‘Run Lola Run’ 25 Years Later: A Breathless Oral History

Run Lola Run felt like a workout, even while moviegoers sat riveted to their seats. A quarter century after bursting into theaters and becoming a pop culture sensation, it hasn’t lost a step.

The brisk 80-minute drama introduced the world to Franka Potente, a then 23-year-old German actor whose very name suggested “power.” She played a young woman facing a simple yet impossible task: race through the streets of Berlin to collect 100,000 Deutschmarks in 20 minutes to save the life of a careless boyfriend (Moritz Bleibtreu) about to be murdered by drug dealers. Her luminous red hair was like a fireball streaking down the streets and alleyways, and her rugged grace and determination made her easy to champion, even if the guy she was saving seemed a bit unworthy. As she dashed forth, writer-director Tom Tykwer underscored her mission with hard-charging techno music, dizzying montages of background characters filling in the scenery of everyday street life, and philosophical musings about the nature of time, fate, and willpower.

Despite being titled Lola Rennt in its original language (literally: Lola Runs), the repetition in the English title arguably fits the film’s theme better, since the heroine undertakes her mission once, twice, and then a final third time (which, naturally, turns out to be the charm). It was like running laps. Each time, the outcome changed for nearly everyone involved. The movie changed everything for Lola’s creators as well.

Moritz Bleibtreu and Franka Potente get the bag in Run Lola Run.

Run Lola Run’s box office earnings were modest, but its impact was immense. Like fellow ’90s indie trailblazers Clerks, Reservoir Dogs, and El Mariachi, everyone everywhere seems to have seen it at some point in the years that followed its theatrical release. Among just a few of its homages: J.J. Abrams cited Lola as one of the inspirations for 2001’s Alias TV series, a 2000 Legend of Zelda game from Nintendo borrowed its do-over plot structure, Buffy the Vampire Slayer recreated its cherry-haired sprinter in a 2002 episode, and a 2001 episode of The Simpsons featured Lisa racing to her school science fair to a similar pulse-pounding soundtrack.

Today, Run Lola Run has the added texture of nostalgia—a period piece that captured the feel of the 1990s through its noir-ish lens. A 4K restoration of the German thriller will debut in theaters on June 7, offering a new generation of moviegoers the chance to catch up with it on the big screen. To commemorate its anniversary, Potente and Tywker reunited for an exclusive interview with Vanity Fair to share untold tales behind the film’s creation—including the most uncomfortable thing about playing a nonstop protagonist (the underwear chosen by the costume designer) and their theories about the movie’s mysterious ending.

Vanity Fair: It’s probably a testament to Run Lola Run that it doesn’t feel like it came out 25 years ago. How does it seem to you?

Tom Tykwer: It’s been a really important part of our lives. What I realized—and Franka, I think you do too—is how much we enjoy being reminded of how beautiful it is—and was. The movie has given a lot to us, and the experience has shaped us as the people and artists we are today. It’s profound. I’m super grateful.

Franka Potente: I agree. It’s a reminder to myself when there’s something great happening, just take a second and realize that, and really enjoy that. All these years later, I was just thinking, which of my films from back in the day would I be able to talk about with this excitement today? You could probably talk about The Bourne Identity in some excited way, but I didn’t have the same relationship with the director. So that is already different.

When I saw Run Lola Run for the first time, I didn’t know where it was going. After that first story arc ends so definitively, I thought, ‘Wait, is this a short film?’

Tykwer: [Laughs] One of the things that people said to us when we were making it was, ‘The movie ends after half an hour, and then it has to start again. You can’t start three times. It’s like a student’s experimental film. You can’t make this a feature film.’ People were saying this was going to be a mess because audiences want one continuous story with three acts. It is three acts in a way.

Where were you in your life when you made Run Lola Run?

Tykwer: I had made two feature films. I was getting rid of all the influences because I was a movie nerd. Most of the stuff that I had been doing was related to films or watching them or discussing them. But luckily also, I went to other places. I had studied philosophy. Berlin was overwhelming—and then the Berlin Wall came down. There were so many things that made me this messy person that I was.

Lola is all about messiness. Her life is in shambles, but then she gets 20 minutes of clarity to straighten everything out.

