[continued from p3]

What’s the toughest part about being in this business?
To be away from home. Right now I’m very homesick. I love to be with my family. I love being home. I love being with my boyfriend. Normally you’re alone, traveling a lot and I’m getting used to that.

Tell us a little about your family
I have one sister who is 20. She works in film production. My mother is …how do you say…she handles the accounting for a woman who owns a lot of houses in Germany. My father is the sales manager for Central Europe of an American company. He travels a lot, often times to the States.

Thus your very good English
No, it's not that good. I think Germans when they speak really good English for a long time…you can’t tell that they’re German. They don’t have the kind of distinct accent like the Russian girls.

True. Most Americans when they watch the VS show for instance never realize that Heidi Klum is actually German.
Exactly. But I think when I speak English a little longer you won’t able to tell either.

What do you do for fun on your downtime Julia?
I play basketball. I’m in a club in Munich

Cool. What position do you play?
Center because I’m so tall..My boyfriend also plays, that’s how we met. I also read a lot. God, do I have a lot of time to read these days.

What would you say to all those people who will have never met you person but will judge you by the pictures you take.
That I’m normal. Some people when they start to do well or start earning a lot of money become…how do you say it…(flicks her nose upwards)

A snob?
Yes, but I’m just a girl. I’m the same person as before like my other 18 year old friends in Germany

What advice would you have for all the aspiring models reading this?
Stay normal. Don’t take it too seriously. Be ambitious but don’t go into this thinking “I have to be the next Claudia Schiffer” because then if that doesn’t happen, you take it as a personal failure when maybe all along you had a different path. You have to take modeling one day at a time. Be careful.. It’s a hard business. Keep your friends and family from before. I need that. Without my friends and family …without them, it would be so much harder to do this job. I’m very lucky to have them behind me.

Oh but will Julia still be Julia once the paparazzi and the autograph seekers start showing up?
That happened to me in Germany. I have a PR agent in Germany and I did an interview which they showed on TV. So after the show aired, one day later I was shopping in the city and there was this little girl with her mother. She didn’t say anything but she kept pointing me out to her mother. It's so funny because I’m not someone who needs that kind of attention. It's my family and friends that give me happiness.

A million dollar contract won’t bring you happiness too(lol)?
I don’t think so. I think when you earn a lot of money you don’t have the same thinking about money as you did before. I mean now I’m earning my own money for the first time which is more than the money that my parents used to give me but I try to buy the same clothes as before. I go to H+M. I go to small shops. It's not that I don’t want to spend money. I’m not trying to be a miser. I’m just trying to keep my life the way it was before.

And bless you for that dose of good common sense. But on a parting note tell us about your most glamorous moments in the business thus far.
The Gucci show with the rose petals on the floor. It was so special doing that…the mood was incredible though the petals did get more slippery the more you walked on them.
Opening and closing the YSL of course and then shooting the campaign.
And working with Steven Meisel... It's like a script right?