Perhaps, yes. (laughs) Stöckl: ...quite surely.
Lena: That's true. I don't remember it well, but I can imagine that.
Stöckl: It is interesting that 'stardom' – if observing it for many years – is defined too – now I'm quoting Udo Jürgens (i.e.famous but older pop star from Austria, N.B.pit), whom I hosted already very often and who has been there for ages – he always says: It is important to show your fans a 'lived life', thus: they can touch the star in fact, that they really know what he is moved by. Is this an opinion you can't share at all?
Lena: Yes, certainly. I can share this indeed. I think I reveal quite a lot about me and my emotions and even about my character, but about things which are absolutely irrelevant from a musician's point of view – there I don't see a reason to talk about, yet. Maybe in five year's time, perhaps it is different then, but now, it isn't necessary.
Stöckl: But you always say, the music is in the centre of attention and your music deals a lot with love for example. Lena: ... for example, yes. Stöckl: ... and this is why I thought it is a contradiction if you don't want to talk about love.
Lena: Oh, I can talk about love! But not about mine.
Stöckl: Where do you invest most love?
Lena: Pooh, into music, I think. At the moment, into that what I do and into the family of course.
Stöckl: Family is important, indeed? Lena: Of course. Stöckl: ...but your mother ... does she take part or do you keep her so isolated that she can't be seen in the public when ... Lena: No... Stöckl: ... you are performing ... Lena: I don't want that. Stöckl: ... or she doesn't want to?
Lena: I don't want it.
Stöckl: And that is OK for her?
Lena: I think it's quite OK but I also believe that she doesn't want it.
Stöckl: A last question I would like to ask referring to this topic because it has been a great story in Germany: Your father has got a chance to speak after sixteen years. (Lena coughs) Have you thought this is a consequence of success that suddenly family, who you don't have close acquaintance with any more appear in the media?
Lena: It ... it can well be possible. Yes perhaps it is a consequence, perhaps not. Perhaps he would have got in touch if nothing had happened. No idea.
Stöckl: But it didn't move you to meet him, did it?
Lena: I don't say anything about that neither. Stöckl: Nothing? Lena: No.
VI
Stöckl: There was to be read an interesting story this week: You were in a monastery two years ago, Taizé...
Lena: It isn't a monastery, it's a community.
Stöckl: ...to discover what? What to experience there?
Lena: Well, this is such a thing, too ... I like to talk about Taizé because I think it is an extraordinarily great thing but I don't like to talk about my motives to go there because it belongs to me because I don't tell it anybody. It belongs to me and my heart. I'm partly amused about what people figure out or invent only to write anything...
Stöckl: On the other hand people are very much interested in you. Isn't it exciting? (?) Attention can be something nice.
Lena: Yes, of course. But not for me in this respect, simply. Ja?!
Stöckl: How was it there, what did you experience?
Lena: Taizé is a place – originally founded during the Nazi period as accommodation of Jews - of brethren not of monks, that's a difference, they are frères. They are not really brethren but they call themselves like that. There are still forty people today and Taizé is a place where people from all over the world can gather mostly from spring to autumn. Up to two thousand people arrive and leave per week and it is a huge assembly, where you can sing. It has not a lot do with what faith community you belong to whether you believe in some kind of bible...or some commandment but it is a kind of community where you can assemble, exchange opinions, experience repose and sing together.
Stöckl: In this mutual singing do you experience a community? Is it a spiritual experience?
Lena: It is in any case a community which I have never met before. It is an incredible experience that shouldn't be granted to anybody ... Stöckl: .... granted to anybody? Granted to everybody!
Lena: Everybody, yes. Stöckl: Sorry! Lena: That ... You are sitting there really together with four thousand people in one room and you are singing (together)
Stöckl: Four Thousand? Lena: Yeah. Stöckl: Great!
Lena: It is awesome. You can't imagine. It is even unimaginable for me now what the feeling was because it is such an intensive experience at that moment.
Stöckl: It is community where everybody is obliged to collaborate? Lena: Yes. Stöckl: Is that correct? Cleaning, peeling vegetable, cooking?
Lena: Yes, there are the forty brethren and the volunteers and those helping and consequently everybody else has to help. To feed four thousand people isn't as easy as pie.
Stöckl: And this provided a basis – or is faith an important component in your life? What would you say?
Lena: Again, that's a question not belonging to Taizé but to me.
Stöckl: But this stabilizes you?
Lena: Yes, I believe but in what and why and how much and whether in a certain direction or whether not or ...that is entirely my business.
Stöckl: Strange, I have been doing this for thirteen years, but none of the stars ever said this was too private for them.
Lena: Yeah, that's simply a thing which is not supposed to belong to others, which I want to safe for myself. My face belongs already to so many (people).
VII
Speaker: She's eighteen and wrote pop history already. (Satellite, Bee, Love Me) No other artist managed it instantly to be represented in the top five of the charts with three songs at the same time. Germany's pop darling Lena Meyer-Landrut is having breakfast here on Ö3.
Stöckl: We are having breakfast in Halle (i.e. a German town, N.B. pit), in the former GDR, together with Germany's entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, Lena Meyer-Landrut .Your fingernails are lacquered in black ... Lena: ... and chewed off ...Stöckl: (laughing) chewed off? (Lena laughs) You are very casual in jeans and a hoodie but what is you life style, what is important for you – what should be in your wardrobe?
