‘Run Lola Run’ actress Franka Potente was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day when shooting iconic ’90s film

Franka Potente was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day when she shot ‘Run Lola Run’.

The German actress, 49, shot to fame playing Lola in the 1998 thriller who sprints around the streets trying to raise 100,000 Deuthschmarks in 20 minutes to save the life of her boyfriend.

She has now told Variety about how she wasn’t in shape while filming its gruelling running scenes: “I didn’t do any preparation really. I was probably smoking two packs of cigarettes a day at that point.

“And I was doing all this running – I was running in rehearsals, I was running when we shot all the different takes, and I would run again so we could get the sound right. I was carried along by all this energy.”

Even though Franka could wear trainers in shots in ‘Run Lola Run’ where her feet weren’t in the frame, she stuck to Lola’s signature Dr Martens.

She added: “It took five minutes to change shoes, and there wasn’t time.

“They’re good shoes for utility work, but running in them took double the energy.”

Franka also famously had her hair dyed bright red for the role – which she said was also a brutal process.

She added: “My hair had been jet-black from my previous job, so they bleached it eight times.

“For Lola, we tried all these different colours before they found this red dye that came from London.

“But it would wash out, so I couldn’t wash my hair during the production because it would mess up the continuity.”

‘Run Lola Run’ featured Franka racing against the clock to help her boyfriend replace a drug dealer’s bag of money he lost.

It broke new ground in the late-’90s as Lola was a feminist action hero in a genre dominated by men.

Franka said about the movie’s progresiveness: “I’ve never had to play the damsel in distress, but Lola was a powerful movement forward.

“There was a level of female fury that I enjoyed getting to play.”

‘Run Lola Run’ is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a theatrical re-release on Friday (07.06.24), and Franka said about its enduring appeal: “It sucks you in right from the beginning. The movie starts, and you’re stressed out.

“And now that I’ve made more films and even directed one myself, I know that’s a hard feeling to generate.

“There’s no algorithm where you put this music on and cut things fast, and that’s it.

“Everything has to come together perfectly, and on ‘Lola’ it did.”