Tykwer: It’s this burst-of-energy film. It’s joy, and kinetic energy, and artistic expression in the purest sense that is not so crazy plot-related. Of course, there is a plot. But the plot is ironically simple so that all the ideas that are hidden in it have more space. In a nutshell, I was hoping to bring something on screen that encapsulates the secret of what movies are, and why we’re drawn to them with the force of sheer aesthetic, kinetic, and, of course, emotional meaning.

Franka Potente’s Lola gets the call that sends her sprinting to save her boyfriend.

Franka, what was happening in your world when you got the film? I read that you paid the bills as a ticket seller. Were you a movie obsessive too?

Potente: No, it was in a [stage] theater because I was in acting school, and it was connected to one of the most renowned theaters in Munich. And that was the only job that we could take. I grew up without a movie theater.

Tykwer: Why was it the only job you were allowed to take?

Potente: Well, [the theater company] Kammerspiele was connected to the Falckenberg [acting school], and it was the only job you could really take because we had such extensive school work. Before that, I grew up in a really small town in Germany. All I knew was I liked to perform. I always had an audience. People seemed to like when I did that in drama class or whatever. For me, it was a ticket out of that small-town environment.

How did you two meet?

Potente: We met for the film. I was in New York, at the Lee Strasberg [acting school]. And then I flew back to meet you. I didn’t have any money for the flight, really. I remember that.

Tykwer: We met in the Einstein, in the café.

Potente: Yes. It doesn’t exist anymore, no? Isn’t it gone now?

Tykwer: It’s gone now. It was a famous café. One of the big scenes in Inglourious Basterds was shot in the café house, and they just closed it down. And it was also where Franka and I met.

What made you seek out Franka for the part of Lola?

Tywker: I had seen her in this other movie…

Potente: It’s a Jungle Out There is the English title, not that anyone’s ever seen it.

Tykwer: In a way, I knew that’s what I wanted. But then, of course, you need to meet. And the meeting was even better. That was it. We didn’t ever do [more] casting. It was just that meeting, and then—let’s go! I knew that she was good, and I knew I really liked her. What I had not thought about was: Will she be able to run the way we need the running to be? The running was such a substantial, basic force of the film. Of course, you should say, ‘Can we shoot you maybe a little bit while you run and see how it looks?’

When did you finally talk about the running?

Tykwer: Much later. We did some tests because we needed to figure out how to do it with traffic. A person that has to run to save someone’s life runs really fast. It’s crazy just to keep a camera going [alongside the actor]. And Franka was really fast.

Potente: I still am—for the record.

Tykwer: Of course! She is really a fast runner, but in a way that doesn’t look stressed. The determination of the character was guiding her. The first time we shot it, I felt, ‘Thank God it looks so good.’ What would I have done if it didn’t? Later, when I had more experience, I realized that not everybody looks great running.

Writer-director Tom Tykwer on the set of Run Lola Run.

From the Everett Collection.

Franka, you’ve said you ran on average about eight miles a day during shooting. Was the film more physically intense than you anticipated?

Potente: I don’t know that I really had that many expectations. I was also at the beginning of my career, so you gauge obstacles or challenges differently. I think that’s the beauty of youth and being new to something. There wasn’t this thing to me where I was like, ‘Oh my God, all this running…’ It sounds ridiculous, but there was a sense early on that there was nothing we could not do. That’s a very rare feeling.

Tykwer: That’s what the movie is about. That’s the movie.

Tom, was there any aspect of making the film that seemed insurmountable?

Tykwer: Limitations are part of creativity, especially in the movie industry, because it’s always absurd amounts of money, no matter how low-budget your film is. This one was only $2 million, but it was of course beyond belief for people like us, because I lived off something like 800 marks a month then [approximately $660 in US dollars today.] And it was fine. I had a nice life.

Where did the idea for the movie originate?

Tykwer: I had founded this company called X Filme with a few director friends and a producer. We were, I think, a great creative bunch, but miserable business people. Ridiculously bad. After only three or four movies, we were already bankrupt. We had such bad debts for the last two firms, and we couldn’t pay all these bills. The only solution was to quickly make another movie— and get it funded and somehow financed—to pay the old bills with the money we were getting for the new film, and then take care of that problem once we had made it.

