Interviews
Interview - Irina Björklund
As actress, singer, musician and dancer you are indeed a multi-talent. You speak Finnish, Swedish, French, English, Russian and Spanish and beside various movies you can also refer to theater roles. Furthermore because of your performances in "Ambush" und "The Third Wave" you are already known outside Finland and Sweden. What induced to go to America instead of capture the European stage and what finally led you to the set of "The Butcher"?
You are giving me too many credits.. I'll have to correct you and say I'm an EX-dancer, and my spanish is more or less non-existant, and my russian I can manage to act in but am definitely not fluent. The rest is correct.
What comes to my moving to the US, it was more or less fate - I happened to win a green card in a lottery about 10 years ago, and decided to take the adventure, rather than regret not doing it later. So my husband and I moved to America, and here we still are. I met Jesse V. Johnson through Valerie McCaffrey, who was casting the project; we had a meeting, he saw some of my work, and a few days later I was offered the part.
With the horror film "The Dummy" you made your U.S. debut but afterwards you went back to Europe and continued your career there. Was it so difficult at the beginning to gain a foothold or were your first experiences so disappointing that you decided to work in Europe at first?
Not at all - I hadn't even moved to the US when I did The Dummy in 1997 - I was just visiting for a few months, and was offered this no-budget project. I had never done a horror film before, and I thought it would be a fun thing to try at least once in my life time. After that I found out I won the lottery, and was offered the part in Ambush - my husband and I returned to Finland to work on that, and to wait for our green cards to come through. In december of 1999 we finally took the big step and moved to LA.
Of course you made your breakthrough with "Ambush" and with "The Third Wave" you attracted attention throughout Europe. Retrospectively: Which role do you regard as your most important and on which you are most proud?
I can't deny that Ambush has been one of the most important milestones in my career - it brought me in front of a bigger audience, and became more or less a legend of a film in Finland. However, i've been lucky to work in many countries and with people of various nationalities, and The Third Wave was one of them. In retrospective, the most fun I think I had working on Honey Baby by Mika Kaurismäki, in which Henry Thomas and I had the leads - we spent over 2 months traveling all over the Baltic and Russia, as well as Germany. I got to do the craziest things, like being covered by 4000 live bees, crossing the rails in front of a moving train, and getting strangled by a Boa Constrictor.
In the last years you acted among others in thrillers, dramas and comedies. Do you favour any genres or do you think an actress must be open-minded about all of them?
Of course one has to be open-minded, if one wants to work. In short, I enjoy telling stories of all genres, as long as the story is good, and I myself can somehow relate to it and put my heart into it - doesn't matter what the genre is. I must say though, that I rarely relate to the stories told in horror or action films, and I rarely like watching them - I guess my own rule of thumb is not to act in a project I wouldn't pay to go see myself. Of course, there ARE exceptions to the rule..
You are successful as singer / musician. How do you manage it to reconcile two careers? Also you play a saw. That fascinates me. What gave you that idea to play such an instrument?
For me, being a singer/musician as well as an actress seems to fulfill each other as careers. Playing a song is also about telling a story, so really, they walk hand in hand. Of course, since the song texts are always my own, they become very personal - there's something very liberating about not having to hide behind a role while on stage. And I love the audience, and being able to speak to people directly, as myself.
The Musical Saw.... I lived in Paris during my late teen years, and one night I went to see a film called Delicatessen - in the film I saw and heard the Saw being played. I thought it was the most magical sound I had ever heard - that night, I decided I would learn to play the Saw before I die. It took me almost 15 years to start, but it has become my passion, and I use it in my live shows, as well as as a spice in my albums VINTAGE ESPRESSO and OH L'AMOUR.
In "The Butcher" you play the waitress Jackie. She takes the chance to change her life and steps into an adventure. What attracted you on this role?
In a way, I could relate to her situation - she is a woman who is stuck in a hole she has dug for herself, and she isn't getting any younger. When Merle approaches her and offers her a chance to escape from her lifestyle, she has to make a quick decision. I've found myself in a similar situation a few times in my life, and I don't regret a single risk I've taken.
With actors like Eric Roberts, Robert Davi or Keith David were world-famous performers on the set. Needless to say you are also not a rookie. After all you have won the Shooting Star prize on the Berlin Film Festival in 2004 and the Jussi in 2002. But did you work more respectful with such personalities? Were you more nervous? Especially how was the chemistry between you and Eric?
