Pod Insights Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso Renate Reinsve Delivers the Performance of the Year in ‘Sentimental Value’ About this episode What happens when a house is not a home? It's the question pulsating at the heart of the new film, Sentimental Value, and one that actor Renate Reinsve reckons with in the lead role of Nora.
We discuss her process connecting the ‘puzzle’ of each character (7:00), how she balances dark and light themes in this new film (8:20), and her creative childhood in Norway (12:00). Then, Renate describes how David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive impacted her as a young performer (20:20), her liberating teen years in Edinburgh (22:00), and how her longtime collaboration with writer-director Joachim Trier came to be—beginning with her supporting role in Oslo, August 31st (25:00).
On the back-half, she reflects on her early years in the theatre (36:20), how she recalibrated herself from stage to screen (39:15), and her spiritual tribute to the late Diane Keaton in The Worst Person in the World (42:53). To close, we talk about the final day on the set of Sentimental Value (49:40), her desires for the years ahead (55:00), and what it meant to bring her family to the film’s premiere at Cannes (58:39).
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Transcript 10,018 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:02 Speaker 00 Lemonada.
0:21 Sam Fragoso? This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.
0:39 Sam Fragoso? Today, actor Renata Reinsve. It's the second part in our series on Sentimental Value, the new film from writer-director Joachim Trier, who was our guest on the program last Sunday. In Trier's latest, Reinsve plays Nora, an accomplished actress of both the stage and screen. But when her mother passes away, her estranged father, director Gustav Borg, resurfaces with a script that he'd like her to star in. "There'll be a way to reconnect," he thinks. She thinks otherwise. Months later, after Borg has cast an American movie star in the role, played by Alfanning, the two women finally meet. In the scene you're about to hear, Rachel, played by Fanning, asks Nora, played by
1:22 Sam Fragoso? Reinsve, why she didn't accept the part that was written with her in mind in the first place.
1:28 Speaker 00 Why didn't you want to do the role?
1:33 Speaker 00 He wanted you to do it.
1:36 Speaker 02 I can't work with him.
1:42 Speaker 02 We can't really talk. My father is a...
1:48 Speaker 02 very difficult person.
1:50 Sam Fragoso? That was from the new film Sentimental Value, now playing in select theaters across the country. Since her breakout performance as Julie in The Worst Person in the World, which Trier also directed, Renata has appeared in a range of projects: the 24 drama, A Different Man, the legal thriller Presumed Innocent, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. Those are just my personal favorites. And so today, I wanted to unpack how Renata came to be. Because when she landed on screen in Worst Person, I remember having the distinct feeling of, where has this person been? How was someone this good, only now...
2:28 Sam Fragoso? Coming into focus. And so I wanted to talk to her about the early run that she had in theater that led to this streak that you're now seeing on screen. We also talk about the start of her collaboration with Trier on the film Oslo, August 31st. The way she finds inspiration from unlikely sources like Diane Keaton and David Lynch, and why bringing her family to the premiere of Sentimental Value at Cannes meant so much to her. This is Renata Reinsve.
3:14 Sam Fragoso? Renata Reinsve.
3:15 Speaker 02 Yes.
3:16 Sam Fragoso? Nice to meet you.
3:17 Speaker 02 Nice to meet you.
3:18 Sam Fragoso? So your director, Joachim Trier, prepared you for this conversation.
3:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:23 Sam Fragoso? Did you do anything to prepare as you came to the studio this morning?
3:27 Speaker 02 No, I do like being a little scared and like that stuff happens that I don't know what's gonna happen.
3:33 Sam Fragoso? Do you feel a little scared?
3:34 Speaker 02 I'm always a little scared.
3:36 Sam Fragoso? When you're acting?
3:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, or like in social situations, most of the, most.
3:45 Sam Fragoso? Brushing your teeth?
3:45 Speaker 02 That's maybe an exception.
3:47 Sam Fragoso? Okay, that's an exception.
3:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:48 Sam Fragoso? So here's my understanding. The last film the two of you made was called Worst Person in the World. And there was a moment on set where you realized that there were traits and characteristics in Julie that you wanted to explore, but the film didn't allow it.
4:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:07 Sam Fragoso? And some of that then was brought to sentimental value.
4:11 Speaker 02 I think it also was more of a game on set because Julie changed so much. She was like having new clothes and trying things out and trying to find herself very like physically and in different jobs and always changing. So we were like playing around with ideas of a darker version of Julie, but she was very naive and not set in her life. And yeah, it wasn't any room for that. So I, I don't think it was any direct things that was taken, but we had so much more energy left to work together. And since we had that really deep artistic connection that really evolved during Worst Person in the World and getting to know each other even better, traveling around with that movie. Yeah, I have nothing to do with that writing room.
4:56 Speaker 02 Like, they go in there and they just, it's all chaos. And then he came out and he had a role for me. And he presented the idea before I got the script even, and I was very moved.
5:09 Sam Fragoso? So when you got the script for Sentiment Value, how did you understand the difference between Julie and Nora?
5:15 Speaker 02 Well, I knew about her because Yuakim had talked about her, that she was carrying a lot more emotional weight and that she was more mature and that she had a lot of unprocessed things from growing up in a really troubled home. And yeah, was unable to communicate that and was unable to really make strong connections in her adult life because of those experiences. So I knew those things about her. So when I opened it, I was a little bit nervous because the way I work, I really, it really gets to me. Like, I get very affected by the role. And I, I kind of work a little bit on it all the time. I love just thinking about it.
