Franka Potente battled her serious illness away from the public.
Franka Potente, now 50, fought the insidious disease away from the public eye – and apparently defeated it.
Franka Potente knew: “Something is wrong”
The actress was diagnosed in April 2023. Potente went to the doctor after she had slight discomfort on her right side. A mammogram yielded no results. Potente then requested further investigations. “I can only recommend that everyone listen to their inner voice and, if necessary, get a second medical opinion if they have the impression that something is wrong,” she assured the “Zeit Online”.
The “Lola Run” actress described what she felt when she found out about her breast cancer: “Imagine you are a house in which there is a fire on every floor. Should you first find the fire extinguisher, turn off the beeping smoke detector, call the fire department, or run out? Total alarm!”
The fight begins
But Potente was not so easily defeated. “The claim was always: I don’t want to die,” Potente tells “Zeit Online,” “Self-pity is not one of my character traits.” The actress pulled herself together, gave up sugar and dairy products, and threw herself into sport.
And it has paid off: Since the summer of 2024, the Münster native has been considered cured and even feels fitter than she did in her early 20s in the 1990s. “I wasn’t trained for ‘Lola Rennt’ and it was really exhausting,” she said. “I grew from the illness,” Potente says today. She learned to appreciate herself and those around her again.