I've been lucky to work with quite a few fantastic actors during the last 15 years, and am always as thrilled to meet a new one - I can't say that it changes the way I am on set, I always just try to do the best work possible, and to treat every single person with equal respect, whoever the person is. Eric was a pleasure to work with.
With "The Violent Kind" you act in another American movie. Now the Finnish mystery thriller "Blackout" is the next on your list. It seems you don't forget your roots but also fight for more good roles in America. What are your occupational targets?
I must say at the moment, however thrilled I am to be getting offered a lot of work, fighting for roles is pretty low on my list - my most important target is to guide my little baby son into becoming an okay human being. And from what I've heard, that's a pretty long project..
How was it to work with Jesse V. Johnson? Does his style differ from other directors you worked with?
Every director is as different as a snow flake from another, and that's part of what makes this job fascinating. I've worked with some dictator type directors, as well as ones that hardly interrupt the actors at all - ones that book the actors knowing that they will come up with something satisfying. I enjoy working with all types, since I always learn something new.
Jesse was a fun case; very relaxed, yet sharp, and giving time for humor on the set. He would come up to me and say "Don't act!" all the time - something I haven't heard in years, since most directors respect the fact that actors hate to hear that. It would crack me up, even though I knew he was serious... I would be like, just tell me I suck next time?
"The Butcher" shows traits of the thriller genre but is set in the context of an action film. Although some films of this genre still hit the movie theatres, it is considered to be dead or a video store genre. Do you share this opinion? What do you think of the action genre in general?
As I mentioned before, action is not really my favorite genre - still, I acted in both The Third Wave and The Butcher. This essentially, because neither film is a straight forward action flick. Both have, as you say, traits of a thriller, and The Butcher also has this slight love story to it. It's also, unlike the typical action movie, a quite slow paced film. And yes, maybe it's likely to hit the video stores more than the theaters, but that's quite alright with me - the fans will find it that way too, and I will get my residuals!
The last words are yours. Some space for whatever you want to say to the visitors out there.
One of the best things about being in the public eye is that occasionally one gets to use it for a bigger good - I was recently asked to be a spokes person for a specific campaign by the United Nations Population Fund, and am thrilled to ask anybody interested to visit the web site www.unfpa.org/safemotherhood/
Please join in our efforts to make this world a better place to live!
As actress, singer, musician and dancer you are indeed a multi-talent. You speak Finnish, Swedish, French, English, Russian and Spanish and beside various movies you can also refer to theater roles. Furthermore because of your performances in "Ambush" und "The Third Wave" you are already known outside Finland and Sweden. What induced to go to America instead of capture the European stage and what finally led you to the set of "The Butcher"?
You are giving me too many credits.. I'll have to correct you and say I'm an EX-dancer, and my spanish is more or less non-existant, and my russian I can manage to act in but am definitely not fluent. The rest is correct.What comes to my moving to the US, it was more or less fate - I happened to win a green card in a lottery about 10 years ago, and decided to take the adventure, rather than regret not doing it later. So my husband and I moved to America, and here we still are. I met Jesse V. Johnson through Valerie McCaffrey, who was casting the project; we had a meeting, he saw some of my work, and a few days later I was offered the part.
With the horror film "The Dummy" you made your U.S. debut but afterwards you went back to Europe and continued your career there. Was it so difficult at the beginning to gain a foothold or were your first experiences so disappointing that you decided to work in Europe at first?
Not at all - I hadn't even moved to the US when I did The Dummy in 1997 - I was just visiting for a few months, and was offered this no-budget project. I had never done a horror film before, and I thought it would be a fun thing to try at least once in my life time. After that I found out I won the lottery, and was offered the part in Ambush - my husband and I returned to Finland to work on that, and to wait for our green cards to come through. In december of 1999 we finally took the big step and moved to LA.
Of course you made your breakthrough with "Ambush" and with "The Third Wave" you attracted attention throughout Europe. Retrospectively: Which role do you regard as your most important and on which you are most proud?
I can't deny that Ambush has been one of the most important milestones in my career - it brought me in front of a bigger audience, and became more or less a legend of a film in Finland. However, i've been lucky to work in many countries and with people of various nationalities, and The Third Wave was one of them. In retrospective, the most fun I think I had working on Honey Baby by Mika Kaurismäki, in which Henry Thomas and I had the leads - we spent over 2 months traveling all over the Baltic and Russia, as well as Germany. I got to do the craziest things, like being covered by 4000 live bees, crossing the rails in front of a moving train, and getting strangled by a Boa Constrictor.
