At the moment she lies - It's what you do when you act, although if possible with strict honesty - of Nobility itself. In the legendary play "King Lear" at the Royal Theatre, she plays Cordelia, the favorite daughter of the king, who as opposed to her both horrid sisters, is telling the truth. One would think it would be a boring role: the primary drama of her part takes place in the very beginning, when she tells the truth. Afterwards she mostly gets to stand aside and worry, while the others, particularly the other women in the drama, get to develop their interesting savageries. In the end she dies, as do many of the others:
"Cordelia stands for the true feelings amidst all of the pretenders. And it's clear that for an actor, it's more fun to play a pretender," she points out.

"But in this relationship, it’s nothing/doesn’t matter. One is thankful just to be a part of it. "
By "relationship" she naturally means the Royal Theatre and associated persons. In "King Lear" the large ensemble truly makes for a nationally notable acting scene, for seldom has one seen so many brilliant acting performances concurrently- and Ingmar Bergman particularly. Like so many actors she has nothing against working with Ingmar Bergman. A mild statement.

"You become so brave with him, she says. He creates a climate of total safety. Not to say the least that his knowledge provides safety. And his attention to all details. He even saw to it that the rehearsal pauses were scheduled so we would have the shortest possible queue to the lunchroom. 'What international director would think about that?' someone said. 'Oh yes, precisely something that would occur to an international director,' I thought."

Her possibilities for studying are also good: this is a play where the actors never vanish to their dressing rooms, and 90% of the 3½ hour play Lena sits on the stage back against the curtain and watches. And listens. And learns.

-There are only few actors who can handle the text, she says, and she thinks not least of them is Jarl Kulle. This profession is so observation based, and one continue learning in that element of the craft. But in any case - she has sat there for the entire rehearsal time, four evenings per week since March 9th, and she will sit there four evenings a week for at least a year. Does it not become... a bit boring?

"No! I don't even crave a smoke! No performance is same as the other, that's what's fantastic with theatre. It's a living trade there is no result. One and one is not two. So I sit there and follow this fate-drama and listen to the words and fall in love with the different places of the text. Every time."
There are so many bases. But in the middle of the play there is still a 15 minute break and then Lena does all the things she otherwise would manage without for the whole play.
"I smoke two cigarettes, eat a packet of raisins and pee twice."

Lena Olin, 29, says she has wanted to become an actor all her life. There have been times that she tried to fantasize of something else, because nothing in life is definite. She came from an actor family: Father (Stig O), mother (Britta O) and older brother (Mats O). But she says that did not influence her. No more than that theatre - stage and salon - became one of the natural living rooms for her. In an actor family, nothing is odd, and it was good rehearsal for the time when she would act seriously. She started that early. Lena says that she had uncontrolled need of contact. Contact with others got her to act. She remembers when she was seven and in love with a boy and staged an argument with him and acted out a concussion. So she got carried home and apparently he believed her. It ended with him coming home with apples and Andy Pandy books. So she played her roles.
"I have always invented things," she says.
"I have always felt untruthful."

And here we are: she means that we all lie, pretty often, in meaning that we play things we are not wholly conscious about. It is as it is - and has to be - when one seeks.

"Because it is not dishonesty I’m talking about," she says. "Nor is it hypocrisy. It is not always easy to know what is the truth or what is a lie. There are gray zones. I think you playact until you get to the part you believe is the truth, and of course a part of it must have been lies, or at least be shown as a lie. And to see a truth you must be able to face your dark sides, almost like you have to learn to look at the the one you love, because the one you love, you can also hate. At the same time."

"That’s why the theater is so important, because the theater can help people to stretch all these firm moral conceptions that close them in. You aid the public consciousness through show, with actors actually being sorts of piercing spears. Look at the female stereotype: I would love to do some really troublesome, annoying women on stage or in a movie now. I want to show that from the negative, when you dare to see it, the positive is born, because there is the root to the good. I have inside myself, for example, a sharp aggression. But if you remove it, I loose my creativity. I have a great insecurity, but if you remove it, I also lose my sensitivity."

