Daniel Brühl & Fran Healy: 'Danny comes back from the door, looking badly shaken, and says, 'It's the police!''

The actor and the lead singer of Travis met when they bumped into each other in Berlin in 2008

Daniel Brühl and Fran Healy photographed in front of the Ernst Thalmann monument in Berlin (Oliver Mark)

Daniel Bruhl, 37

A German film actor, Brühl (left in picture) got his breakthrough in 2003's tragicomic 'Good Bye Lenin!'. He has since appeared in major releases including 'Inglourious Basterds', 'Rush' and 'The Fifth Estate'. He also runs a tapas bar in the east German neighbourhood of Kreuzberg, where he lives with his fiancée

I played in a bad band when I was younger, and Travis was one of our influences: we'd play the albums all the way through in my flat, with Fran's songs on a loop.

We finally met in Berlin, in 2008. I was going for a walk with my family and I had a double-take with this guy on a street corner who was wearing a hat and shades – Fran's a real poser. But I walked on until he said, "Are you the guy from Good Bye Lenin?" And I said, "Are you not the guy from the band Travis? What the hell are you doing here in this part of town?" And he said, "I live here!" And he proposed we have a beer. It's beautiful to see how you can become close friends with someone that you've admired for so long.

I had all these clichés in my head about him living this wild life, with drugs and women. But instead I met this quiet, polite man who likes to listen and not talk as much as I do.

When I see him, I see a very happy man not screwed up by the excesses the job brings; sometimes I envy him, as his moments of doubt seem less than mine. I fear all this might come to an end, I fear that I won't have a glorious moment again as I can't reinvent myself. As an actor, I'm always dependent on what comes to me. But the nice thing is that I can share all that with Fran over a beer or scotch and we'll discuss it openly.

As a friend and a fan, I was nervous when he started sending me files of his new songs. You want to like them, so I was relieved when I listened to it, as I loved it. Sometimes I'd get invited to his studio in his cellar and watch him trying things out. Now it's fascinating for me to hear a part of a track and realise I was there in the studio when the idea was born.

I think I'm more nervous than him. But while I like the company of many people, and I'm very social, ironically Fran doesn't. He's always standing in front of crowds, but in private he prefers to meet you on your own.

I had one of my down moments last summer. It was while I was filming Burnt [a drama co-staring Bradley Cooper]. It was another year far from home with no friends around and it was my birthday. I went to a restaurant that night – J Sheekey – and was nursing a dry Martini when the Scottish guy turned up: he'd found out where I was having dinner and it turned into a great night. We spent hours stumbling along streets in Soho, hugging! He ended up back at my hotel room, where we laughed and talked nonsense and finally fell asleep, giggling like schoolboys.

Fran Healy, 42

As lead singer of Scottish band Travis, Healy has had two number one albums and top 10 singles including 'Sing', 'Why Does it Always Rain on Me' and 'Turn'. He has won several Brit Awards. He lives in east Berlin with his wife, the German photographer Nora Kryst, and their son

I was standing on the corner of my street in Kreuzberg , looking at a nice vintage Peugeot convertible and I looked up and it was Danny driving it. I was like, it's that guy in Good Bye Lenin!: he is a man of taste! Two weeks later I bumped into him again. We realised we were neighbours. I told him to slip his telephone number under my door, though we didn't meet up for another year, as I was on tour and he went off to do Inglourious Basterds.

Our first date was the German premiere of Inglourious Basterds. I went to see it with him, but it was all in German and it completely confused me: I didn't enjoy it. A few weeks later he decided I should meet Wolfgang Becker, the director of Good Bye Lenin, as he thought we would hit it off. We started drinking at an Italian restaurant till midnight, then Wolfgang invited us to his apartment. He is a voracious vinyl collector, and has a music room with several 3ft-high stereo speakers and an insane vinyl library. He was pretty drunk that evening, and he started taking about Shostakovich's 8th. He was appalled when I said I didn't know who he was. He said, "I will play you a song." And he pulls out one vinyl and turns up the volume to full. It was so deafening it hurt my ears. I was thinking, this guy is mental – it's 1.30am and everyone else in the apartment building will be sleeping!

He made us listen to it for 20 minutes and then started sharing crazy stories about Shostakovich. He brought out a small portable gramophone, wound it up and put a new symphony on, and we got more classical just as the door buzzer went. I remember Wolfgang telling Danny to get the door.

Danny comes back and says, "Wolfgang, it's the police!" And Wolfgang replies, "Well, bring them in Danny!" So Danny goes back to the door, has a word and comes back looking badly shaken and says, "Wolfgang, they won't come in, but would like you to come – they've confiscated my ID until you do!" Wolfgang was like, "Screw them! Convince them!" So Danny goes back and he convinces these two surly policemen to come into the apartment.

Wolfgang was going, "Sit down, have a drink. Who complained? Was it the woman upstairs?" And he points to the small gramophone and says, "I was just playing this really quiet old wind-up gramophone!" What a liar! We've become good friends since and now me, Danny and Wolfgang pal about.

Danny's really famous in Germany: when we walk down the street, everyone gawks at him. He is exceptional in the acting world; a lot of actors are self-centred, and I rail against that: all these people who didn't get properly validated as children. Danny feels the same.

Travis's forthcoming album 'Everything at Once' is out on 29 April