5:59 Speaker 02 I love finding details about the characters, like day and night, in a comfortable way. It sounds like obsessive, but it's more a kind of a game for me. I just enjoy doing it.
6:10 Sam Fragoso? What does the game look like?
6:12 Speaker 02 In my head, it's kind of a puzzle in a way, like pulling together pieces that could go together in contrast to each other. So I like to think in layers. So I get the script, it's like what the character says, and then filling that with what she thinks underneath, and then her subtext, and then what she knows about herself and what she doesn't know about herself. And the many layers I can get,
6:38 Speaker 02 the more fun I can play around with those dynamics. So that is kind of a puzzle in my head going on from when I get the script until we go on set. And I really enjoy that process.
6:49 Sam Fragoso? Are you doing that alone? Are you walking around figuring that out?
6:52 Speaker 02 It's not necessarily that active even. It's just always a little bit there. So if I'm in a situation, I'm like, it reminds me of the script and I'll bring something into the pool of ideas. And I have this weird thing where I kind of store the script in my head. So I can like make notes in my head. It's like a photographic memory where it's very literal. I can actually like go in and and write something down in the script in my head and like make all these things. I don't know, alter this, the notes in the script. So I just have it with me the whole time. And the longer that I have to prepare, the more that happens. And of course I will run that by you, Akim. And we talk, but it's still like a playful conversation about these themes.
7:37 Speaker 02 And we are both kind of melancholic people and enjoy being melancholic, I think. So it's like, it's a light version of melancholy.
7:47 Sam Fragoso? After you work through the many layers of Nora, and now the film is like coming out and going to be in the world, how would you describe her?
7:56 Speaker 02 I really struggle to describe my characters. And it's, for me, it's hard because why I do this is to go into something that I can't oversee and that I, that gets really complex and is as chaotic that I feel life is. So the more I get that feeling in a character where I kind of lose oversight or view, I think the closer I get to something that is a real person. So when someone then after asks me to explain her, it's like to explain myself and I, I struggle to explain myself. But what would you say?
8:32 Sam Fragoso? Well, the basic log line of the movie.
8:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
8:34 Sam Fragoso? You play Nora. You have a sister named Agnes. You came up in a filmmaker family. Your mother passed away. In her absence, your father estranged resurfaces with the script.
8:47 Sam Fragoso? Asking your character Nora, who is a talented, well-regarded director and TV performer, to be in his new movie. And she, having not spoken to him for a while, is not that excited about the prospect of collaborating with him. And that's the premise of the movie.
9:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
9:06 Sam Fragoso? In one interview, you said, if the character does not have some part of me that I don't feel myself, I'm not that interested in doing it.
9:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
9:15 Sam Fragoso? What parts of Nora felt like something you wanted to interrogate?
9:20 Speaker 02 Well, I can really relate to the safe feeling of going into really deep emotions within kind of the construct of a production. So you feel really safe going into the depth of yourself because the lines are already written and it's kind of necessary for the scene. So you can actually use it for something good. And it doesn't get chaotic because you have you or Kim seeing it from the outside and holding you and taking care of you. So that's a safe place to do that. And I can relate to that entrance into being an actress and exploring parts of human existence and who we are
10:05 Speaker 02 and what we are inside that frame. And I think that's also what Nora does. And I really loved that part of Nora where she's so hopelessly, she doesn't understand what she's carrying. And she doesn't understand why she struggles with the relationships she has in her life. But she, at the same time, doesn't want to go into that and go to therapy and figure things out. And that, to me, was tragic and funny at the same time. Whenever there is a part where you have that darkness and the lightness at the same time, there will always be some dynamic that is exciting to work with.
10:47 Sam Fragoso? It sounds to me like this process that you've developed of kind of like storing away your own problems inside the confines of a character, did that begin? At age nine.
10:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, yes, it did, actually. Well, I don't remember exactly when I started doing these classes because we had a really good theater teacher and he was, he loved his job and he loved being an actor himself. It was in this really small place, so we were really lucky to have him. And he kind of showed me how fun it could be, but I think that I just had this instinct to, I was just playing a fox in a children's play, but I was thinking I should probably know where this fox came from, what he was eating today. Well, like I, I built a lot of story.
11:34 Sam Fragoso? Story of the fox.
11:35 Speaker 02 The story of the fox.
11:36 Sam Fragoso? What was the story of the fox?
11:37 Speaker 02 It's a fairy tale from a children's book in Norway where there is another fox that wants a husband. No, she doesn't want a husband. And then she's visited by a cat and another animal and then the fox comes in and the fox is really just a normal fox. The other, like the cat is like a prince cat and like she should say yes to the cat and the other animal. But then the fox comes along and she chooses the fox, like, even though he's just a normal fox and just a safe choice.
12:13 Sam Fragoso? Does she settle?
12:14 Speaker 02 Yes, I, I can't remember the story because I think the cat is her servant.
12:21 Speaker 02 Don't listen to me. Never listen to me.
12:24 Sam Fragoso? I have to because we're on a podcast. So this small village that you grew up in in Norway, you described it as more of a road between two places.
12:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is.
12:36 Sam Fragoso? There was a bank, there was a couple of homes, there was a grocery store, I think it was.
12:41 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:42 Sam Fragoso? In the film Sentimental Value, it opens with this essay in which your character, the younger version of her, describes what the house sees and feels, like if these walls could talk. If you were to write an essay about your childhood home, what would that read like?
13:03 Sam Fragoso? Big sigh.
