The Road Ahead for ALLES WAS ZÄHLT’s DeRo!
Fans of the German soap opera ALLES WAS ZÄHLT (ALL THAT MATTERS) are in for a treat — and some major drama — now that ex-lovers Deniz Öztürk (Igor Dolgatschew) and Roman Wild (Dennis Grabosch) have hit the ice together. Weekly asked Dolgatschew, Grabosch and AWZ writer Christoph Schlewinski why the two hunky athletes are finally ready to do a little pairs skating.
Soap Opera Weekly: What was your reaction when you heard Deniz and Roman were being put back together? Were you nervous? Excited?
Dennis Grabosch: When they told us it was definitely going to happen, I immediately thought, “I can’t go through all of that again!” But when I talked to the writers who were in charge of the storyline, I was hooked immediately and realized that this is my chance of getting closure for Roman and for me, and to start changing my approach to being an actor.
Igor Dolgatschew: I was really excited, and told Dennis, “Finally, we can conclude “our story,” which was left open almost a year-and-a-half ago.” [After that], there wasn’t even a friendship between my character and Roman on the show, and both characters deserved to have this new chance. All of that made me feel real good.
Weekly: How do you think your characters have changed since they were last involved?
Grabosch: Igor and I are working with characters that have developed loads through their breakup. Deniz and Roman’s first attempt to get together was a train crash waiting to happen. And the way it ended reminded me personally of a case study in The Celluloid Closet.
Dolgatschew: The young boy that Deniz was has grown up and can go into this new relationship much more maturely than he did last time. Deniz has gone through a lot of trouble: Deniz has gone through a lot of trouble with his short-term girlfriend Vanessa and he has fallen in love with another girl, Stella, who rejected him, and he got hurt very badly. All these experiences have made him more grown-up, and now Deniz is ready for his first real relationship — and he has finally come out of the closet!
Weekly: Did you know that English-speaking fans call Deniz and Roman “DeRo” for short? What do you think? Do you have a better nickname?
Grabosch: I don’t care what they call us, as long as they enjoy watching the show, discuss and analyze what they think we tried to do, and bitch us down with those fabulous, snarky and clever comments when they are annoyed about something they did not like. One of the most beautiful things I saw happening during our first time around was the fact that people expressed their opinions and really started to talk about their views on homosexuality and what they thought about the show.
Dolgatschew: I don’t care that much about nicknames. Dennis calls me a cute one in private — which I prefer not to tell — but if the fans like to call us “DeRo,” that’s fine with me. The good thing about it is that “De” stands first and “Ro” behind, which is much better than the other way round, or even calling us “Rodeo,” or not having a nickname at all!
Weekly: When Deniz and Roman were initially put in a story together, did you expect them to become so popular with fans?
Christoph Schlewinski: I had hoped for it, but never expected them to be that big. Up to the day he met Deniz, Roman was notoriously [uninvolved]. The character who Roman originally was supposed to have a relationship with (not Deniz) became suddenly very popular with our female viewership, so his story was changed and the character stayed straight. Thus, Roman for a long time became the “emotional dustbin” of all the other characters, and did not have any story of his own. I feared maybe the viewers wouldn’t care if Roman would fall in love with another human being or with a piece of wood. As history shows, I was wrong!
Weekly: Has the success and acceptance of Christian and Oliver from your fellow German soap, VERBOTENE LIEBE (FORBIDDEN LOVE), been an influence on AWZ returning to this pairing?
Schlewinski: Not for me. It may be embarrassing, but I have to admit that I just saw some snippets on YouTube of the Christian/Oliver story. If something has inspired me to write the story of Roman and Deniz, it was characters like David and Keith from SIX FEET UNDER, or Officer Julien Lowe from THE SHIELD. In our story department, the question of doing a remake of the story of FORBIDDEN LOVE was never raised. Both couples are very different from each other, outstanding, and don’t take away each other’s livelihood — just like different couples in real life, and I like that a lot.
Stay tuned for more from the guys of AWZ in a future issue of Weekly, and catch up on Roman and Deniz’s story so far on YouTube!
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