Lena: The wardrobe isn't important at all. This is in any case cool and I like to have many things to put on, and much great dress- stuff, but it isn't an essential ... an essential basis of life. It is so absolutely futile. I absolutely like dress stuff and shoes and I like to do my hair, being made up and nail lacquer and everything girls do, stereotyped girlish. But it isn't so important.
Stöckl: Do you have a diamond on your tooth or what is it?
Lena: Two. Well, I did that when I was twelve, they don't disappear somehow.
Stöckl: Would you like them to have gone? Don't they suit any more?
Lena: I could take them off. They don't disturb me.
Stöckl: Everybody is talking about the Euro-crisis, world economic crisis, environmental crisis. How do you feel in such world shaken by crises?
Lena: I have never contemplated about that, yet.
Stöckl: Because it is said this is a generation of young people who will have to tackle a lot of problems.
Lena: (hums consentingly) At the moment I don't have to fight any bigger problems, thank God. This becomes my job at the moment ...
Stöckl: To be a singer, to be a musician ...
Lena: Yes, to be in public attention. You have to get used to it, cope with it, but it is like in any other job, there are always risks – it can be over anytime– a job can be canceled as quickly as a career can be over. That's why you should always bother but don't stress it too much because if you do that you'll become mad.
Stöckl: What did you have to learn in your flashing career. Did your mentor, Stefan Raab, tipped you off?
Lena: Yes, all sorts of people tip me off.
Stöckl: Do you listen to all of them?
Lena: I listen to all of them, take the advice calmly and look then if I can pick something for myself pleasing me.
Stöckl: What did he say?
Lena: Stefan says: Do it, simply. ...Do it simply, be as you are.
Stöckl: How do you prepare the Song Contest?
Lena: Ach, all the performances I did are a good preparation for the song contest and we will be in Oslo one week before the Contest and can rehearse on the big stage. Yeah, that will be my preparation.
Stöckl: And the expectations which you are feeling – do they exert a certain pressure? Can you escape from that anyhow now that the whole of Germany keep their fingers crossed but also expect a good result?
Lena: I escape this pressure in any case by telling myself: Look at everything positively and if people say the song is good, not only the Germans but also the English book-makers for example – where really a lot of people tell me: My God that must be horrible, there must be a gigantic pressure upon your shoulders, then I always say: Such a forecast by people who have a hunch about it encourages me in fact and tells me: It can't become so bad, now. If it isn't first but eighth or twelfth place then nobody would torture me.
Stöckl: 125 million people will watch you. Lena: Oh God. Stöckl: You already said you can't imagine that just as little as 125 million strawberries. (Lena laughs) Anyway, it is simply an abstract number?
Lena: Unbelievable. Could you imagine ... Would this whole room be filled up with strawberries? Would the whole hotel be filled? I can't imagine it.
VIII
Stöckl: “Die Welt” (i.e. German newspaper, N.B. pit), for example said: “Lena appears cuddly, innocent and dear, an asexual darling for the whole family. (Lena hums) Do you want to be successful branded by these attributes? (Stöckl laughs)
Lena: Pooh, everywhere, there is written something else. Everybody makes up another story. My tattoo stands already for five different things.
Stöckl: You've got a lily tattooed.
Lena: Yes, a stylized one.
Stöckl: And what does it mean really?
Lena: I don't reveal that, of course (laughing). That's the funny thing. This tattoo has become a real game in my mind. Now suddenly after this Taizé thing, it has become a symbol of the Christian scouts; before that, it had been the symbol of purity then it became the symbol for health, then it was a fleur-de-lys. I don't know, it is again and again exciting what people make up.
Stöckl: But here you say these are your secrets ... Lena: Exactly. Stöckl: ... and you rather have eight interpretations than telling once what it really means? Lena: Yes. Exactly. Stöckl: Do you really prefer that or do you think at the eighth interpretation you have to reveal something?
Lena: Nope. Not at all. I think it's similar to the relationship of parents and children: The parents set a rule, for example: You won't watch TV for ten days. On the first day, it is incredibly hard, it is very gross, it is so stupid, and you ask all the time and you want it much, much, much more than usually. Maybe, the second day it is still like this but sometime you'll accept it.
Stöckl: You mean to say that journalists are the same?
Lena: I hope so.
Stöckl: Or it could be that they surrender and don't write anything about you.
Lena: Or that. Then it is supposed to be so.
Stöckl: You would see that relaxed as well?
Lena: Then it's the way of the world.
Stöckl: Indeed?
Lena: Yes.
Stöckl: You said, you consider Falco (i.e. Austrian singer,† 6. February 1998; N.B: pit) as the one of the greatest musical legends. He told me, if success grows faster than the soul can grow a problem appears. Can you imagine that you will feel this problem one day since your success grows at a speed that everybody thinks the soul can't grow as fast.
Lena: If so, I think I would have a problem already. Because now is the time when everything has grown so incredibly fast. I believe, in future , it won't grow as much in such a short span of time. The hardest time has just gone by. Perhaps it will come. Perhaps I will be a mentally fragile wreckage in three weeks time. (Both laugh)
Stöckl: You say that with a smile; so you don't believe in that.
Lena: I hope not, no.
Stöckl: What do you dream of?
Lena: I dream of living contentedly on a farm at the age of sixty, with a lot of dogs.
Stöckl: You muse quite into future for an eighteen year old.
Lena: That is important.