13:04 Speaker 02 Big sigh. I have never actually thought about that. That is a big question. I think also we moved around so much when I was younger. So I don't know what the walls would say, but I did really love the idea that Joaquin Esquiel had about just showing how the time passes within walls through generations and how much happens and.
13:31 Sam Fragoso? So you had many walls.
13:32 Speaker 02 I had many walls.
13:33 Sam Fragoso? And three siblings and then some step siblings.
13:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, a lot of girls.
13:39 Sam Fragoso? Lot of girls, no brothers?
13:40 Speaker 02 No brothers, yeah.
13:42 Sam Fragoso? Was that a good thing?
13:43 Speaker 02 I don't know what it would feel like to have a brother. Boys are a bit nicer when they're young, right? Girls can be a little bit mean to each other.
13:51 Sam Fragoso? Is that how you were with your sisters?
13:52 Speaker 02 Like with my whole sister, I have one whole sister and we we had some fights. We weren't like, it was like someone had to like teach us how to not fight.
14:02 Sam Fragoso? What would you fight about?
14:03 Speaker 02 Like stuff. I love that scene in in Sentimental Value where Nora sees the vase because Agnes says, oh, I really want this vase. And she's like, oh, yeah, it's a great vase. I want that. And.
14:17 Sam Fragoso? She's like, you just want that because I want that.
14:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, I was like, no, no, no, no.
14:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think me and my sister had a lot of that. And actually, she was in that theater group I was in and she was really funny, really good. And I was super shy, like really stiff, actually, like going into it. I enjoyed it, but I had to learn it. The the parts that I loved the most was building the character. But being on stage, I didn't really enjoy that much. But she was so cool and and my actually dream was to be a teacher and she was so good in at acting. And then we've swapped, so now she's a teacher and I'm the actor. And it's just funny. I think we really admire each other. And kind of at some point, we just swapped the idea of how our life should be, in a way.
15:08 Sam Fragoso? Did she think she was a good actress in the class?
15:11 Speaker 02 She was so free. I don't know if she saw herself that from the outside. It was just like really flowing and everyone was laughing of her and enjoying her presence. And she's really charming and very cool. And at the time, I was not cool at all. So it was, I think I kind of had to like use a long time to settle in and learn something. I used a long time to be good at something.
15:38 Sam Fragoso? Like this idea that even at like nine, that you're imagining the story of the fox, the intentions of the fox, where the fox comes from, what the fox wants.
15:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:50 Sam Fragoso? What did you want at home or at school?
15:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, I, I think at the time, there was this like, I don't know why I was so shy and why I was so uncomfortable in my own skin when I was growing up. There was something, but I.
16:09 Sam Fragoso? I mean, in every interview you've done, you have said in some form or another.
16:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:14 Sam Fragoso? That you had a tough home, you had a tough childhood.
16:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:18 Sam Fragoso? What about it made it so challenging?
16:20 Speaker 02 I felt a lot of discomfort and I felt a lot of shame and I felt a lot of, I was not comfortable being in my emotions or in my needs because of whatever happened. And so theater became the free space where I could actually explore something in me and understand situations that I was in, or at least play them out without really understanding them. And there was something that kind of saved me through that and has like. I think I've really grown up in that space, not being able to. I think like because Nora, in her situation at home in this movie, Sentimental Value,
17:02 Speaker 02 she was taking care of Agnes and she was unable to be in her own needs and her own feelings. So when she grows up, she kind of collapses and doesn't know how to start living her own life because she's been like just surviving her whole kind of childhood.
17:21 Sam Fragoso? There's a great line in the film where your character says to her sister, the younger sister, "How come our childhood didn't fuck you up the way it fucked me up?" And as the oldest of three, I came from a house where we had a lot of divorces. And I've had that exact same conversation with my brothers and my sister, thinking, "How come what we experienced didn't play out or affect you the way it affected me?" I said, "Oh yeah, but we didn't have the same childhood."
17:53 Speaker 02 Yeah.
17:53 Sam Fragoso? "We had the same home, but we didn't have the same childhood." And in reading about your life, I've sensed that there's some of that in there.
18:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, and it's, it will probably never be fully sorted in me. It will just be like a journey of settling into something, accepting some things and accepting some choices and I guess values that was in my childhood. But I don't, I don't think it's possible to get like one narrative that is the one that is the right one. You know, it's so complex. And I think that's also why I love going into these kinds of movies because you get to explore something that is so hard to explain and has so many layers and so many perspectives and to be in that.
18:45 Speaker 02 Kind of irrational space where you don't have to rationalize it is also very freeing.
18:52 Sam Fragoso? It doesn't have to make sense.
18:53 Speaker 02 No, and I love movies that does that. I think the first kind of being in what I was in in my like when I was a teenager. I watched Maho and Drive and David Lynch and I remember just something struck me so deeply about the. I didn't understand why it got to me and how it got to me and all those subconscious things that are in me. I got a sense that there is something here I do not understand, but someone else that had lived longer and explored this more. Uh, has some kind of deeper understanding of and it doesn't have to, I don't need an explanation for why this. But I I felt less lonely and I felt like someone had seen the world in a way that I had seen it.
19:38 Sam Fragoso? Do you now, years later, understand what it was that got to?
19:43 Sam Fragoso? It's still something that just it hit you for some reason.
19:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I I haven't really chased an answer either because then some of the magic disappears. And I think the the work that we do in press, trying to understand and explain movies. And going for those short log lines and it's necessary for uh for the industry in some ways. And to sell the movie and for producers to know what they're gonna give money to. But I think we take away some of the magic. For instance, like Bergman, I just rewatched some of his movies and it's so much spirituality and mystery. And the movie really like stands for itself.
20:26 Sam Fragoso? So you act as a kid, you find yourself in all these productions where you get to kind of play out the problems that you're having at home. At sixteen, you're kicked out of your house and you go to Edinburgh, is that right?
20:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:41 Sam Fragoso? I mean, to to leave home, what did that feel like? I mean, were you nervous about that?
20:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, it was a bit scary to suddenly be like standing on your own feet. And I had a lot of really, really good friends and very strong connections. So when I I moved out, that became kind of my core in life, those people. And when I run away, I think that that was also the time where I watched Lynch. I had a sense that something was going on that I didn't completely understand and probably never would understand. But I needed to to get away really far, to see it from a distance, to get a perspective on it. So that's why I left. I wanted to kind of see what all of this was all by myself
21:26 Speaker 02 and then come back to meet it again with kind of a fresh system.
21:32 Sam Fragoso? And when you were in Edinburgh, what was your day to day like?
21:35 Speaker 02 Well, it was, I worked in this hostel that was also a restaurant and a bar. And they're crazy over there. It's a lot of parties. And the people that I met, it was just a lot of fun. And I really enjoyed myself and.
21:55 Sam Fragoso? They hired you as like a bartender, right?
21:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, like two months before I turned like a legal age to work there.
22:02 Sam Fragoso? Did you like that job?
22:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, I did. It was fun. It was perfect for the time. And I was planning on like finding a theater company and join in, but I was very busy, just living that kind of life. And.
22:18 Sam Fragoso? How did it feel to not be home?
22:20 Speaker 02 Well, for me, it was, it was very freeing to like be by myself and kind of sense who I was meeting people alone. I really enjoyed that time.
22:32 Sam Fragoso? Did the shyness, did that start to change around then?
22:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, a little bit, actually. I found like people actually like enjoyed my company, like being all alone over there. And we just, we became this little group that did everything together. And it was, I think, something like released in me that year. And then when I came back, I felt stronger and I I kind of wanted to have conversations with people in my family and and understand things more. I think I've just been very curious the whole time, like why things are the way they are and.
23:09 Sam Fragoso? Yeah.
23:10 Speaker 02 And the collaboration with Joakim is I feel we have that very much in common. Very curious about why people see some things about themselves, but so much is hidden. And why we make the choices we and why we treat people the way we do around us. Based on that, the stuff we can't see. And it's just a curiosity.
23:34 Sam Fragoso? In your early years, the first film you're on is Oslo, August 31st. It's Joakim's second film. And you have only two lines in the movie.
23:44 Speaker 02 What's the second one? I only remember the one line.
23:46 Sam Fragoso? The other one was cut, which I'm glad I could bring back up for you today. When you're on the set of Oslo, August 31st, you're there for nine days, despite the fact that you only have two lines. Why?
24:01 Speaker 02 Because of the light. So it's a sunset. So I have to, we have to do bits of it. Because that golden hour is very short in Norway. So we keep doing it nine different days.
24:12 Sam Fragoso? Perfectionist.
24:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, I guess. But also, it was like the night where Anders' character made the decision of taking his own life. And he was living his last, like, good night in the light in the city of Oslo. And Joakim is really, really into lighting. When we're on a plane going somewhere, he'll be like, Renata, look, look at the light.
24:34 Sam Fragoso? It comes across in the movie.
24:35 Speaker 02 Yes.
24:36 Sam Fragoso? I heard you say in one interview that you and Joakim have these shared principles. What are those exactly?
24:42 Speaker 02 Well, we've talked about actually like being kind of weirdly existential when we were very young. Maybe very silly and stupid to talk about, but I remember I was actually in a stroller. I remember like sitting there and this woman talking to me like, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, like this. Like, I was clearly like very young, like a.
25:07 Speaker 02 Babyish. And I was like, why are you talking to me like that? What's the, what's the point? So, and that was really young. And then I remember being in third grade and so I was nine years old and I was thinking, hmm, this, sitting still like this for this many years is not going to be good for my brain. Or like I had the, kind of saw the context of what I was in and like the social structures I was in and like thinking about how that would affect me. So I've, I think I've always had that. Uh, like me and my sister, we grew up in the same home, but she is, she wasn't affected like I was. So I think it's also something with how I'm built.
25:49 Speaker 02 And Yuakim has, I don't remember his examples, but we have like something shared there where he, very young, had this perspective and thinking about like what he was in and why.
26:00 Sam Fragoso? The bigger picture.
26:01 Speaker 02 Yeah. I remember I was at Yuakim's house after I read the script, The Worst Person in the World. And we had, we had like a five hour conversation about the themes and about the characters. And I, I had the feeling that we had a very similar approach to just how we saw things and what questions we wanted to ask and yeah.
26:24 Sam Fragoso? But the gap between Ozil August 31st and Worst Person in the World, there's a lot of life that you live. And the thing that you seem to be spending most of your time doing is theater.
26:36 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
26:36 Sam Fragoso? I want to talk to you about performing on stage because I've never seen you perform on stage. But in this new film, Sentimental Value, you play an actor who has a lot of stage fright, but once they're in front of an audience, they're great. How was your experience as a theater actor? You, you performed in all kinds of plays, like, um, you were Ophelia in a production of Hamlet, you were in an Ipsen play, a Sophocles play. I mean, the list goes on and on.