Potente: It’s a great concept.

Tykwer: I wrote it faster than any other script that I’ve ever written. And the energy was in the script, so the right people could see it in there. Many said, ‘Oh, this doesn’t make sense…’ But some people felt it, and the people we needed did. Suddenly, we could make the movie, we could pay the bills from the other movies. We could not pay our bills for Lola, but you can always wait for a few months before you actually have trouble.

That’s like paying off one credit card with another credit card.

Potente: Totally.

Tykwer: If the movie had not been a success, I would probably not have gone on as a filmmaker because we would’ve had to handle our bankruptcy. Then this movie changed everything.

Was Lola a metaphor for the story of this production company? You said you’d made two previous films, and you were in debt. Twice it doesn’t work out, and then there’s your third act, which is Lola, where you strike gold.

Tykwer: It was a bit like that, three attempts. But it also became this strategy that I’m still struggling with and embracing at the same time because I’m still in this office that we have for 20 years, and this company still exists. It’s the same company, X Filme. The truth is, we’ve always been this kind of mess. We’ve always went full-on and tried to only make the movies we really love. You place your bets on the wrong one, the wrong one, the wrong one, and then … the right one again! Always when we were about to be bankrupt, we had a huge success. We were nearly bankrupt, then we had Good Bye, Lenin! [2003]. And then we were nearly bankrupt again, and we did The White Ribbon [2009]. And then we were really bankrupt, and we did Cloud Atlas [2012], which for us was a real success.

Moritz Bleibtreu’s Manni in what used to be known as a phone booth. His real-life mother, Monica Bleibtreu, played the blind bystander who offers the desperate young man help.

How did you two collaborate on the look of Lola? The red hair is so striking, contrasted with the light green pants. Everything about her color palette is interesting.

Potente: Back in the day, I was just like a puppy dog. I was like, ‘Okay. Okay.’ I remember that they gave me a thong. For the first time, I was wearing a thong. I was like, ‘Ew, what is this? Ew. I’m not going to wear this.’ And they were like, ‘Yes, you are.’

Why was that important? We don’t see it…

Potente: Because the pants were so tight. That was the biggest deal about the costume for me, personally. I was like, ‘What the hell?’

Tykwer: Thong? You never told me!

Potente: Everyone has their traits and their talent. I don’t want the costume designer to do my job, so I’m not going to do her job. We are going to talk, we collaborate, but I appreciate what other people do. So I let them do their job—until today.

Did you have input into the bright red hair and the fiery cut?

With the hair, if someone came to me today—and it happened two years ago—and was like, ‘So we’re going to cut your hair,’ I’d be like, ‘No, you’re not! That’s not a thing. What are you talking about?’ It was different then. I was dying my hair every two weeks anyway. My hair was jet black at the time, so it was a big deal. We ruined my hair. We bleached it eight times. Tom would come in every hour or two to just see where we were at. We tried it with a wig and different colors. I was just happy to be part of it. The transformation was incredible.

Tykwer: I remember a green and a blue wig, just to have tested it. It’s so funny because then, blue was really strange. You would be punk. But now, there’s a lot of blue wigs and hairdos in the world. Back then, it was a really strange color. The truth is, we were in this living room. I forget whose living room it was …

Potente: I think it was the costume designer, Monika Jacobs.

Tykwer: Yes, we were hanging out in the living room of Monika. We just tried stuff, and then we liked something. It’s much less myth-building than you might think. It was really just trying all kinds of clothes, and then getting closer to it. It was really trial and error. And of course, also, creating this atmosphere where we were just playing.

Potente: And it was what people were wearing at the time, of course. In Berlin, the Doc Martens were definitely something that I probably was wearing too. It was a little bit about functionality as well.

Tykwer: They were also really good shoes to run in, no?

Potente: [Laughs.] No. No.

Tykwer: Oh, then why did we do that…?

Potente: Because we didn’t want her to be so prepared. It was something that she was wearing like someone would at the time. And then she had to run. That’s why there were no sneakers.

Is there something symbolic about her hair? It’s not a natural color. Maybe there are some flowers in the wilds of the Amazon that are that vibrant red. If I were just to guess at the meaning, I’d say Lola is a woman who shapes her reality. She has changed her look. She is in control of her appearance rather than just going along with whatever. She’s in command of it. Am I reading too much into it?

