Nico von Lahnstein

Nicola "Nico" von Lahnstein (born as Nicola Brandner) is a fictional character of the German soap opera Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love). The character has been played by actress Verena Zimmermann and made her first appearance on October 1, 2002. Much of the character's history revolves around her rebellious teenage years, being the illegitimate daughter of Johannes von Lahnstein, the deep connection shared with her sister Jana, her romance with Andi Fritzsche and marriage to Philipp zu Hohenfelden.

The actress took a seven months break in 2006. She last appeared on February 2, 2006, where Nico left with her grandmother Mimi to travel the world. She returned on September 13, 2006 and stayed for another year before leaving on September 11, 2007.^[1]

Zimmermann returned for three episodes from March 5 to March 7, 2008, where Nico attended the funeral of her sister Jana.

Two years later, Zimmermann signed on to make a return as Nico and first reappeared on April 15, 2010.^[2] In late 2011, it was reported that Verena Zimmermann was expected her first child and therefor is taking a maternity leave.^[3] She last appeared on February 17, 2012.^[4]

In May 2012, it was reported that Zimmermann is back on set and would return for a short stint. It became later known that Nico returns to attend the funeral of Arno Brandner. She is expected to first reappear on September 13, 2012.^[5]

Creation

Introduction

The character of Nico is introduced together with her siblings Jana (Vanessa Jung) and Robin (Nils Brunkhorst). It's explained that their mother Vera died tragically and father Achim is swamped with raising three children.^[6] Robin pays a visit to his uncle Arno Brandner (Konrad Krauss), who lives with his then wife Elisabeth (Martina Servatius) in Düsseldorf. The three are having problems with the youth welfare office and Robin wants to ask Arno for help. But before he can do so, the two get into a fight and Robin wants to leave the Brandner house, when his two younger sisters arrive. Jana is portrayed as a shy beautiful woman, while Nico appears as a rebel, who loves punk music and seems to be hard to deal with.^[7]

Personality

Nico is a young woman who is very difficult to deal with. She appears as a rebel that doesn't let any authority interfere in her life. But with time it's shown a softer side of her, which leads to the conclusion that Nico just needed a stable environment and people that really care for her. Arno becomes a father figure to her and can give all three siblings the attention they needed. Eventually Nico shows how much she cares about her uncle. Even though without changing her style, being still covered with a unique style for clothes and her love for punk music. While the years change Nico's style, she still is a person who speaks her opinions out loud. With her difficult and almost unique persona in German soaps, Nico becomes a fan favorite and is said to be one of the most complex heroines.

Reception

In the beginning, the audience was split about the character of Nico. But with showing more of her vulnerable side, the role became pretty popular with fans. The love story between Nico and Andi brought a bigger attention to the character. The love of Andi and Nico had a popular following and remains as one of the most memorable couples. With time Nico became a fan favorite who could be a member of the traditional Lahnstein family, but still a character viewers could relate to. When Verena Zimmermann took a break in the beginning of 2006 and came back later that year, fans expected that a possible reunion of Nico and Andi could be in the works. But when the character returned, she was taken in a different direction giving her less scenes with former on-screen partner Dominic Saleh-Zaki. Instead Nico became a bigger role in the Lahnstein family with knowing from her father's affair and later being once again part of a love triangle. The relationship between Nico and Christian wasn't popular with the fans and some would even call out the lack of chemistry both actors seem to have with each other.^[8]

Storylines

The arrival

Nico and Jana arrive in Düsseldorf after they think that Robin could manages to get custody of his younger sisters with the help of their uncle Arno. But he refuses to just get custody and let the girls live with the barely adult brother. He agrees to get custody for them, if they life under his roof. Nico is not impressed and thinks that her uncle is an old Babbitt. As a favor to her sister Jana, Nico agrees to live with Arno. But for some time, Nico is causing much trouble for the family. Only with time, she and Arno finally get along and he becomes one of her biggest supporters and a father figure she can count on.

