00:00I like movies that ask questions that I don't know the answer to.
00:05It's been a shocking year.
00:25Hello sir.
00:25How are you?
00:26Welcome back to London.
00:27Yes.
00:27Thank you so much for your time.
00:29I want to ask today, actually, how does the brisk cold air feel on a shaved head today?
00:34It's really great, actually.
00:36Very refreshing.
00:37I'm much more of a cold person than I'm a heat person.
00:43Well, I mean, you picked the right project to fill me up in Norway.
00:45Yeah.
00:46How was it?
00:48No, no, no.
00:49It was bizarre because we were there March and April into May, and we literally experienced
00:55the four seasons.
00:56I mean, we had snow, we had rain, and then we had sunshine and summer.
01:00It's a beautiful location.
01:02Everybody should go to this town called Oye, and Alasun is another special place.
01:10Yeah.
01:11I loved hearing about the, listening to you guys in interviews of this film because you're
01:15quite confronting about, like, this is not an easy spoon-fed resolution within a film.
01:20Yeah.
01:20And, you know, that's the kind of thing that should challenge the audience.
01:23Is that what appealed to you specifically about getting on board with this?
01:27I like movies that ask questions that I don't know the answer to myself.
01:33I think the film was asking a lot of questions that I was myself asking about our world today,
01:40and what is family today, what is, where do our culture and traditional values still lie?
01:48How much do they help us?
01:49How much do they hinder us?
01:50Get in the way of us raising our children because it's not as it used to be.
01:55The world has changed, and maybe we need to change, too.
01:59Now, seemingly in a world that needs change and flexibility, we are apparently going the other way.
02:06We are more rigid, we are becoming more stubborn, we are becoming more solidified,
02:12and looking for validation in feeling right, in feeling like we know what's right.
02:22And I think it's not working, in my opinion.
02:27I think we need now more than ever to try to kind of stay open in order so that it
02:33is,
02:34if it is a question about children particularly and the future generation,
02:37that we are not imposing our own egos and our own self-obsessed kind of thought processes on them,
02:47and actually asking what's right for them.
02:50Final question for me.
02:51Congratulations on your Oscar nomination last year, by the way.
02:53Oh, thank you.
02:54I was here talking to you about The Apprentice last year.
02:56Yeah, we were here.
02:57So, at the time, there was a lot of chatter about playing Donald Trump and what it might mean.
03:02A year on from that event, have there been repercussions in any way?
03:05Do you feel it's a different landscape for you?
03:07Or is it...
03:08I only feel that a lot of what the movie showed is what's happening.
03:16So, I feel even more encouraged and empowered behind my choice of having done the movie
03:22and also why I think the movie will live the test of time and people are going to look back
03:26at it.
03:27And look, if anything, I'm actually glad that people are paying attention to Artificial now
03:32because I think that movie is also really shining a light.
03:36I haven't seen it and I really want to see it to a very important question.
03:39And maybe with that film, they'll actually follow, you know, they'll pay more attention.
03:44So, it's important for these movies and for art to really kind of uphold these things that we can't always
03:51do in life, you know?
03:52Welcome back to London on a cold day.
03:54It's so cold today.
03:54The last time you were here last year at the London Film Festival, it was before the Oscar nomination.
03:59Tell me, how has that changed your life, if at all?
04:03It's been a shocking year.
04:07It's been so amazing, you know, coming from the countryside in Norway, really loving my, you know, acting, really loving
04:18that.
04:19And at some point, deciding to quit.
04:22And then coming back with, you asked me to do the worst person in the world, like right after I
04:28decided to quit.
04:28And then everything that's happened after.
04:30And then getting to be like in the pool of actresses that have been nominated for an Oscar is just
04:36such a big honor.
04:37So, I'm still very proud.
04:39Congratulations again. Hopefully more to come.
04:41Hey, Fjord is quite wonderful.
04:43And it must be very comforting to, you know, have a film in your home country and be received so
04:49well internationally.
04:50Does it make you a proud Norwegian at this point?
04:52Yeah, absolutely.
04:54I'm so happy that Christian decided to make a movie there and it could have been anywhere.
05:01I think the story is very universal and it's about this immigrant family who moves to another country and they're
05:06met with this collision of values from the new place that they move.
05:11But I'm very happy that he chose Norway so I can be a part of it.
05:15And, yeah, to show off Norway and, yeah, it's been great.
05:20How was your collaboration with Sebastian?
05:21Obviously you heard the reaction from fans once he even turned up today.
05:24But I imagine day to day it's pretty, tell us he's a normal guy, you know?
05:30He really is. And he's very generous.
05:33He's he's really nice to work with.
05:35It's so fun to see like how much he loves creating the physicality of a role.
05:40Of course, the inside he builds the same way, but he really enjoys also building like a different way of
05:48looking.
05:49So he he feels so different also seeing him on set.
05:52And yeah, he's great. Here he is. Yeah.
05:55It sounded like on set the actors and, you know, your close, the people who play your family really created
06:01like a real companionship.