27:01 Speaker 02 Very thorough. Impressive.
27:03 Sam Fragoso? Did he warn you about that?
27:04 Speaker 02 No.
27:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think I can relate to Nora in many ways, but I didn't have the panic. But I thought that was a great setup for the character because everything that she holds inside, unprocessed things, all the emotional weight she has to access to be a good actress. So before she actually physically goes on stage, she panics and she runs away and rips off her dress and tries to like get people to slap her or fuck her or whatever, just anything. And that to me was so funny. And I enjoyed playing that so much. And I can, of course, just relate. But this is, of course, a very dramatized version.
27:45 Sam Fragoso? What were your rituals before performing onstage?
27:48 Speaker 02 No rituals. I used to think that I had to have rituals because everyone kind of had them. And I was like, oh, I should probably get some too, but I just forgot. And I'm really late for things. So I would just get there right before I needed to. But I think it was something in me that also wanted the sense of not having control. Like, some actors probably want those rituals to really feel on top of things. But I've always loved not having that feeling. And I feel that more raw, real things happen when I don't have control. So I tried to learn my lines just almost so that I have to look for words because then I can use them as actions.
28:31 Speaker 02 And really, I really need them. If I don't learn them exactly, I don't have control. And then you will find something, for me, more authentic in the performance. And I've always kind of done that. So for me, it's really hard now to like set something or make something before I get to set. So that's kind of now a big part of my method, to not be... Well, I do love to prepare my analysis and really like build the character with like I talked about the puzzle thing.
29:04 Sam Fragoso? Yeah, so you have a foundation.
29:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, but then do as much as I can to like trip myself over and lose control when I get there.
29:15 Sam Fragoso? We'll be right back with Renata Reinsve.
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32:36 Sam Fragoso? Coming back, we talked about some of the theater work you did. You're in a play called Etta in 2017. But by that point, was there some part of you that was thinking, I don't know if I want to keep doing this?
32:51 Speaker 02 No, not at that point. It was building in me, but I made the decision the day before you called me for worst person in the world.
32:58 Sam Fragoso? So before that phone call, tell me what was building.
33:01 Speaker 02 So I've been doing theater since I was nine, so a long time. And you don't really get vacations and you don't get to travel because you don't make enough money to go somewhere. So you like barely hang on with your salary in Norwegian theater. So I kind of wanted a different lifestyle because I had been doing it for so long and the love for theater was still very strong, but I just needed to do something else. And you're in a black room the whole day, like from the morning and then you go home the afternoon and then it's dark outside in Norway, especially in the winter that lasts a long time. And then.
33:38 Sam Fragoso? How do you not get depressed?
33:39 Speaker 02 Well, you do. You do a little bit.
33:41 Sam Fragoso? How do you grapple with that?
33:43 Speaker 02 Well, chocolate.
33:44 Sam Fragoso? Right.
33:44 Speaker 02 Fish and cold plunge. Cold plunging is big in Norway.
33:48 Sam Fragoso? It's big in Sam's life as well. It's amazing.
33:51 Speaker 02 And very effective in the dark, cold winter months.
33:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, but so I'd been doing it for so long that I didn't know how to live without it. So I just wanted something to change. And I wanted, really wanted to do movies. But since I did also Thirty First of August, I didn't really get anything that I wanted. Because in Norway two, it's very, at the time at least, it was really few movies that got funding that had like personal stories or one director that had a very clear vision and someone that was as good as Yuakim. It was, it was him, but I never kind of thought the chances were so small. So then I decided, I was like thinking about it for a while and then I had the decision where I kind of let go. And something happens also when you let go.
34:40 Speaker 02 It's like all your strains and all your ambitions for what it should be kind of actually disappears. So then when you get back into it, you don't, you've already given up. So you have a more relaxed way of doing it in a way.
34:55 Sam Fragoso? There's a line in Sentimental Value where the father character says to Nora, "You deserve something more personal than century-old plays for a bunch of senior citizens." As I listed, you did a lot of plays, centuries old. Does that speak to how you felt in some way?
35:12 Speaker 02 You know, those scripts are really good. They knew how to do like some profound stuff.
35:17 Sam Fragoso? Of course.
35:17 Speaker 02 Back then. I think like as rarely as a good script comes along in theaters, so does it also in, in films. Yeah, I just didn't have an entrance into that. But Isabelle LePère actually came to see that play, Eda. So it wasn't only like seniors, it was also her.
35:34 Sam Fragoso? She's never a senior. It doesn't matter when she's ninety.
35:37 Speaker 02 No.
35:37 Sam Fragoso? What did she say?
35:38 Speaker 02 She told Yuakim, who's that girl in The Peau de Très? And I was so nervous because I knew she was there and she was my favorite actress. So I, I, I did everything wrong, but with a lot of energy.
35:50 Sam Fragoso? What does that look like, everything wrong?
35:51 Speaker 02 So I was supposed to sing this song as the opening song, but I sung it like eight notes over, like an octave over.
35:58 Sam Fragoso? Was it too high?
35:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, very, very high. It didn't make any sense. And then everything I did after, I was so filled with shame and guilt.
36:08 Sam Fragoso? Right.
36:08 Speaker 02 For destroying that first song. But she told Yuakim that she enjoyed my performance and I, I was, I almost fainted. That was insane.
36:16 Sam Fragoso? So there was still something that you were doing. That she liked.
36:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:21 Sam Fragoso? Even though you felt like I messed up every part of this.
36:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think it's it's really good to mess up stuff. I've learned over the years and Yuakim has really like also opened that up even more because he loves that messiness and the chaos. I think for me, that was much what the movie Worst Person in the World was about.
36:38 Sam Fragoso? That's what I was gonna ask you. So when you get through and Yuakim calls you, by the time you get that phone call, you had decided, I'm done acting.
36:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:48 Sam Fragoso? When you think back on that call now, what does it sound like?
36:52 Speaker 02 Well, I I do remember very clearly that it made no sense because I just the day before had like had this big decision. And then the next day he called me to meet me. I didn't know exactly at the point like why he wanted to meet me, but I had a feeling that he wanted me to do something. So I I had this big feeling of what the fuck? Like it's that is so weird. And then I also went in with this sense because it really like had that feeling of like letting go had changed something in me. So I didn't have the same kind of energy towards my career, looking like a certain thing. It was more like, okay.
37:34 Speaker 02 And I think I detached from the idea that if I really work for something or go really hard towards something, it will happen because I let go and then something happened.
37:46 Sam Fragoso? Right, because up until that point, you had gone at something as passionately and as ferociously as you could. But it had not worked.
37:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:55 Sam Fragoso? The door would not give. And the moment you shut it, he came knocking.
37:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, and it was the same thing with the process of Worst Person because I had built all these like techniques from the theater and I knew what worked. And then Yuakim asked me to do the opposite. So he asked me to let go of all strain. So where I thought that I had to like hold something and put something out and like tighten something like a thought or hold on to something in a moment to project it. He wanted me to just let it go and really get back to zero and let whatever came up be there. And that was for me. The most scary process I've ever been in professionally because I've worked so many
38:41 Speaker 02 years trying to like build something a little bit to get away from myself and a little bit to understand something but in a very held uh construct.
38:51 Sam Fragoso? When you say a little bit to get away from yourself.
38:53 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:54 Sam Fragoso? Is it more than a little bit?
38:56 Speaker 02 No, I don't think so because it it's also it's a mix because it's also a sense of actually feeling who I was through a character and those emotions.
39:05 Sam Fragoso? So you can't get too far away?
39:06 Speaker 02 No, and it was at some points the only place that I felt free to do that. So it is a little bit, but the techniques you learn to also build a character, it has some control to it. But what Yurkem asked me to do is let go of all control. So stuff that appeared, emotion that came up was not in my control. And that was very, very scary.
39:28 Sam Fragoso? Did you feel that on set?
39:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, I felt very ugly. I felt very uh I had a feeling that something was wrong in a way.
39:37 Sam Fragoso? What did you feel was wrong?
39:39 Speaker 02 Uh I I felt that some parts of me was not to be seen by others, or it was like something very shameful my uh sharing those things.
39:47 Sam Fragoso? Like what?
39:48 Speaker 02 That became the the character. Like, I think as an actor, you wanna get to some emotional places, but then you have some control and you know how it looks. But the way Yurkem works, you don't have any control and you have to let go of all vanity. And so I did feel ugly in a broader sense, but I felt everything was. It was just, I just had to accept that this was something um a character you wouldn't like.
40:14 Sam Fragoso? Right.
40:15 Speaker 02 That's what I thought. So you can imagine the big surprise and how huge that was for me, that so many people related to that character, me being. More vulnerable than I've ever been.
40:29 Sam Fragoso? The character Julie, in many ways, sees herself as a failure, trying to figure it out.
40:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
40:35 Sam Fragoso? Until that point, is that how you felt?
40:38 Speaker 02 Not as her, because I had worked with all the directors in theater that I wanted to work with. I had a really good career in the theater.
40:45 Sam Fragoso? But you had also just decided to give it up.
40:47 Speaker 02 Yeah, but that wasn't because I didn't love it anymore, or because I didn't have opportunity. It was because I wanted vacations and like to actually live a different life after being in the theater for 20 years.
40:59 Sam Fragoso? OK, I understand.
41:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, it wasn't based on that I felt like a failure. So it was a bit different, but I could relate to her, like really trying to understand what she was in and trying to make a choice that would make sense based on what she was then and what she wanted. And what is the right choice? And how will I know that that choice is right further down the road? So it was more that that really I connected with. And her, or Yuakim's way of working, made her very kind of raw in every situation. But since I also felt it was something bad, that also came into the character.
41:33 Sam Fragoso? So when The Worst Person in the World comes out, and so many people relate to the character of Julie, I was curious about how the late Diane Keaton and her part in Annie Hall in some ways informed how you thought of Julie, especially since Keaton just passed away. If you've been thinking about that.
41:52 Speaker 02 I have.
41:52 Sam Fragoso? Yeah.
41:53 Speaker 02 I think for me, that role was great and very inspiring because you saw a woman being so free and being so silly. And it was cool being silly and it was cool being a nerdy girl that couldn't really figure it out. And she was like really having her own style. It didn't make sense, but still looked magnificent. So it was so freeing about it. And I think that was very inspirational.
42:17 Sam Fragoso? For Julie.
42:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, just letting go of vanity again, in a way. Because she was free in being quirky. Because it is a thought in the back of your head when you do your first lead that you now, oh, now I have to be really beautiful. Oh, now I have to be right. Oh, now I have to be a good role model. And now I have to be this and this and this. And then that role is very inspirational because she's so quirky and she doesn't try to do anything. And you can see it so well. And we really needed that for Julie, that she was stripped of all of that. So in that sense, she was inspirational.
