{"id":10287,"date":"2026-02-12T06:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/10287\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T06:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:07:11","slug":"next-big-thing-berlin-luna-wedler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/10287\/","title":{"rendered":"Next Big Thing Berlin: Luna Wedler"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn the oldest clich\u00e9 of the business, Luna Wedler<\/a> has spent a decade becoming an overnight success. <\/p>\n

\n\tAt 26, the Zurich-born German actress is suddenly everywhere \u2014 on streaming platforms, on festival red carpets, and, last fall, on the stage of Venice\u2019s Sala Grande, where she collected the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor for her powerful turn in Ildik\u00f3 Enyedi\u2019s triptych Silent Friend<\/a><\/a>. The moment felt less like a breakthrough than a coronation, the European industry finally catching up with a performer who has been quietly proving, film by film, that she can do just about anything.<\/p>\n

\n\tWedler fell into acting almost by accident. At 14, she tagged along with friends to an open casting call in Zurich and landed a role in Niklaus Hilber\u2019s Amateur Teens. \u201cI never had the dream of becoming an actress,\u201d she tells THR. \u201cBut it became my great love, almost an addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the outset, she gravitated toward emotionally demanding material. Her first lead role, in Lisa Br\u00fchlmann\u2019s Blue My Mind (2017), cast her as a teenage girl spiraling through sex, drugs and bodily transformation \u2014 a performance that announced both her fearlessness and her intensity. <\/p>\n

\n\tIf Blue My Mind marked her arrival as a serious talent, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World (2018) made her a star, at least in Germany. The modern Cyrano de Bergerac remake flipped the gaze onto Wedler\u2019s Roxane, or Roxy \u2014 sharp, funny, and defiantly contemporary \u2014 and seemed to position her as the country\u2019s next rom-com sweetheart.<\/p>\n

\n\tInstead, Wedler swerved. She chose projects with darker political and psychological edges, from Christian Schwochow\u2019s Je suis Karl (2021)<\/a>, in which she plays a terrorism survivor drawn into a far-right movement, to Netflix\u2019s techno-thriller Biohackers<\/a>, one of the streamer\u2019s first German global hits, where she starred as an obsessive medical student uncovering ethically dubious genetic experiments. As Wedler puts it: \u201cWhen people ask me about my political opinions, I just say: Watch my films.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith a small but telling role in this year\u2019s Berlin Panorama entry<\/a> Allegro Pastell, and a full slate of auteur-driven projects coming up, Luna Wedler looks ready for her close-up. Even if she\u2019s hiding a dirty secret: \u201cI\u2019d love to do a proper action film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLuna Wedler<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Vincent Forstenlechner<\/p>\n

\n\tYou started acting when you were still a teenager. How did it all begin for you?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s a good question, because I never had the dream of becoming an actress. It was never really in my head at all. I was 14, growing up in Zurich, and there was a big casting for a feature film. Some friends of mine went, and I thought, okay, I\u2019ll just go along. I don\u2019t know what drew me there. I did the casting, got the role, and to this day, I say it was my rescue. At 14, you\u2019re a bit lost, you don\u2019t really know where you\u2019re going, and I\u2019m incredibly grateful that I found a passion I didn\u2019t even know I had. It became my great love, almost an addiction.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat do you remember about that first experience in front of the camera?<\/p>\n

\n\tHonestly, I didn\u2019t think that much about it. And I think that\u2019s something beautiful. Being able to throw yourself in. That\u2019s what acting means to me: Listening and falling. I\u2019m a very intuitive actress. Of course, I feel pressure, then and now, but that joy is still there. I was so lucky at 14 to discover something that I still find incredibly exciting and interesting to do. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat really shaped me afterward was [my first lead role in] Blue My Mind (2017). When I look back, I see this young Luna who already knew how to fall deeply into emotions, but couldn\u2019t regulate them yet. I didn\u2019t know how to switch off, how to come back out of a role. Now, ten years later, I can do that much better. I can say, okay, I go in, but I can also come out again. That\u2019s something you learn over time. It\u2019s beautiful to be able to throw yourself in, but you also have to learn to control it. Otherwise, it can become dangerous.<\/p>\n

