Although she speaks English, her acting roles have been largely confined to German-language films and television productions.

As a child, she lived in London, Berlin, Paris, Ibiza, Lüneburg and Hamburg.

Her grandmother was actress Eva-Maria Hagen and her step-grandfather is the East German dissident writer and singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann.

Her non-Jewish great-grandmother Hedwig Elise Caroline Staadt, wife of Hermann Hagen, was also murdered at Sachsenhausen.

Her maternal grandfather Hans Hagen was a Holocaust survivor, being held at a prison in Moabit between 1941 and 1945 until liberation by the Soviets.