06:03When the cameras weren't rolling with your kids on screen and who we see on screen, how would you kind
06:08of hang out?
06:09What would you do with each other when you weren't in the characters?
06:12Yeah, we were stuck out there.
06:14It was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by these mountains.
06:17And it was 25 people living in the village and us, even like more people in the crew and cast.
06:25And, you know, it was a beautiful place.
06:27And and every night we would have dinner together and do, yeah, everything together, really.
06:34So it became kind of this bubble where we became very close.
06:37And I think that gave a lot to the movie.
06:41Yeah.
06:41And once some people see Fjord, once audiences see it, is the intention to kind of like spark a debate
06:47based on the kind of the subject matter of the film?
06:49Do you want people to come out and like really have good conversations essentially?
06:52Yeah, I I've actually been shooting.
06:55So I've been kind of underwater and just coming up to the surface.
06:58And I have now been confronted with all these like big conversation and debate and wonderful questions from people about
07:07the movie.
07:08And I think that was really Christian Mundrew's intention making this movie.
07:13And with all these movies, he really wants to be very sophisticated in how he makes the movie and the
07:22different elements of the movie put up against each other so that people don't really know what's right or wrong.
07:28So there will always be a debate for those movies.
07:31Thank you so much for your time. If you can tell us, what have you been away shooting?
07:34Oh, me, Hansen Löwe. If Love Should Die. So I play Mary Wollstonecraft in that. Yeah.
07:40Congratulations on you personally. Another popular film.
07:45What is it? How do you feel as the director, as the creator of this film when you get such
07:48recognition? What does it mean for Fjord going forward, I guess, as well?
07:52You know, this is a very risky film. It's not this kind of safe kind of narrative in which you
08:02do once again something that, you know, people are going to like.
08:05So actually, we were very happy to get The Brown Door because it helps the film to become visible.
08:12And the film now is somehow on a safer track because it's a very polemic film.
08:18And a lot of people who are used to watching films in which the author just takes them by the
08:25hand and tells them that their values are good and everything is fine were very challenged.
08:30So I'm very happy that now there is a curiosity for this film also brought by the award that it
08:36got.
08:37It's not very fair for a lot of films in, I don't know, which are very good because, you know,
08:43people are so much driven by the awards, but it's the way it is.
08:49And I'm very happy that this saved the fate of this film and is going to be discovered by more
08:54people forgetting this award.
08:56I know that you have had a friendship with Sebastian for a long time before this project, and you must
09:02have known him for a long time.
09:03How was your collaboration, though? Did it elevate your friendship, your relationship? How was it working with Sebastian?
09:08First of all, it's good that we started as friends and we ended up still as friends, so I would
09:14describe this as a good relationship.
09:17And, you know, he was very generous, I have to say, first of all, because he accepted to play in
09:21this film even if he had a very busy schedule.
09:25And I couldn't have made this film unless I had his determination from the very beginning because it was somehow
09:33more expensive for us to shoot in Norway.
09:35And based on his promise that he's going to be in the film, we could finance the film. And then
09:40he was generous that he was willing to change his looks so drastically to become the character in the film
09:48and not to be himself.
09:50I appreciate a lot that there are so many fans coming today to watch Sebastian that they know, but it's
09:56important that in the film he was willing to exploit his talent and not his looks.
10:02And then I'm also grateful that he followed me into this my way of filmmaking, which is capturing every other
10:09situation in just one shot.
10:11That's very complicated. You know, it looks simple at the end, but you need to do 20, 30, 40 takes
10:17as many as you need to get there.
10:19And especially for him, because he had to play a lot with children and animals. It's not this easy, but
10:25he was there and he understood that you need to look fresh even for the 30th take.
10:30And this is very, very generous for an actor.
10:32I don't know how much time you might have spent with Sebastian Stan on set. Obviously, international audiences know him.
10:39How was it working with him on set? What was he like day to day?
10:43He is so nice because like first time I heard that we're going to film with him, I was really
10:49scared of not doing something like forgetting a line or doing something that's not right.
10:54But he's so nice and so down to earth and he's an amazing human being and Renata as well.
11:01Yeah. Tell me about Renata as well. Obviously now an Oscar nominated actress as well. Like I know that the
11:07cast in general had quite a close proximity.
11:10You know, you've got breakfast together and lunch together. What was the atmosphere, the mood like on set day to
11:15day from your perspective?
11:16Well, I think I was too worried about doing everything right that I didn't get to like relax. But everyone
11:25was so nice and the whole team was amazing.
11:28And that's what I also love about Christian apart from his work that when he chooses the team, everyone is
11:35like so kind, so nice. So yeah, it was great.
11:38And Christian is a director. How did you find him? What was the experience like? How do you describe his
11:44direction skill style?
11:46He was he was amazing because I mean, he's so he's focusing on details. So I've only done TV series
11:55before. This was my first movie.
11:57And I was mesmerized by this because he was so careful with all the details and everyone on set.
12:04And it's the kind of director that when he tells you to do something, you do it with all your
12:12heart because you know, he's right.