The biological father

After Nico became at home in Arno's house, Achim (Matthias Hasse) comes to town. He wants to be a part of his children's life again. While Nico doesn't have a problem to forgive, Jana and Robin want to have nothing to do with him. Achim begs Nico and Jana to come to Mexico with him, where he has started a new life. Nico is excited and can even convince Jana to come with them. Before they want to leave the country for good, Nico, Jana and Achim visit their old house in Hanover. There, Nico discovers an old letter from their dead mother Vera, in which she confesses to have had an affair, which is why Jana and Nico might not be Achim's daughters. After they take a paternity test it becomes clear that Jana and Nico are twins after all, but don't share the same father. Only Jana is Achim's child, making Nico and Jana to a special phenomenon called Superfecundation.^[9] Nico is heartbroken, while Achim doesn't know how to deal with the truth and leaves his children once again. Now that Nico knows that she isn't Achim's daughter, she wants to find her biological father. After a while she even gets a clue that could lead her to his identity. Nico is shocked when she discovers that Johannes von Lahnstein (Thomas Gumpert), a rich aristocrat, is her father. She wants to get to know her newly found family better and therefore starts working as a maid on Castle Königsbrunn. But it doesn't take long until her hidden identity is discovered and she gets thrown out of the Castle. Nico tries to tell Johannes the truth, but he believes that she must be a gold digger who is after his money. Nico is disappointed and wants to have nothing to do with Johannes. But when another paternity test is made, Johannes respects the result and the fact that Nico is his daughter. He apologizes to her and invites her to live with him in order to get to know him and her siblings better. Nico agrees on Johannes' invitation, but is sad when Jana can't understand her decision to leave the Brandner's house. Nico moves and gets her rightfully title as countess of Lahnstein. In the following years, father and daughter grow closer, while Johannes is having problems accepting the wild side of his daughter.

The first love

Jana and Nico still try to spend as much time as possible with each other. But Jana's boyfriend Andi Fritzsche (Dominic Saleh-Zaki) becomes a real buzz kill^{[Inappropriate slang]} for Nico. She doesn't understand what her sister finds attractive about him and gives Andi a hard time when she is around him. When they spend a night together at one of the shooting boxes of the Lahnsteins, Nico and Andi are alone when they get into a fight again. In a skirmish it comes to a passionate kiss between them. It doesn't take Nico long to come to the conclusion that she is falling in love with her sister's boyfriend. Nico tries to downplay her kiss with Andi and tells him that it was a mistake and will never happen again. To hide from her own feelings, she begins to flirt with Carsten (Jan Hartmann), one of Andi's friends. Andi is jealous and wants to keep Carsten away from Nico, but at the same time can't admit that he has feelings for her as well. After he could avert that Carsten can make a move on Nico, he and Nico almost sleep together. They both stop right in time and agree that they can't do this to Jana and try to stay away from each other. But they can't hide her feelings for long and Andi and Nico do sleep together after all. Nico and Andi feel bad about what happened between them and they wanna tell Jana the truth. When Jana finally finds out about them, all what she can feel is hate. She wants revenge for what Nico and Andi did to her. Together with Vanessa (Inez Bjørg David) she tries to destroy Nico and Andi's relationship. After an accident with Andi's motorcycle, Jana sees that she has gone too far. After a while Nico and Andi think that Jana has learned to live with the situation, when Jana even moves into a flat-share together with Andi. But the truth is that Jana is still deeply in love with Andi and has still problems with his relationship to Nico. She asks herself why Andi left her for her sister and wants to prove herself. Inspired by Gregor Mann (Andreas Jancke), Jana wants to make money as a call-girl. It takes a long time until Nico finds out about her sister's double life and is shocked. She gets into a dispute with Andi, when he defends Jana after Nico calls her out of being a whore. Nico is disappointed that Andi tries to understand Jana's lifestyle and gets wasted with the Italian exchange student Luca (Cem Erzincan). She sleeps with him and because she feels bad about it afterwards, Nico takes a trip to England, without telling anyone. When Nico comes back and tells Andi the truth about what happened with Luca, he is furious and cheats on Nico with his ex-girlfriend Jana. While Andi finds out that he still has feelings for her, Jana discovers that she is over Andi. Both sisters end things with Andi and reconcile.