\n\tYour performance in Blue My Mind is very intense and emotionally extreme. How close was that role to where you were in your own life at the time?<\/p>\n

\n\tVery close. In the film, I play a young girl growing up, and I was exactly the same age at the time. I didn\u2019t really know who I was either. The body plays a huge role in the film: Being a teenager, love, sex, all the things I was also trying to understand then. The character, Mia, and I really grew together. I always say I grew up with my roles, and I\u2019ve learned a lot from them.<\/p>\n

\n\tI first noticed you in The Most Beautiful Girl in the World (2018), a big German romantic comedy take on Cyrano de Bergerac. Your character, Roxy, feels completely on the other side of the scale from Blue My Mind. Was that a conscious choice?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, they are completely different. At that time, it was simply my first German film and my entry into the German industry. I wasn\u2019t really thinking yet about strategy or direction. I read the script and found it extremely funny. I knew Cyrano de Bergerac, and I loved how fresh and modern the adaptation was. The message of the story was very important to me.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy character, Roxy, was also very close to me. At that time, the image of women on screen still felt old-fashioned, clich\u00e9. Roxy was refreshing. She was cheeky, loud. It was something new and I really liked that. And of course it was exciting. It was my first big German film.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLuna Wedler\u2019s breakout role in Germany was in \u2018The Most Beautiful Girl in the World,\u2019 a modern-day adaptation of \u2018Cyrano de Bergerac\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTobis<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was a lot of hype around the film and around you. How did you experience that moment?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was crazy, really crazy, but I didn\u2019t fully get it at the time. Which I think is a good thing. This job comes with fame and attention, but that\u2019s not something I\u2019m aiming for. I love acting, that\u2019s the core of it for me.<\/p>\n

\n\tI really realized how big [the film was] at the Berlin<\/a> premiere. I arrived thinking we\u2019d just watch the film, and suddenly there was a huge red carpet, tons of photographers. I remember looking at my press agent and wanting to leave. I hadn\u2019t expected it at all. But because I never put that pressure on myself, I think I was able to deal with it. From that point on, though, things really took off.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter that success, you didn\u2019t just do a dozen rom-coms. Did you actively resist being typecast?<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was a moment when I had to be careful. You get put into boxes very quickly, and that could have happened to me. I think it\u2019s important \u2014 and sometimes risky \u2014 to say no. Even if that means not working for a while. I\u2019ve just been incredibly lucky that I\u2019ve been able to choose from scripts and also say no, which isn\u2019t a given in this profession. I said no quite often. That probably helped. And I have a great agent.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I read a script \u2014 and I know this sounds like a standard answer \u2014 it really is about intuition. It has to touch me, surprise me, irritate me, even confuse me. One of the reasons I love acting and film is that they create empathy and help us understand the complexity of human beings. I want to dive into worlds and people that at first might feel foreign. I don\u2019t want to repeat myself, and I don\u2019t want to continue outdated role models. I want to play women and people we may not have seen like this before. A script has to do something with me, that\u2019s the main thing.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLuna Wedler in \u2018Je Suis Karl\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy-of-Berlinale<\/p>\n

\n\tMany of your projects, including Je suis Karl and Biohackers, have a clear political dimension. Is that something you consciously look for?<\/p>\n

\n\tVery much so. I try to express my political stance through my films. As artists and filmmakers, we have a responsibility. Film creates empathy, connects people, shows cultures, sparks discussion, and reflects society. That\u2019s one of the main reasons we make films. When people ask me about my political opinions, I often say: Watch my films. That\u2019s my stance. This also applies to women and female roles in a patriarchal world \u2014 we have a responsibility there too.<\/p>\n

\n\tAre there roles you would reject outright because of how women are portrayed?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes. If something doesn\u2019t feel contemporary anymore, I won\u2019t do it. Of course, in historical films, things were different, but even then, the woman shouldn\u2019t just be a clich\u00e9 \u2014 the blonde, the housewife, whatever \u2014 but a human being. I grew up with a lot of early-2000s films that shaped me, too, with all the princes and protectors. But that\u2019s just not reality. If I read something and feel it\u2019s repeating those clich\u00e9s, I don\u2019t want to do it.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat drew you specifically to Je suis Karl and Biohackers?<\/p>\n