"Good theater is the theater that can make it a little attractive, a bit cool, to have these dark inner depths. You must be a bit afraid of them. I have a big need of spending time being alone, just to fear these dark sides. We must have secrets. That’s why I almost never agree to interviews: you must have large pools, untouched inside yourself."
Maturity - and security- Lena believes, are when one starts understanding this; when one realizes it and they learn to accept even their dark sides; not only murmuring streams and rays of sun, but also floods of bile that stink and corrode.
“That is how it works with Ingmar Bergman too,” she says. “He also draws from one’s negative sides, and in doing so he creates a fondness of them. That is how one becomes so secure. In ‘demonishness’, he finds and subsequent touch of ‘magic’.”

Lena says she lies nowadays less than before. She pretends/acts less now, and that happens when one dares more. Theatre has helped her: one discovers more sides of oneself, and in the best cases and with the right director, on the stage and sometimes in life as well, one learns to allocate them properly.
At the same time, she says, she becomes more and more interested in life outside of theatre. It comes with the associated safety/assurance. One dares to leave the theatrical roles to the theatre, and to act the play not written by any man, one in which it’s completely unknown how it will end.
“And those roles are much more interesting,” she says. “The role in which one gets to be oneself, with all the many facets, it is a true role! WHAT A SCRIPT!”

But even as all of life is theatre, all of life is not theatre for Lena Olin. She does other things too. She dances and reads and takes long walks. She likes to travel especially to Italy, which is a sensual land. “Otherwise I think people are overactive,” she says. “If it's not ping pong, it's Flipper or changing clothes and running around in the garden. Or one has to build one’s own house. At least.”
“If only people would just be. Lay on the sofa and just talk. I go alone to Gärdet and experience unbelievable things. I'm sorry if I sound religious. I go to myself, inside of me and my nearest.”
“I abhor social activity. To meet people and say 'Hi!' and 'How are you?' Although I do that, because otherwise one becomes reclusive. But I abhor it. I can socialize with only a few people.”
Most of them are not even actors - see how little assurance well played theatre can give you! - for the more truth she finds, the more reality and less theatre her life becomes. As if they were opposites. For a few years she has lived with a colleague - Orjan Ramberg - and there is not much theatre between them, she says. At least they don't speak of theatre. They have so many other things to discuss.

On Easter, Lena will be on TV with Ingrid Thulin and Erland Josephson in Ingmar Bergman’s “After the Rehearsal,” a play/film about a director and two of his ladies.
A key story?
“That's not how I'd put it,” Lena replies.
The rest is a secret. She has several film and theatre projects in the works, but no one knows yet which ones will get the go ahead or not. A lot depends on the money and on what The Royal Dramatic Theatre will allow her to do.

She is in demand - and that's good - because the worst agony she can imagine is to be unemployed. She's been with The Royal Dramatic Theatre for five years, but is quick to point out that one may still be unemployed, in spite of being part of the ensemble.

Much of the ongoing debate about acting and social security laws she is hesitant about. It is, she says, certainly as absurd by definition to speak of a secure actor as to call a stallion a cow, but this has nothing to do with social safety nets. Coming from the position of being society's jesters, actors now receive the same social benefits as everyone else and that is something to embrace. She does not believe one automatically becomes a poorer actor by being socially secure.

"So we must see how/what we are to do in order to promote/foster arts."

And in the future: she would also like to have children. Evidently she will have children- house and car she doesn’t care about; but she’ll have children, and afterwards return to the theatre.

“So I think the social security laws should be preserved,” she grins.

And then she does not lie.

Little notes from Leelee:
1) In Sweden you can't just decide you wish to be an actor, start auditioning and maybe strike it lucky. You have to go throught a very rigorous selection/study. There isn't a big class of unemployed actors like in NY and LA. Wouldn't work with the Swedish welfare-state economy. Once you're an actor: you're an actor. You're pretty much guaranteed some kind of work, but if not, the government supports you.

2) Ok, I know no one would probably say something like I go to myself, inside of me and my nearest in English, but it's exactly what she says, and I don't want to change it so it's more English-ish. But sorry if some of this is hard to understand.

(again, huge thanks to you Leelee for translating this for us!)