Tykwer: No, no, I love that idea because there’s profound work in your appearance and the idea of yourself. And of course, that’s what I love about style and fashion. It has this note that it’s really about your self-inventive powers. You can design yourself to be the being that you want to represent, or that you want to grow into. I still feel when I see the film that it’s really very much about empowerment. It’s about a person that doesn’t accept powerlessness, and doesn’t accept to be a victim of coincidences, and of unfair power systems and dependencies. She struggles and fights for individualist independence and a certain idea of expression that is yourself and not someone else’s. I think the look is that, and the look has much of this energy to it.

She’s also shaping her image to be bold and bright and incendiary. She’s not trying to blend in.

Tykwer: The color scheme and the color energy is something that is much more expressive and outspoken and noisy. The noisiness of Lola is so important. She screams—and the hair is screaming. This whole thing is also about empowerment. Female rage, then, was something eccentric to show on screen. She has rage moments that are so profound with her father [the philandering banker, played by Herbert Knaup, who reveals he’s not her actual father.] Breaking all these rules is in the look.

Potente: I don’t know that I honestly understood that at the time. I was living that. I was Lola’s age. I was in my early 20s. I wore Doc Martens. Like I said, I changed my hair color all the time. It didn’t feel so much like a costume—except for the thong! I liked that I just had one costume. People don’t change three times a day, and wear a new thing every day. But that’s what [filmmakers] want you to do, oftentimes. It’s like, ‘Okay, we need another outfit for that day,’ where I’m like, ‘No, we don’t. Let’s just wear that again.’

“The noisiness of Lola is so important,” Tom Tykwer says. “She screams—and the hair is screaming.”

There are a lot of mysteries in Run Lola Run, and you’ve given people 25 years to indulge those and theorize about them. Can you share your own thoughts about, for instance, the relationship between Lola and the confrontational security guard, played by Armin Rohde.

Potente: Oh, that one.

He opens the movie as this godlike figure, introducing the story that follows as a kind of game. In the end, he stares down Lola and she overpowers him with her glare. Later, she finds him later in an ambulance in cardiac arrest, and this time she stares again, but his heart stabilizes. Watching it again, I’m still not quite sure what happened there.

Tykwer: Okay, here’s the true answer—I don’t know either! I really don’t.

Potente: Wasn’t there a version where you said he was my dad?

Tykwer: Yes, many people thought he was your dad. And I go, ‘Okay. I never thought of that.’ This is stuff where you’re so free that you try things. Some of the things we tried were just fun because they were mysterious and a little weird. Sometimes we feel things with people, and we don’t understand them, and we never will. There is not this every… How do you call it?

Potente: Every thread has to be connected.

Tykwer: Yes, maybe it will be connected in future lives, but not in ours. And I still do that. I love when you work with actors, and you go, ‘I don’t know what this means, but it is also interesting.’ You can’t explain it. I don’t think I can explain everything. I find myself, for instance, the most mysterious of all the persons I’ve ever met. I’ve just realized recently how hard it would be to write me as a character in a script. I find it crazy. How can this guy come together? How dare we always go to the end of every thought process when we show a situation? Why don’t we just leave them open? I love that this [security guard] character is the open end into a different territory. The most potent spin-off of Run Lola Run would definitely be about the guard.

Franka, how did you understand that moment where you hold the guard’s hand, and you bring him back?

Potente: I didn’t see any family relation. Lola wouldn’t know anyway. I think that Lola, her energy had this reviving magic in that moment. That’s how we talked about it. At that point in the story, there’s no obstacles. She can do anything she wants. In the casino, she can will that number to win. That’s all the magic of just sheer will.

Tykwer: She gave him the heart attack! You kill him, and then you bring him back to life.

Potente: Yeah. As we do.

To me, he represented control. He’s a security guard. He’s smug, he’s a type of patronizing figure, and she is unpredictability. So you have control and unpredictability that clash and create this storm. And finally, there’s this moment of…

Potente: Tenderness, yeah. There’s the awesomeness of the speed and the fury of the film, then there is, of course, tenderness at the same time—as there is in life.

This interview has been edited with some questions added or expanded to add context and clarity.

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