In the last years you acted among others in thrillers, dramas and comedies. Do you favour any genres or do you think an actress must be open-minded about all of them?
Of course one has to be open-minded, if one wants to work. In short, I enjoy telling stories of all genres, as long as the story is good, and I myself can somehow relate to it and put my heart into it - doesn't matter what the genre is. I must say though, that I rarely relate to the stories told in horror or action films, and I rarely like watching them - I guess my own rule of thumb is not to act in a project I wouldn't pay to go see myself. Of course, there ARE exceptions to the rule..
You are successful as singer / musician. How do you manage it to reconcile two careers? Also you play a saw. That fascinates me. What gave you that idea to play such an instrument?
For me, being a singer/musician as well as an actress seems to fulfill each other as careers. Playing a song is also about telling a story, so really, they walk hand in hand. Of course, since the song texts are always my own, they become very personal - there's something very liberating about not having to hide behind a role while on stage. And I love the audience, and being able to speak to people directly, as myself.
The Musical Saw.... I lived in Paris during my late teen years, and one night I went to see a film called Delicatessen - in the film I saw and heard the Saw being played. I thought it was the most magical sound I had ever heard - that night, I decided I would learn to play the Saw before I die. It took me almost 15 years to start, but it has become my passion, and I use it in my live shows, as well as as a spice in my albums VINTAGE ESPRESSO and OH L'AMOUR.
In "The Butcher" you play the waitress Jackie. She takes the chance to change her life and steps into an adventure. What attracted you on this role?
In a way, I could relate to her situation - she is a woman who is stuck in a hole she has dug for herself, and she isn't getting any younger. When Merle approaches her and offers her a chance to escape from her lifestyle, she has to make a quick decision. I've found myself in a similar situation a few times in my life, and I don't regret a single risk I've taken.
With actors like Eric Roberts, Robert Davi or Keith David were world-famous performers on the set. Needless to say you are also not a rookie. After all you have won the Shooting Star prize on the Berlin Film Festival in 2004 and the Jussi in 2002. But did you work more respectful with such personalities? Were you more nervous? Especially how was the chemistry between you and Eric?
I've been lucky to work with quite a few fantastic actors during the last 15 years, and am always as thrilled to meet a new one - I can't say that it changes the way I am on set, I always just try to do the best work possible, and to treat every single person with equal respect, whoever the person is. Eric was a pleasure to work with.
With "The Violent Kind" you act in another American movie. Now the Finnish mystery thriller "Blackout" is the next on your list. It seems you don't forget your roots but also fight for more good roles in America. What are your occupational targets?
I must say at the moment, however thrilled I am to be getting offered a lot of work, fighting for roles is pretty low on my list - my most important target is to guide my little baby son into becoming an okay human being. And from what I've heard, that's a pretty long project..
How was it to work with Jesse V. Johnson? Does his style differ from other directors you worked with?
Every director is as different as a snow flake from another, and that's part of what makes this job fascinating. I've worked with some dictator type directors, as well as ones that hardly interrupt the actors at all - ones that book the actors knowing that they will come up with something satisfying. I enjoy working with all types, since I always learn something new. Jesse was a fun case; very relaxed, yet sharp, and giving time for humor on the set. He would come up to me and say "Don't act!" all the time - something I haven't heard in years, since most directors respect the fact that actors hate to hear that. It would crack me up, even though I knew he was serious... I would be like, just tell me I suck next time?
"The Butcher" shows traits of the thriller genre but is set in the context of an action film. Although some films of this genre still hit the movie theatres, it is considered to be dead or a video store genre. Do you share this opinion? What do you think of the action genre in general?
As I mentioned before, action is not really my favorite genre - still, I acted in both The Third Wave and The Butcher. This essentially, because neither film is a straight forward action flick. Both have, as you say, traits of a thriller, and The Butcher also has this slight love story to it. It's also, unlike the typical action movie, a quite slow paced film. And yes, maybe it's likely to hit the video stores more than the theaters, but that's quite alright with me - the fans will find it that way too, and I will get my residuals!
The last words are yours. Some space for whatever you want to say to the visitors out there.
One of the best things about being in the public eye is that occasionally one gets to use it for a bigger good - I was recently asked to be a spokes person for a specific campaign by the United Nations Population Fund, and am thrilled to ask anybody interested to visit the web site www.unfpa.org/safemotherhood/
Please join in our efforts to make this world a better place to live!
