Lena Olin

Lena Olin
Olin in 2015
Born	Lena Maria Jonna Olin (1955-03-22) 22 March 1955 Stockholm, Sweden
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1976–present
Spouse(s)	Lasse Hallström (m. 1994)
Children	2

Lena Maria Jonna Olin (born 22 March 1955) is a Swedish actress. She has been nominated for several acting awards, including a Golden Globe for The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) and an Academy Award for Enemies, A Love Story (1989). Other well-known films in which she has appeared include Chocolat (2000), directed by her husband Lasse Hallström, Queen of the Damned (2002), Casanova (2005) and The Reader (2008). Olin was also a main cast member in the second season (and a recurring guest star in later seasons) of the TV series Alias. Olin starred in the Swedish sitcom Welcome to Sweden.

Life and career

Olin, the youngest of three children, was born in Stockholm, Sweden. She is the daughter of actress Britta Holmberg and director Stig Olin. She studied acting at Sweden's National Academy of Dramatic Art.

She was crowned Miss Scandinavia 1975 in Helsinki, Finland in October 1974.

Olin worked both as a substitute teacher and as a hospital nurse before becoming an actress. Olin performed for over a decade with Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre-ensemble (1980–1994) in classic plays by William Shakespeare and August Strindberg, and appeared in smaller roles of several Swedish films directed by Bergman and in productions of Swedish Television's TV-Theatre Company.

Ingmar Bergman cast Olin in Face to Face. Later she acted at the national stage in Stockholm in several productions directed by Bergman, and with Bergman's production of King Lear (in which Olin played Cordelia) she toured the world—Paris, Berlin, New York, Copenhagen, Moscow and Oslo, among others. Critically acclaimed stage performances by Olin at Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre included the leading part as The Daughter in A Dream Play by Strindberg, Margarita in the stage adaption of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters, Ann in Edward Bond's Summer, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, the title role in Ingmar Bergman's rendition of Strindberg's Miss Julie and her neurotic Charlotte in the contemporary drama Nattvarden (The Last Supper) by Lars Norén.

In 1980 she was one of the earliest winners of the Ingmar Bergman Award, initiated in 1978 by the director himself, who was also one of the two judges.

Olin's international debut in a lead role on film was in Bergman's After the Rehearsal (1984). Two years earlier, she had appeared in a small role in the same director's Fanny and Alexander. In 1988, Olin starred with Daniel Day-Lewis in her first major part in an English speaking and internationally produced film, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, followed by Sydney Pollack's Havana (1990), Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate (1999) and many others.

In 1989, she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Enemies: A Love Story, in which she portrayed the survivor of a German Nazi camp. In 1994 Olin starred in Romeo Is Bleeding and played what is perhaps her most extreme character to date; the outrageous hit woman Mona Demarkov—still one of the actress's most popular portrayals on film.

Olin and director Lasse Hallström collaborated on the 2000 film Chocolat, which received five Academy Award nominations, and on Casanova (2005). From 2002 to 2006, she appeared opposite Jennifer Garner in her first American television role ever; on the second season of the successful television series Alias. For her work on the series as Irina Derevko, Olin received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2003. She received good reviews for her part in Alias—particularly her chemistry with Victor Garber, who played her former husband and sometime-enemy Jack Bristow—and was rumored to have been offered a salary in excess of $100,000 per episode to remain part of the cast. She left the show after her first and only season; this was, however, to spend more time with her family in New York.

In May 2005, Olin returned to Alias for a two-episode appearance at the end of the show's fourth season, and subsequently appeared again in the fifth season, initially in a cameo in December 2005, and then following a four-month hiatus she appeared again in April 2006, and for the finale on 22 May 2006. An upcoming project is supposedly Daughter of the Queen of Sheba (which is to be directed by Hallström). She had a small but significant role in 2008's Oscar-nominated film The Reader, playing a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz death march in a trial in the 1960s and the woman's daughter twenty years later.

In 2005 she returned to Sweden for a brief period of filming and starred in a supporting role in Danish director Simon Staho's film Bang Bang Orangutang (with a punk music soundtrack by, among others, The Clash and Iggy Pop).

Personal life

Olin and husband Lasse Hallström in 2013

Olin was for many years (mid 1970s – end 80s) partner of Swedish actor and Royal Dramatic Theatre colleague Örjan Ramberg. They had a son, Auguste Rahmberg, in 1986. The relationship ended in the late 1980s.

Olin met film director Lasse Hallström in Sweden in 1992. Two years later they married in Hedvig Eleonora Church in Stockholm. In 1995 they had a daughter, Tora. Olin lives in New York with her husband and children.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1976	Face to Face	Shop Assistant
1977	Friaren som inte ville gifta sig	Gypsy Woman	TV movie
1977	Taboo	Girl (uncredited)
1978	The Adventures of Picasso	Dolores
1980	Love	Lena
1982	Som ni behagar		TV movie
1982	Gräsänklingar	Nina
1982	Fanny and Alexander	Ekdahlska huset – Rosa
1984	After the Rehearsal	Anna Egerman (older)	TV movie
1985	Wallenberg: A Hero's Story	Marta	TV movie
1986	Glasmästarna	Lady with Dog	TV movie
1986	Flight North	Karin
1986	A Matter of Life and Death	Nadja Melander
1987	Komedianter	Ann	TV movie
1988	The Unbearable Lightness of Being	Sabina	Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated—National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress
1988	Friends	Sue
1989	S/Y Glädjen	Annika Larsson
1989	Enemies, A Love Story	Masha	New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated—National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress
1990	Hebriana	Lena	TV movie
1990	Havana	Bobby Duran
1993	Romeo Is Bleeding	Mona Demarkov	Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
1993	Mr. Jones	Dr. Elizabeth Bowen
1995	The Night and the Moment	The Marquise
1996	Night Falls on Manhattan	Peggy Lindstrom
1998	Polish Wedding	Jadzia
1998	Hamilton	Tessie
1999	Mystery Men	Dr. Anabel Leek
1999	The Ninth Gate	Liana Telfer
2000	Chocolat	Josephine Muscat	Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Nominated—European Film Award for Best Actress Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2001	Ignition	Judge Faith Mattis
2002	Queen of the Damned	Maharet
2002	Darkness	Maria
2003	The United States of Leland	Marybeth Fitzgerald
2003	Hollywood Homicide	Ruby
2005	Casanova	Andrea
2005	Bang Bang Orangutang	Nina
2007	Awake	Lilith Beresford
2008	The Reader	Rose Mather / Ilana Mather
2010	Remember Me	Diane Hirsch
2012	The Hypnotist	Simone Bark
2013	The Devil You Know	Kathryn Vale
2013	Night Train to Lisbon	Older Estefânia

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Hamilton	Tessie
2002–2006	Alias	Irina Derevko	27 episodes Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (2003) Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Television Series (2003, 2004)
2010	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Ingrid Block	Episode: "Confidential"
2014	Welcome to Sweden	Viveka Börjesson

External links

• Lena Olin at the Internet Movie Database
• Lena Olin at the TCM Movie Database