Stöckl: And before that, what shall happen until then?
Lena: We'll see! No idea, no master plan.
Stöckl: Udo Jürgens, to quote an Austrian musician at last, who had won the Song Contest in the sixties, he is a big opposer of the 'casting shows', he says: You have to go the hard way up to the peak, you have to scrape your knees bloody, only then you'll understand what it means to make a career in this business and winners of casting shows are hauled up to the peak by a helicopter. Sometimes it is as you can see in some examples – it is very, very difficult when the attention vanishes.
Lena: Yes, I can imagine that very well. Though I don't believe it would be very difficult for me then. If I don't receive any attention any more, (not) because I need it but it has simply become almost a habit and because it' s always difficult to get rid of habits. But it works.
Stöckl: So you think no matter what, I won't despair or become depressive.
Lena: I don't think so.
Stöckl: What grounds you like that?
Lena: Hmm, the good thought – simply, to be positive and not perceiving so many bad things.
Stöckl: This is in any case a good way to make such a career. Hence I give cordially thanks, Lena. Thank you that you took time.
Lena: Nice, it was; even if we didn't eat very much.
The Ö3 questionnaire
Speaker: I am ...?
Lena: I am very cheerful ...mostly.
Speaker: Wealth/prosperity means ...?
Lena: ...to be able to pass something to other people, in any case.
Stöckl: Do you consider yourself being wealthy/prosperous?
Lena: ...rich in thoughts, lessons learned and experiences.
Speaker: If I received 100 000 Euro as a gift ...?
Lena: I would donate half of it.
Stöckl: ...and the other half?
Lena: ...pay into an account, to have security, later
Speaker: My most expensive toy is ...?
Lena: A Nintendo DS.
Speaker: I appraise most in a woman ....?
Lena: ... if she isn't a chattercat (i.e. chatterbox)
Speaker: I appraise most in a man ...?
Lena: ...to have a strong shoulder to rely on.
Speaker: I find it erotically ...?
Lena: Sausages. (laughing)
Stöckl: Sausages?
Lena: Nonsense. Don't know. I don't comment on this.
Speaker: My dream man is ...?
Lena: Johnny Depp. (chuckling) No, I appreciate him because he acted such super roles. I don't have a dream man.
Speaker: My heart throbbed last ...?
Lena: ...in the last show, there my heart throbbed. What was the last show? TV Total – when I performed.
Speaker: I was lovesick last ...?
Lena: ... when my ex(boy-friend) left, back then.
Stöckl: You were left?
Lena: I was left.
Stöckl: He probably regrets that, now. (both laughing)
Speaker: This book impressed me ...?
Lena: 'Sophie's World' by Jostein Gaarder.
Stöckl: A book about philosophy?
Lena: Yes.
Speaker: My mother always says ...?
Lena: Take care of yourself! (laughing)
Stöckl: She still says that?
Lena: Yes.
Speaker: This is something I would change:
Lena: Money should be abolished. (laughing)
Stöckl: ...because ...?
Lena: Then, everything would be easier.
Speaker: My life motto is:
Lena: Not to ponder too much.
Speaker: My recipe for success is:
Lena: Not to ponder too much.
Speaker: My last words should be:
Lena: So long, everybody / Take care.
cyberscout
@the Youtube-Uploaders in here: perhaps we need a subbed version of the Ö3 interview. Then we can discuss it intensely with all our international guests
I took it as assignment and challenge. Probably there are many mistakes because:
I didn't revise it closely (lack of time);
I tried to interpret as little as possible;
I wanted to keep the atmosphere of an interview. Therefore sentences are not finished, a lot of interruptions disturb the flow of language;
and last but not least, my inaptness as 'translator'
All in all, all flaws go to my account. Nevertheless, have a lot of fun!
(Sorry, the format in my office document is a lot better but I tried thrice to copy it correctly into the forum - didn't work - now I'm fed up.:X:hmm:
Interview Lena Meyer-Landrut, host C. Stöckl, Ö3, on air 16.5.2010
The interview starts with 'Satellite'. Going on in the background.
Speaker: She is the winner of the song competition ('casting show') 'A Star for Oslo' and represents Germany at the (Eurovision) Song Contest: Pop miracle Lena Meyer-Landrut about her life as media star, her school qualification (A-levels) and her dreams. Now on air on Ö3.
I
Stöckl: 'Frühstück bei mir' (Breakfast with me/at my place) today with newcomer, flashing starter, singer, song contest participant Lena Meyer-Landrut. Good Morning, Lena
Lena: Good morning.
Stöckl: You arrived here a little bit in haste. Is it a symbol for your life now?
Lena: The travel was slightly hounded but now everything is very relaxed.
Stöckl: But has your life been a run for time these last two month?
Lena: Ahhmmm, well, I don't know – I don't see it as a negative thing. I'm actually grateful for every interview, because it means that people are interested. And that's a good thing.
Stöckl: Very professional. (Lena laughs.) Do you live your dream now?
Lena: Ahhmmm, well I don't have a real dream in fact. I have never said: My dream is now to become great and famous. (But) it is a dream indeed I'm living here, now. In any case, everything appears unreal if you think about it.
Stöckl: How does it feel to be Lena Meyer-Landrut at the moment? (Lena chuckles)
Lena: Totally normal, in fact. Like before. After all I don't feel and see myself greatly different, thank God I'm very happy about that.