43:00 Sam Fragoso? All right, we're gonna take one last break. And when we return, we'll get to Act Three and the end of my conversation with actor Renata Ryanne.
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44:46 Sam Fragoso? Having finished the film and into sentimental value, this idea that like making Worst Person in the World, it sounds like you were nervous and scared to put all of yourself into it.
44:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
44:59 Sam Fragoso? When you land on sentimental value, did you still have those same fears going into it?
45:04 Speaker 02 I did, but I've gotten very comfortable with them. I've gotten actually very comfortable with my shame and with being embarrassed and knowing that I will probably look not the way I want to look in this role and-
45:17 Sam Fragoso? Or in this podcast.
45:18 Speaker 02 Or in this podcast. Now I have like makeup and cool clothes. No, but I, what I was saying was-
45:27 Sam Fragoso? You got comfortable, comfortable with doing it.
45:28 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'm comfortable. Like, I know there will be some value to not being confident or being scared or just letting that rawness come out in a way. So if I get scared, I know I can kind of just relax in fear and relax in shame. And I try to also do that in my life, just in everyday. I don't have to shut it off. I don't have to come into a room and be confident. Or I can come into a room and be really quirky and strange. And you spend so much energy as a person shutting those things off or thinking it shouldn't be there. It's actually one of the most heavy things you can do. It's really, really strainful.
46:10 Speaker 02 So just like being comfortable with fear and shame and all the weird stuff about oneself is very, I think it's very good.
46:19 Sam Fragoso? Those are all things, by the way, that are in David Lynch movies.
46:23 Speaker 02 Ah, yeah. It is a big part of us. I think biologically, we have shame and it's healthy. And then you can have more or less. And I think it's such a pressure on being confident or coming into a room and being something. And if you don't have the day or your brain stops and you can't think or you say something silly, just like it's better for you and I think the other people in the room and the production you're in, just like to be kind of relaxed in that, in a way.
46:55 Sam Fragoso? As we get back around to sentimental value, Yuki mentioned that the last day was a pretty emotional one for the two of you. What happened?
47:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, so I, when I work on a role and I do that little puzzle thing that I enjoy very much, I kind of sear into the role or it sears into me in kind of an invisible way. So I don't know how deep I'm in until the last day where I can let go. And to carry that role that I did in Worst Person, it was really heavy, but I don't think I understood how heavy it was until that last shot where this is the, yeah, wrap of the movie. And then I felt like, uh, like bags of weight just lifted from my shoulders. And I wanted to be respectful to her, what she went through emotionally,
47:49 Speaker 02 and to have that heaviness represented in the movie in an authentic way. And to do that, I think I just subconsciously went very far into that. And then, uh, the last scene was the two sisters saying goodbye. And it's not in the movie, but I think Casper Tookson actually had the idea to set it up so the sisters could say hello because the sisters in the movie meant so much to him. So he set it up in the hallway where we're supposed to just say goodbye. And then we, we did and we really, we just cried, me and Inga. And then it was a wrap and everyone was clapping. And then I just felt all the weight lifting from my shoulders.
48:29 Speaker 02 And Yoo Kim had this speech where he thanked me for carrying Nora as well. That was, so it was a really, yeah, beautiful day.
48:37 Sam Fragoso? What did he say?
48:39 Speaker 02 We hadn't talked that much in this production. I think we, because we worked together so, now so many times and had so many conversations, our collaboration this time was quite wordless. And he had such a huge apparatus to handle in this movie. It's a really big movie and, um, yeah. And I think he just, for the first time, had the words to express something that we hadn't really talked about the whole movie. So it was, the emotional kind of impact was just like unwrapped for all of us in that moment, wrapping the movie.
49:15 Sam Fragoso? I can sense it now.
49:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
49:19 Sam Fragoso? That scene, um, and worst person in the world, where your character is breaking up. And she says something like, everything we feel, we have to put into words. Sometimes I just wanna feel things.
49:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
49:31 Sam Fragoso? And I feel like part of this interview has been me trying to get you to put things into words that can't be.
49:40 Speaker 02 No, it can't be.
49:42 Sam Fragoso? Isn't that amazing?
49:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
49:43 Sam Fragoso? How our own language falls so tremendously short of describing what it's like in here.
49:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's such a small part of how we communicate and how we can communicate. I think that's absolutely why we need movies and art. Because then the transaction actually happens. You can actually get a sense of what someone has felt.
50:08 Sam Fragoso? Well, on the subject, I wanted to bring this up to you before we go. There's a monologue in sentimental value. And it's the one that plays out twice in the film. First by Elle Fanning's character, Rachel, and then a little bit later by your character, Nora. And there's a line in that piece, in the piece written by Trier and Eskil, that is a central part of the movie.
50:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:33 Sam Fragoso? And the line is, help me, I can't do this, I can't do it alone. I want a home. I want a home. And home is the thing that this film keeps circling. And when I watched the film again and saw you perform that monologue, it was impossible for me to not think about the fact that you yourself were that person we talked about, that teenager who left home at 16. And so I just wanted to ask you, I guess, when you performed that scene, how did that feel?
51:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think that really hit something in my deepest core. And the funny thing is, when I read it in the script, I thought, this is too emotional. It's probably not gonna make it to the movie in a way. And I know that that prayer was important for Yuakim and that he had a very good reason, of course, to write it. But I was like, this is, and we're both gonna do it. Is this gonna work? It's a very ballsy idea to have two actors read it. And it is an emotional monologue. And at that point, I also felt that Nora wasn't in touch with her emotions at all.
