Actor and author

My passion for football:

As an actor, understands how stage action affects a crowd, and thus appreciates the amount of passion aroused in spectators by the action on the “green stage” in the mass phenomenon that is football.


I’m looking forward to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011™ because...

"When I imagine the millions of fans avidly following the action, I start to dream. I see a huge hand around the globe, pushing the continents together, and suddenly we're all children, playing on a brilliant green meadow under a gigantic mulberry tree - with poems in every language and pictures in every colour - between an orchestra featuring every instrument from every culture. We race against each other, swim, jump and play football. The gods are smoking the pipe of peace, and the diversity of our backgrounds becomes our school and our textbooks. And girls and guys are responsible for the success of our endeavours in exactly equal parts. I'm so thrilled by this dream, I can hardly wait for kick-off."


Career highlights:

High school and drama school followed by extensive stage experience around Germany. First film role in 1982. Featured in 1985 Schamanski movie Zahn um Zahn. First novel (Schwarzer Tee mit drei Stück Zucker) published 1991. Renan Demirkan was awarded the 1989 Goldene Kamera, received the Adolf Grimme prize in 1990, and the INTHEGA theatre award in 2002. Recipient of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1998. Member of the Federal Assembly (to elect the President of the Republic) in 2004.