Stöckl: But is there anything that bewilders, astonishes you in this life? There are a lot of new things, indeed, that come up to you. What do you see as being new, actually, after these two months?
Lena: Incredibly much. Well, I've asked myself very often, what a strange world. What a strange world where you can become so famous in such a short time. How does it work? – With the help of the media; that it is so rapid. Yeah, then you ask yourself, why exactly me and how does it work so quickly and ... Well, I never believe that so many people know me. I'm still, when walking through the streets, - then I don't think about it - that perhaps 40 per cent of mankind knows my name.
Stöckl: You do realize that people recognize you?
Lena: Yes. Stöckl: Yet? Lena: Yes
Stöckl: How is it at the moment when you walk along the streets? Many autograph hunters, fans who appeal to you?
Lena: Many people who recognize me and who cautiously ask: „And are you actually Lena? And (we) believe you're really great.“ Some shout out my name after me. What's that supposed to be I don't know neither. You're actually ... looked at and whispering starts and ... You realize it, indeed.
Stöckl: How do you feel about that?
Lena: Well, I consider that actually always as nice and I find it good if people approach me and ask me things they are interested in. That's totally all right and I really like to give autographs and I really appreciate it if pictures are taken. Only,what I ... Well, what I noticed, sometimes, people are disrespectful and loose the thought that I'm a normal person as well and not an artificial figure who is the whole day in a TV scenery. But I'm a quite normal person and ... I experienced a few times that people simply took pictures or shot films of me (without asking) ... This is something I totally ...
Stöckl: When you're eating or in the street ...
Lena: Exactly. Then I wonder and ask myself why are they doing that, because I would never ever dare to do that.
II
Stöckl: Do you drink coffee, Lena? Or what would you like to have – some juice? Or...
Lena: I'll have some orange juice. That would be nice. Look down there is the whole pulp. I'll stir it with the fork, OK? I haven't even licked it. (Stöckl laughing, fork jingling)
Lena: So.
Stöckl: Lena, describe your thoughts when you applied for the casting show.
Lena: That happed actually all more by chance than by plan. I wanted to go to TV-total.
Stöckl: Thus to be in the audience?
Lena: Exactly. In the studio ... Then I was looking at the home page and wanted to check when cool guests were there and saw the logogram for 'Our Star for Oslo' – casting show – and thought, well then lets do it simply, just to take it as an experience and then ...
Stöckl: And you had sung then already? You have had a student music band?
Lena: Yes, we have had a student's project for a weekend I had sung cover songs, then at my old school I had taken part in a little jazz band, --then I thought about it and everything was at short notice, I applied, in fact and then an e-mail arrived: Congratulations. Your appointment will be in six days, and then I booked a travel by train and then I went to Cologne six days later and then I sung.
Stöckl: And did you ask your mother?
Lena: Well, yes, I asked her what she thought about it and she said: “O.K. if you think so.“ (laughing) And then I went there and thought: I won't win anyway.
Stöckl: Nevertheless, there must have been a certain dream as a motivation...
Lena: Yes, of course.
Stöckl: ...to hit it big or I want to experience what pop stars do experience?
Lena: No, not really. Not like that. I have always had the dream to be an artist. I have always had the dream to act in front of people whether in art or theatre play or whether singing – yeah, something of me to present to get through to the people. It was important for me to get into an artist scene because I believe I feel most at home there with my character and my head.
Stöckl: That's interesting because you're eighteen, you'll become nineteen within the next week – all the best, by the way – and there are a lot of people who stray around not knowing what to do with their lives. Why did you know it so exactly?
Lena: I didn't know it exactly, in fact. I only knew it should be that direction and in most cases it just happens – for example, people who deal an incredibly lot with computers don't know exactly whether to become a system administrator or rather a programmer, and in most cases the solution will come in the course of time. I had used to write down in little friendship books “what I want to become”: actress or singer. Of course it had been only fantasy then because you can't imagine that it would be possible. If you come from such a little village how should it be possible?
Stöckl: You're from Hanover, aren't you?
Lena: Well, yes but rather from a suburb.
Stöckl: And then there was a call
Lena: And then there was a call a few month later, I was asked to, please, come into the show. Ya.
Stöckl: From week to week you realized that your style, your way to perform was successful?
Lena: Yes.
Stöckl: That causes self confidence?
Lena: That encourages in those things that you're doing. I'm always uncertain, I always think there are, in any case,a thousand people who are better than me. I very often said: I don't think that I can sing that brilliantly. I still believe that. And the compliments are unbelievably nice but often they're only an illusion.
Stöckl: Now you're in the “PR machinery”. Your new album has been released. Do you feel sometimes as a product of the music industry that has to be successful? Pushed around in interviews?
Lena: Ach, I believe every artist who is successful is a product somehow or a figure. I'm glad that I am where I am at the moment because I' m firmly convinced that those people who quasi “sell” me as a product know me so well that they do what I want to do. I have a say in a lot of things, and I really feel in good hands.
III
(...)
Stöckl: I take a drink of apple juice.
Lena: Do it.
Stöckl: There are fruit and ham and bread. Do you take care of your appearance, or I presume you can eat whatever you want to?
Lena: Yes (laughs). I eat quite a lot and love it.
Stöckl: You say you where slightly uncertain when performing, yet I find it intriguing when watching you.- I watched a lot of videos of you, - I felt that you have a very strong self confidence. Where does it come from? How were you educated?