51:47 Speaker 02 She was so cut off of them to protect herself because she was so deeply depressed. And yeah, when I read it, it really just got to my core. From every conversation me and Yuakim has, everything he knows about me, everything I know about myself and being there with Inga, who was so in her story and her character. And yeah, it's, um, yeah.
52:17 Sam Fragoso? I guess what I'm asking is, did it feel like, once you did it and you said goodbye to the movie, that a door opened? Like a lot's changed in your life. Now that this has happened, how does it feel for you to have your life changed in this way? Are you happy about that?
52:38 Speaker 02 That is a very big question. Because I, I don't know exactly how it's changed. Well, I think it looks different from the outside than the inside. I think I'm always like thinking this will be the last thing or this is an end of an era. This is a new chapter. I did, when I was on the red carpet at N Can Festival and we did our premiere, I thought this will be my last red carpet. I might, might as well do a twirl on the red carpet.
53:06 Sam Fragoso? Because you think you're gonna retire or you'll not get cast again?
53:10 Speaker 02 I don't know. I just really appreciate the things that I have in the moment. And I think this will be the last of this.
53:19 Speaker 02 And that's a feeling that I always have, I think, a little bit.
53:22 Sam Fragoso? That things are ephemeral and temporary.
53:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, everything is very temporary. And then I try to really balance everything that happens and keep a distance to everything that happens. I think a part of what has changed is that people project a lot of things on you when you're a public figure or when you're a character in a movie that carries a lot of emotions. People project a lot of themselves or their hopes or their dreams or something bad or something conflicted in them onto a familiar face. So that is something to deal with. That is something to keep on a distance in a way. And also, at the same time, appreciate the moment and whatever's happening and to have those collaborations that I've had.
54:09 Speaker 02 But I still try to like go back to Norway and have a very simple life back in Norway to keep that and protect that. So in some ways, it's changed a lot, but in some ways, it's also stayed the same.
54:23 Sam Fragoso? What do you want?
54:25 Speaker 02 From now on, I would love for that to continue, to have that kind of collaborations and to get to do these kinds of movies. And then also like keep my very simple life and that's a perfect life to me.
54:42 Sam Fragoso? I read somewhere that your father collects all of your press clippings from the films that you're in. What do you make of that?
54:52 Speaker 02 I think there is so much love to what my dad does and he collects things. He's very, how to say that?
55:03 Sam Fragoso? Sentimental?
55:04 Speaker 02 Well, he's, yeah, he's actually very sentimental. He's very, very proud. And the way he shows that is by, yeah, collecting all the interviews I've done in the whole world and all the articles and he translates it and he keeps it in a file. And then he, he knows that he can't probably see me if I'm nominated for something, he will go to that city and he will film the venues and like be there and be in the city so that I feel supported. And even though he knows he probably won't be able to see me because I'm, I get very busy. It's very, very sweet.
55:40 Sam Fragoso? Why do you think he does that?
55:42 Speaker 02 I think it's his way of showing love. It's just what he knows. And he like follows everything and he is a computer guy. So that's like, that's his turf, finding stuff online. But I, I actually brought my whole family to Cannes and saw the premiere. My sisters and my dad and my mom and my grandmother too. And we haven't talked about it at all, but something has changed in the dynamic. I remember we came out of the cinema and everyone was so quiet. We didn't, we didn't say anything. I don't think my mom said a word after, like the whole night. And everyone was sitting, we were at the premiere party and we were really,
56:25 Speaker 02 because we were in a really small like VIP space, but we didn't have a lot of space to sit. Everyone was just huddled together and we didn't really say anything, but it had like made an impact. And we're all really, really different in my family. And we have kind of, I think, struggled to understand each other. And then we left Cannes and I was like a little disappointed that we didn't talk about it. But then it's just, it just feels warmer in a way. And something has seared in that we don't really, I don't know how to put into words. I don't know if I even need to talk to them about it.
57:02 Sam Fragoso? Is it possible to borrow the line from Worst Person in the World? Maybe words aren't necessary.
57:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
57:10 Sam Fragoso? Renata Ryanzve, thank you for the time.
57:12 Speaker 02 Thank you for having me.
57:42 Sam Fragoso? And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's conversation with Renata, I hope you share the program with a friend on social media, whatever you do. It helps us continue making the program each and every Sunday. I want to give a special thanks this week to Emily Steinberg and the team at Meredith PR, our friends at Neon, and of course, our guest today, Renata Reinsve. Her new film, Sentimental Value, is now playing in select theaters across the country. For more episodes, I'd recommend Last Sunday's with Joachim Trier, Kate Blanchett is a good episode, Sebastian Stan. To hear those and more Lemonada podcasts, listen on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen. You can also subscribe to Lemonada Premium for exclusive
58:27 Sam Fragoso? bonus content and ad-free listening. Just hit subscribe on Apple or head to lemonadapremium.com. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Chnix Sabrava. Today's talk was edited by Lindsay Ellis. It was mixed by Andrew Vastola, who is engineered by Nick Hines at Hyper Object Industries in Los Angeles. Video is by Red and Green Gaskell and Alex Leo Garcia. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Chris Shanoi. Photographs today are by Ethan Newmeyer. Research assistants, Callie Seringis. This episode was made in partnership with Lemonada Media, and I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank
59:08 Sam Fragoso? you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here on Sunday with the editor in chief of The New Yorker, David Rehnck. Until then, stay safe and so long.
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