Katarina Witt Brought Down Walls for Movie

On the day that the Berlin Wall first crumbled, Katarina Witt was in Spain making a movie that had already required that she break down a few walls on her own.

“I remember I was standing on the set doing a night scene, and the producer came and said, ‘The wall is down.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding. It’s not true.’ He said, ‘Yeah. It’s true. Everybody is celebrating.’ ”

Witt, the 24-year-old two-time Olympic figure-skating gold medalist, was speaking in Los Angeles to promote that movie, an ice-skating version of “Carmen” with Brian Boitano. It will premiere as a theatrical film in Dresden, East Germany, on Feb. 7. A one-hour version will be shown on HBO in March.

Getting this film approved prior to the “revolution” in East Germany pitted her against the East German sports authorities. As she has throughout her career, Witt used her fame to get what she wanted, which in this case included the use of an East German defector as producer for the West German film company.

“Otherwise, I would have left the country, and they knew it, because I love skating so much,” she said.

“Carmen,” which Witt said was inspired by her skating that character in her 1988 Olympics, was filmed in Spain using portable ice rinks. “This is the first time we made a movie like this, and I think it shows skating on a totally new level,” she said.

Witt admits it will be a big jump from a film like this to one made without ice.

“I had a lot of offers to make different movies, but I thought, well, I’m a skater. I’m not an actress now. If you really want to be a good actress, then you have to learn it from the beginning. It’s different when you have the music for the mood and you act with your face than when you have to tell it with your words. Maybe someday I will try it.”