Lena: ... the way that I can confide in myself in any case. That is, I believe, important.
Stöckl: Last week, on Mother's day, I hosted an expert on education, well known in Austria, Dr.Martina Leibovitzi, who said how important it is to set limits for children but in those limits they are free to decide for themselves. Did you experience the same? Because meeting you evokes the feeling that you are not eighteen but you have so much experience and wisdom (Lena laughs slightly embarrassed), where does it come from?
Lena: Yes, it looks like education. I always could choose what I wanted to do – of course within limits. Well yes, I don't know, I was always allowed to decide how to dress for example. I believe these are important things. Not so many decisions were made for me.
Stöckl: When were you allowed to go out in the evening until midnight for example?
Lena: Oh, at fifteen, sixteen.
Stöckl: Did you sometimes neglect the limits?
Lena: Rarely, in fact. I never dared to. (Stöckl and Lena laugh) I'm really a sissy in such cases and I love my Mum far too much to ... (disappoint her). Well, I don't have to test limits set by other people when I think they are quite right.
Stöckl: Where/when did the revolt start? (Lena laughs)
Lena: Not really, neither. At some time being a grown up had begun, well, sometimes a little bit against – against. Once or twice skipping school and not telling it – but no drugs taken until now
Stöckl: Smoked (cigarettes)?
Lena: (low voice) Yes, yes I do smoke.
Stöckl: Not very model like.
Lena: No, not at all, but ...no chain(smoking)
Stöckl: When were you drunk last?
Lena: Drunk? That's absolutely long ago. I have been sick with alcohol only once. And that happened accidentally. I was at a party then and never have had any alcohol before and was 'filled up'. It wasn't my intend. Else, I never have such extreme excesses on alcohol because I'm too much afraid of vomiting or of not having control of myself.
Stöckl: Your success has been analysed a lot by magazines and there can be read that you are the counterexample, the anti thesis to what is believed about teenagers, that is the drinking to coma, computer addicted, lethargic... – well, that generation that is uninvolved really and doesn't care a lot. Do you recognize yourself if it is said that you are the better behaved, more decent, more conformed one?
Lena: Ach, I went through phases at the age of fifteen, sixteen when I sat in front of the computer for five or six hours, for three or four months. I think that such experiences have to be made. But the limits should be recognized. And I also believe that teenagers are not as bad as they seem. There is a lot told about 'the youths', who drink themselves into coma and who hang in front of the PC for twenty hours and the computer games ... who play ego shooters; but there is little reported about the youths who are commited and who qualify and who are socially competent. That's why the opposite view has to be regarded as well and I don't believe that this part (of youth) is so small.
Stöckl: You've got the feeling you are still a representative of the opposite? (Lena laughs)
Lena: Perhaps not the perfect representative but in any case no “Miss Coma-booze”.
IV
Stöckl: Would you pour in a bit of milk into my coffee?
Lena: You, I'll do that. Is that enough?
Stöckl: Yes, thank you. Germany's song contestant Lena Meyer Landrut, hosted at “Frühstück bei mir”. You are drinking orange juice. What would you say is the most important experience, that you have gained during the last two months since you won the show?
Lena: You have to take care, in any case, of having the right people on your side, people you can trust in. I believe that a lot of people aren't malicious, that's what I really firmly believe. But I believe it is very important too to have persons who you can relate most closely to and who care about you.
Stöckl: A lot of things have been published in the media. You are depicted almost daily on a cover, your career or your character has been scrutinized, there is naturally a lot of praise how authentic, cute and ... (Lena laughs) You can already talk along (both laugh) how special you are. There was also some criticism. For example: Rapper Sido said: You can't sing and you will probably be seen at the song contest with greasy hair and a little flowery dress; and he doesn't understand at all why you succeeded so far, you are smug. So, there was a hail of criticism, partly of colleagues. Didn't it affect you?
Lena: No, referred to Sido for example I can say: This good guy judged without having a notion. Something like that is stupid – Ahm -because maybe we get along well when we meet, we have never met before; else, I think we have freedom of opinion and everybody may say what he wants to and not everybody must be fond of me. (Stöckl laughs)
Stöckl: It's nice if it is understood/seen like this, but usually people want that everybody is fond of them, don't they?
Lena: No, not at all. I believe the whole life is ...– whether you are famous or not, whether you work or not, no matter in what surroundings you are – there are always people who like you and who don't and that had happened already before 'Our Star for Oslo'. Ahm, then it had not become so conscious because it wasn't discussed in the public and media, which is evident but finally it is something very natural that there are sympathies and aversions.
Stöckl: The 'Bild Zeitung' (i.e. German tabloid, N.B.pit) revealed that you acted in a film and there was a scene in the nude. The story was of course displayed broadly (Lena hums acknowledging) Was it embarrassing for you that it was discussed like that and...
Lena: Scandal, scandal! Stöckl: The flashing bosoms... Lena: Scandal!
Lena: No, that was a little bit inconvenient. I had not been able to know then that I would have such a massive attendance in the media. Perhaps I wouldn't have done it then. But basically, I have never been ashamed of that and I won't be and that's why it is completely all right. Thus, it is not a scandal for me, I didn't type in the heading. Well, that's my body. I didn't shoot a ***** film, that's still within the limits of good ...
Stöckl: What is the nicest experience that you've had?
Lena: Difficult. There is so much. I believe all in all it's the best to get at people, not that I need other people's appreciation but that others simply experience some sort of enrichment provided by me or rather a little piece of joy perhaps.