\n\tJe suis Karl is still incredibly relevant, especially with the shift to the right in Germany and globally. The film has real force and shows things people don\u2019t want to look at. When it came out, some said it was exaggerated, even though we\u2019d just seen the storming of the U.S. Capitol. <\/p>\n

\n\tBiohackers was my first series, and a Netflix series on top of that. At the time, it was one of the first German Netflix shows. The topic fascinated me, diving into medicine, biohacking, and body hacking. It was also frightening what I learned, but I liked the idea of staying with a character for a longer time and experiencing that serial rhythm.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLuna Wedler in \u2018Biohackers\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNetflix<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show had a huge international<\/a> reach. How did it feel knowing your work was suddenly being seen all over the world?<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix is another league. You know a lot of people are going to see it. Even now, years later \u2014 season two came out four years ago \u2014 people still ask me on Instagram when season three is coming. [There are no plans for S3 of Biohackers. ed.] But I learned early on not to turn that attention into pressure. I know I\u2019ve done my work. Once it\u2019s out, I can only hope it resonates. And then I\u2019m just Luna again.<\/p>\n

\n\tWinning the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actress in Venice last year for Silent Friend was a major milestone. What did that moment mean to you?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s when I really understood what being overwhelmed feels like. I had zero expectations. Just being in competition in Venice was already huge. Working with [director] Ildik\u00f3 Enyedi on that film was incredible. When I found out I\u2019d won, I could hardly believe it. It\u2019s a beautiful recognition\u2014 really overwhelming in the best way.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow has your approach to preparing for roles changed over time?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s still very intuitive and personal. It depends on whether the role is historical or fictional. With historical figures, there\u2019s a lot of research\u2014reading, photos, videos. With fictional characters, I build a backstory, meditate, and spend time in the character. Sometimes I keep a diary. I reread the script again and again. And I talk a lot with the director. In the end, though, you have to jump in. Once you\u2019re on set, something happens that you can\u2019t control\u2014and that\u2019s the magic. That\u2019s what\u2019s addictive for me.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLuna Wedler<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Vincent Forstenlechner<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat still frightens you as an actress?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think many actors have the same feeling of insecurity. Sometimes I think I can\u2019t do anything, even after so many films or series. But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s only unhealthy. I\u2019d be worried if I weren\u2019t nervous or afraid. You just learn to turn that fear into excitement.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn my birthday, I realized I\u2019ve been doing this for ten years. That\u2019s not nothing. But it still feels like I\u2019ve just started. I\u2019m still excited on the first day of shooting. It\u2019s not a given that I get to do this. Of course, there are downsides, but I\u2019m incredibly grateful and hope the wave keeps going.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you look back, what are you most proud of?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s a big question. Hmm\u2026I think I\u2019m most proud of that 14-year-old Luna who didn\u2019t really know where she was going. And now I can pat her on the back and say: You did something right.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat would you still love to do that might surprise people?<\/p>\n

\n\tProbably a good comedy or a real action film. I play a lot of serious, psychological roles, so that would surprise people. I\u2019m actually quite physical and sporty, and I\u2019d love to do something that involves training\u2014 maybe a fighter, a boxer, a dancer. I\u2019d also love to play someone I really don\u2019t like, something darker or unsettling. Or Fantasy. I\u2019m very open. I just want to play and try everything.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s next for you?<\/p>\n

\n\tWe just finished [Alina Marazzi\u2019s] The Girl with the Leica, about the photographer Gerda Taro, and Eurotrash by Frauke Finsterwalder \u2014\u00a0Frauke is great, I love her!\u00a0\u2014 and then we\u2019ll see what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the oldest clich\u00e9 of the business, Luna Wedler has spent a decade becoming an overnight success. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,4940,8136,190,762,8137,8138],"class_list":{"0":"post-10287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-berlinale-2026","10":"tag-biohackers","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-international","13":"tag-luna-wedler","14":"tag-silent-friend"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}