Too late

After their break-up, Nico and Andi manage it to still be friendly with each other. When Nico meets Mimi Baxter (Christa Strobel), she has no idea that the old woman is her grandmother. Mimi already wants to leave town, when Nico can hold her back and Mimi decides to stay a little bit longer. Nico is fascinated by Mimi and her lifestyle. She was married nine times and has seen almost the entire world. The unlikely pair become friends, when Nico is shocked to find out that Mimi is Johannes' mother and that she left her own son when he was just a little boy. Mimi regrets her past mistakes and wants to make up for the lost time. She tries to stay in front of the Castle for as long as she can, when Mimi breaks down after a cold night. Johannes takes her in, but refuses to forgive his mother. Nico recognizes Mimi's trying and is furious with her stubborn father. Johannes rethinks the situation and he and Mimi reconcile after all. After the tragic death of Cécile de Maron (Yvonne Burbach), Johannes and Leonard (Lars Korten) can make peace with each other, which leads Johannes to think to finally having his entire family back together. But Mimi has wanderlust and wants to leave town. Johannes sees that he needs to let his mother go, but is even sadder when Nico wants to go with Mimi. Nico promises her father to make her graduation after her return and tells him that she just needs to get away from all of this. When Andi finds out about Nico's plans to leave, he is sad as well and finally realizes that Nico is the woman he truly loves. He wants to hold her back from leaving town, but when he arrives Andi is too late and Nico already left.

No happy ending planned

When Nico returns to the wedding of her sister Carla (Claudia Hiersche) with Susanne (Claudia Scarpatetti), she discovers that Johannes has an affair with Arno's wife Elisabeth. Mad at both of them, they agree to end their affair after Arno got shot, while he was taken hostage by Susanne's ex-husband Alex (Frank Behnke). In the end, Johannes and Elisabeth can't hide from their feelings and Arno eventually finds out the truth. Nico has a hard time accepting her father and Elisabeth as a couple, but sees that she once was in similar situation with Andi and Jana and gives them her blessing. As for her own romantic happy end, Nico has to wait. Even with her and Andi back together in the same town, they both feel that they are better left of as good friends and don't want to open old wounds again. When Nico meets Christian Mann (Thore Schölermann), she is eventually interested in him. But her good friend Coco (Mariangela Scelsi) has her eyes on Christian too. While it's eventually pretty clear that Christian is also interested in Nico, Coco just can't get over her feelings for him. She tries to be happy for Nico and Christian, but then Nico finds out for Coco's feelings for her boyfriend. Nico tries to push a professional career as a photographer and begins to work with some of the biggest names in the business. Proud to have it earned by her own talent and not by her name, Nico gets a wake-up call when her new boss tries to rape her. Christian comes to Nico's rescue and can avert worse things from happening. He beats Nico's boss down, leading for him to get arrested for assault. While in jail, Christian wants Nico to write him letters that can keep him going. But even though she feels badly for Christian, she just can't find the right words to say to him. In the end, she discovers Coco's talent for writing love letters and realizes with her words how strong her feelings for Christian are. When Christian gets free, Nico tells him the truth about the letters and eventually breaks up with him, when she finds out that Christian has feelings for Coco too. With being single again, Nico decides to get back to her career and takes a new job at a photo studio. But the photographer, who would be Nico's new boss wants to leave for South Africa and work there. He asks Nico to come with her and she decides to leave Düsseldorf once again.

Tragedy

When Nico pays her family a visit in March 2008, she has to face two tragedies. Her father Johannes is presumed death after a plane crash and her sister Jana died of a pulmonary embolism. After finding out that Leonard, who Jana was married to, cheated on her sister with her other sister Sarah Hofmann (Sina-Valeska Jung), she is outraged with Leonard and tells him that she will never forgive him for what he has done. Heart broken over the loss of her sister, Arno is the only one who can give Nico enough footing to get through Jana's funeral. She later has a last conversation with Leonard, in which she tells him that she hopes that he can be happy again, after Nico realizes how hard Jana's death is for him. After a few days, Nico tells Elisabeth that she can't stay in town and probably needs some time before she can call Königsbrunn her home again. After she says goodbye to her family, Nico leaves again for South Africa.

2010 return and Prince Phillipp zu Hohenfelden

When Nico returns, she is as shocked about the changes around the city as Andi did when he returned, especially about her ex, Christian and Oliver being a couple. When she meets Prince Philipp zu Hohenfelden, she is smitten, even though Phillipp is married to he late wife Antonia Weber, who became the new castle administrator after Stella Mann left. Phillipp helps Nico with The Jana von Lahnstein Foundation, named after her late twin-sister Jana.

References