Stöckl: In the sense of listening to your song or watching you or how... Lena: For example. Stöckl: could you enrich them? Lena: Yes, exactly. Stöckl: Yes? Lena: Yes. Stöckl: By watching your performance for example?.
Lena: Yes, for example. If it makes you happy to listen to this song – Satellite for example - or I read on my web site, a young girl wrote that this was her and her boy-friend's song. (Lena laughs) And something like this I find totally cute and totally nice.
V
(...)
Speaker: An eighteen years old girl conquers the German pop world. Lena Meyer-Landrut about her performance at 'Wetten dass ...' (= German TV Show), her experiences in the monastery and her critics. Now on air at Ö3.
Stöckl: A well laid breakfast table. Lena: That's true. Stöckl: Ja.
Stöckl: It is written in your biography that you are the granddaughter of the former German ambassador in Moscow (Lena hums acknowledging), Andreas Meyer-Landrut. How did you live and see that? Did you experience somehow this diplomat's household?
Lena: Well, that's a topic for example I don't talk about at all.
Stöckl: You don't talk about it?
Lena: No.
Stöckl: Why is family such an awkward item for you?
Lena: Ach, it isn't awkward at all. Talking about it with friends, it is something different. But I always think that I like to answer questions about me; we already talked about my education for example. Now it could be said: well, she already talked about her private education – but this concerns me as a person and I can totally understand that questions are asked about me and that people are interested in that - I fully comprehend that.
Stöckl: But it's also about your person(ality) if I ask how you experienced your growing up in a kind of family or ... Lena: Exactly. Stöckl: ... (?) of your grandfather.
Lena: But there, this would imply the story of my grandfather, well, that's something I don't want to.
Stöckl: Is this approach something you thought of before 'A Star for Oslo' or did you consider about how to deal with the media when you were successful or did you talk it over with your management?
Lena: That's something I considered quite early, already in the first show when I was asked the first private question. I had not thought about it before because there had not been any necessity to think about it. But as soon as the first question appeared I felt that I don't want that.
Stöckl: What was the first personal question that disturbed you? Perhaps whether you are single or whether you have a boy friend.
Lena: Perhaps, yes. (laughs) Stöckl: ...quite surely.
Lena: That's true. I don't remember it well, but I can imagine that.
Stöckl: It is interesting that 'stardom' – if observing it for many years – is defined too – now I'm quoting Udo Jürgens (i.e.famous but older pop star from Austria, N.B.pit), whom I hosted already very often and who has been there for ages – he always says: It is important to show your fans a 'lived life', thus: they can touch the star in fact, that they really know what he is moved by. Is this an opinion you can't share at all?
Lena: Yes, certainly. I can share this indeed. I think I reveal quite a lot about me and my emotions and even about my character, but about things which are absolutely irrelevant from a musician's point of view – there I don't see a reason to talk about, yet. Maybe in five year's time, perhaps it is different then, but now, it isn't necessary.
Stöckl: But you always say, the music is in the centre of attention and your music deals a lot with love for example. Lena: ... for example, yes. Stöckl: ... and this is why I thought it is a contradiction if you don't want to talk about love.
Lena: Oh, I can talk about love! But not about mine.
Stöckl: Where do you invest most love?
Lena: Pooh, into music, I think. At the moment, into that what I do and into the family of course.
Stöckl: Family is important, indeed? Lena: Of course. Stöckl: ...but your mother ... does she take part or do you keep her so isolated that she can't be seen in the public when ... Lena: No... Stöckl: ... you are performing ... Lena: I don't want that. Stöckl: ... or she doesn't want to?
Lena: I don't want it.
Stöckl: And that is OK for her?
Lena: I think it's quite OK but I also believe that she doesn't want it.
Stöckl: A last question I would like to ask referring to this topic because it has been a great story in Germany: Your father has got a chance to speak after sixteen years. (Lena coughs) Have you thought this is a consequence of success that suddenly family, who you don't have close acquaintance with any more appear in the media?
Lena: It ... it can well be possible. Yes perhaps it is a consequence, perhaps not. Perhaps he would have got in touch if nothing had happened. No idea.
Stöckl: But it didn't move you to meet him, did it?
Lena: I don't say anything about that neither. Stöckl: Nothing? Lena: No.
VI
Stöckl: There was to be read an interesting story this week: You were in a monastery two years ago, Taizé...
Lena: It isn't a monastery, it's a community.
Stöckl: ...to discover what? What to experience there?
Lena: Well, this is such a thing, too ... I like to talk about Taizé because I think it is an extraordinarily great thing but I don't like to talk about my motives to go there because it belongs to me because I don't tell it anybody. It belongs to me and my heart. I'm partly amused about what people figure out or invent only to write anything...
Stöckl: On the other hand people are very much interested in you. Isn't it exciting? (?) Attention can be something nice.
Lena: Yes, of course. But not for me in this respect, simply. Ja?!
Stöckl: How was it there, what did you experience?
Lena: Taizé is a place – originally founded during the Nazi period as accommodation of Jews - of brethren not of monks, that's a difference, they are frères. They are not really brethren but they call themselves like that. There are still forty people today and Taizé is a place where people from all over the world can gather mostly from spring to autumn. Up to two thousand people arrive and leave per week and it is a huge assembly, where you can sing. It has not a lot do with what faith community you belong to whether you believe in some kind of bible...or some commandment but it is a kind of community where you can assemble, exchange opinions, experience repose and sing together.
