After the crisis is before the crisis

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating", as the old saying goes. And it's true: experiences shape us and teach us. One should try to take something instructive and perhaps positive from difficult situations. So what can be good about a global crisis or a pandemic, which many have experienced for the very first time?

Eugénie Anselin is in a hotel room near Duisburg during our conversation via Zoom. Since the beginning of June, she has been doing work on a feature film in which the 29-year-old embodies a Russian sniper. She can't help grinning broadly. The joy of finally being in front of the camera again is impossible to miss. The last few months have been exhausting, unpredictable, but they have taught Eugénie a lot.

And suddenly it got quiet

Flashback to March 2020. The freelance actress is in the middle of rehearsals at the "Theatre des Capucins" in the capital. "We've been told that everything is closing. But we were told to stay in Luxembourg – at the time we thought we'd be up and running in a week", Eugénie explains looking back and laughing out loud. She compares it to that moment as a child when it snowed so much lessons were cancelled. "It felt like, 'OK cool, a week's break'. But we quickly realised that this previously taken-for-granted assumption of being in front of an audience again became a distant memory."

This indeed came to pass: Plans, projects and performances were cancelled. For the freelance actress who lives between Berlin and Luxembourg and is also professionally active in France and Belgium, this meant going back to parents. At first, this idleness and doing nothing was a welcome change. But "even though I didn't immediately find myself in financial distress, I started to worry sooner than I thought. You're suddenly alone with your thoughts for longer and ask yourself questions, especially in a job that's uncertain because at the end of the month, you can't rely on a fixed income."