Stöckl: In this mutual singing do you experience a community? Is it a spiritual experience?
Lena: It is in any case a community which I have never met before. It is an incredible experience that shouldn't be granted to anybody ... Stöckl: .... granted to anybody? Granted to everybody!
Lena: Everybody, yes. Stöckl: Sorry! Lena: That ... You are sitting there really together with four thousand people in one room and you are singing (together)
Stöckl: Four Thousand? Lena: Yeah. Stöckl: Great!
Lena: It is awesome. You can't imagine. It is even unimaginable for me now what the feeling was because it is such an intensive experience at that moment.
Stöckl: It is community where everybody is obliged to collaborate? Lena: Yes. Stöckl: Is that correct? Cleaning, peeling vegetable, cooking?
Lena: Yes, there are the forty brethren and the volunteers and those helping and consequently everybody else has to help. To feed four thousand people isn't as easy as pie.
Stöckl: And this provided a basis – or is faith an important component in your life? What would you say?
Lena: Again, that's a question not belonging to Taizé but to me.
Stöckl: But this stabilizes you?
Lena: Yes, I believe but in what and why and how much and whether in a certain direction or whether not or ...that is entirely my business.
Stöckl: Strange, I have been doing this for thirteen years, but none of the stars ever said this was too private for them.
Lena: Yeah, that's simply a thing which is not supposed to belong to others, which I want to safe for myself. My face belongs already to so many (people).
VII
Speaker: She's eighteen and wrote pop history already. (Satellite, Bee, Love Me) No other artist managed it instantly to be represented in the top five of the charts with three songs at the same time. Germany's pop darling Lena Meyer-Landrut is having breakfast here on Ö3.
Stöckl: We are having breakfast in Halle (i.e. a German town, N.B. pit), in the former GDR, together with Germany's entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, Lena Meyer-Landrut .Your fingernails are lacquered in black ... Lena: ... and chewed off ...Stöckl: (laughing) chewed off? (Lena laughs) You are very casual in jeans and a hoodie but what is you life style, what is important for you – what should be in your wardrobe?
Lena: The wardrobe isn't important at all. This is in any case cool and I like to have many things to put on, and much great dress- stuff, but it isn't an essential ... an essential basis of life. It is so absolutely futile. I absolutely like dress stuff and shoes and I like to do my hair, being made up and nail lacquer and everything girls do, stereotyped girlish. But it isn't so important.
Stöckl: Do you have a diamond on your tooth or what is it?
Lena: Two. Well, I did that when I was twelve, they don't disappear somehow.
Stöckl: Would you like them to have gone? Don't they suit any more?
Lena: I could take them off. They don't disturb me.
Stöckl: Everybody is talking about the Euro-crisis, world economic crisis, environmental crisis. How do you feel in such world shaken by crises?
Lena: I have never contemplated about that, yet.
Stöckl: Because it is said this is a generation of young people who will have to tackle a lot of problems.
Lena: (hums consentingly) At the moment I don't have to fight any bigger problems, thank God. This becomes my job at the moment ...
Stöckl: To be a singer, to be a musician ...
Lena: Yes, to be in public attention. You have to get used to it, cope with it, but it is like in any other job, there are always risks – it can be over anytime– a job can be canceled as quickly as a career can be over. That's why you should always bother but don't stress it too much because if you do that you'll become mad.
Stöckl: What did you have to learn in your flashing career. Did your mentor, Stefan Raab, tipped you off?
Lena: Yes, all sorts of people tip me off.
Stöckl: Do you listen to all of them?
Lena: I listen to all of them, take the advice calmly and look then if I can pick something for myself pleasing me.
Stöckl: What did he say?
Lena: Stefan says: Do it, simply. ...Do it simply, be as you are.
Stöckl: How do you prepare the Song Contest?
Lena: Ach, all the performances I did are a good preparation for the song contest and we will be in Oslo one week before the Contest and can rehearse on the big stage. Yeah, that will be my preparation.
Stöckl: And the expectations which you are feeling – do they exert a certain pressure? Can you escape from that anyhow now that the whole of Germany keep their fingers crossed but also expect a good result?
Lena: I escape this pressure in any case by telling myself: Look at everything positively and if people say the song is good, not only the Germans but also the English book-makers for example – where really a lot of people tell me: My God that must be horrible, there must be a gigantic pressure upon your shoulders, then I always say: Such a forecast by people who have a hunch about it encourages me in fact and tells me: It can't become so bad, now. If it isn't first but eighth or twelfth place then nobody would torture me.
Stöckl: 125 million people will watch you. Lena: Oh God. Stöckl: You already said you can't imagine that just as little as 125 million strawberries. (Lena laughs) Anyway, it is simply an abstract number?
Lena: Unbelievable. Could you imagine ... Would this whole room be filled up with strawberries? Would the whole hotel be filled? I can't imagine it.
VIII
Stöckl: “Die Welt” (i.e. German newspaper, N.B. pit), for example said: “Lena appears cuddly, innocent and dear, an asexual darling for the whole family. (Lena hums) Do you want to be successful branded by these attributes? (Stöckl laughs)
Lena: Pooh, everywhere, there is written something else. Everybody makes up another story. My tattoo stands already for five different things.
Stöckl: You've got a lily tattooed.
Lena: Yes, a stylized one.
Stöckl: And what does it mean really?
Lena: I don't reveal that, of course (laughing). That's the funny thing. This tattoo has become a real game in my mind. Now suddenly after this Taizé thing, it has become a symbol of the Christian scouts; before that, it had been the symbol of purity then it became the symbol for health, then it was a fleur-de-lys. I don't know, it is again and again exciting what people make up.
Stöckl: But here you say these are your secrets ... Lena: Exactly. Stöckl: ... and you rather have eight interpretations than telling once what it really means? Lena: Yes. Exactly. Stöckl: Do you really prefer that or do you think at the eighth interpretation you have to reveal something?
Lena: Nope. Not at all. I think it's similar to the relationship of parents and children: The parents set a rule, for example: You won't watch TV for ten days. On the first day, it is incredibly hard, it is very gross, it is so stupid, and you ask all the time and you want it much, much, much more than usually. Maybe, the second day it is still like this but sometime you'll accept it.
Stöckl: You mean to say that journalists are the same?
Lena: I hope so.
Stöckl: Or it could be that they surrender and don't write anything about you.
Lena: Or that. Then it is supposed to be so.
Stöckl: You would see that relaxed as well?
Lena: Then it's the way of the world.
Stöckl: Indeed?
Lena: Yes.
Stöckl: You said, you consider Falco (i.e. Austrian singer,† 6. February 1998; N.B: pit) as the one of the greatest musical legends. He told me, if success grows faster than the soul can grow a problem appears. Can you imagine that you will feel this problem one day since your success grows at a speed that everybody thinks the soul can't grow as fast.
Lena: If so, I think I would have a problem already. Because now is the time when everything has grown so incredibly fast. I believe, in future , it won't grow as much in such a short span of time. The hardest time has just gone by. Perhaps it will come. Perhaps I will be a mentally fragile wreckage in three weeks time. (Both laugh)
Stöckl: You say that with a smile; so you don't believe in that.
Lena: I hope not, no.
Stöckl: What do you dream of?
Lena: I dream of living contentedly on a farm at the age of sixty, with a lot of dogs.
Stöckl: You muse quite into future for an eighteen year old.
Lena: That is important.
Stöckl: And before that, what shall happen until then?
Lena: We'll see! No idea, no master plan.
Stöckl: Udo Jürgens, to quote an Austrian musician at last, who had won the Song Contest in the sixties, he is a big opposer of the 'casting shows', he says: You have to go the hard way up to the peak, you have to scrape your knees bloody, only then you'll understand what it means to make a career in this business and winners of casting shows are hauled up to the peak by a helicopter. Sometimes it is as you can see in some examples – it is very, very difficult when the attention vanishes.
Lena: Yes, I can imagine that very well. Though I don't believe it would be very difficult for me then. If I don't receive any attention any more, (not) because I need it but it has simply become almost a habit and because it' s always difficult to get rid of habits. But it works.
Stöckl: So you think no matter what, I won't despair or become depressive.
Lena: I don't think so.
Stöckl: What grounds you like that?
Lena: Hmm, the good thought – simply, to be positive and not perceiving so many bad things.
Stöckl: This is in any case a good way to make such a career. Hence I give cordially thanks, Lena. Thank you that you took time.
Lena: Nice, it was; even if we didn't eat very much.
The Ö3 questionnaire
Speaker: I am ...?
Lena: I am very cheerful ...mostly.
Speaker: Wealth/prosperity means ...?
Lena: ...to be able to pass something to other people, in any case.
Stöckl: Do you consider yourself being wealthy/prosperous?
Lena: ...rich in thoughts, lessons learned and experiences.
Speaker: If I received 100 000 Euro as a gift ...?
Lena: I would donate half of it.
Stöckl: ...and the other half?
Lena: ...pay into an account, to have security, later
Speaker: My most expensive toy is ...?
Lena: A Nintendo DS.
Speaker: I appraise most in a woman ....?
Lena: ... if she isn't a chattercat (i.e. chatterbox)
Speaker: I appraise most in a man ...?
Lena: ...to have a strong shoulder to rely on.
Speaker: I find it erotically ...?
Lena: Sausages. (laughing)
Stöckl: Sausages?
Lena: Nonsense. Don't know. I don't comment on this.
Speaker: My dream man is ...?
Lena: Johnny Depp. (chuckling) No, I appreciate him because he acted such super roles. I don't have a dream man.
Speaker: My heart throbbed last ...?
Lena: ...in the last show, there my heart throbbed. What was the last show? TV Total – when I performed.
Speaker: I was lovesick last ...?
Lena: ... when my ex(boy-friend) left, back then.
Stöckl: You were left?
Lena: I was left.
Stöckl: He probably regrets that, now. (both laughing)
Speaker: This book impressed me ...?
Lena: 'Sophie's World' by Jostein Gaarder.
Stöckl: A book about philosophy?
Lena: Yes.
Speaker: My mother always says ...?
Lena: Take care of yourself! (laughing)
Stöckl: She still says that?
Lena: Yes.
Speaker: This is something I would change:
Lena: Money should be abolished. (laughing)
Stöckl: ...because ...?
Lena: Then, everything would be easier.
Speaker: My life motto is:
Lena: Not to ponder too much.
Speaker: My recipe for success is:
Lena: Not to ponder too much.
Speaker: My last words should be:
Lena: So long, everybody / Take care.