Sunday Herald Sun (Victoria, Australia)'s TV Guide
October 12-18, 2003, page 9
Lethal Lena
By Michael McKenna
Transcript by eM. Please note that Australia is only up to ep 216 'Firebomb'.
Swedish actor Lena Olin thought she knew fame - until she took a role on the hit TV series Alias. The Oscar-nominated beauty, who plays the scheming mother of double agent Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), says it was like she never existed before making the jump from the silver to the small screen. "Its funny and so strange being on TV," says the veteran of more than 30 films. "I've been doing this for so long, but I'm getting so much more attention now and things to choose from. It's ridiculous."
A child of an acting family, Olin came to international prominence after she and her bowler hat stole scenes away from Daniel Day-Lewis in the 1988 movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being. She was soon hailed in Sweden as the next Ingrid Bergman, the next Liv Ullman, the next Greta Garbo. Hollywood beckoned and Olin won an Academy Award nomination for Enemies, A Love Story (1989) before becoming a fixture of heavyweight films such as Havana, The Ninth Gate and Chocolat.
Her reputation as a serious, yet seductive actor was ans much a curse as a blessing for Olin. "I never got comic, charming, lightweight roles...they always tended to be complicated, dark, dangerous ones," she says. So at 47, Olin decided to take the role as Irvina Derevko, the mother of uni student-turned-spy Bristow. Olin has won a huge new audience and an Emmy nomination, for best supporting actress, since she hit the US TV screens last year.
It comes as no surprise to Garner, who also scored her second Emmy nomination, that Olin has been such a success on the series. Garner says the character was made for Olin. "there's so much that we would talk about who would play the mother, and we would say 'We need someone like Lena Olin'," Garner says. "we didn't think she would actually do it. And she came to visit the set, and we were kind of like, 'Well, she's perfect', but who is like her? And she took the tole...she is Sydney's mother, I meen, she's incredibly sexy, smart, she is all heart, but she can be completely cold, and she is agile."
Olin says she keeps in shape by running around after her kids - an eight-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son - and trying tro keep up with Garner on set. "I've always wanted to throw myself from the top of mountains," she says, laughing.
"I've alwats played with the boys. In fact,m I love that part of acting. If I'm running on the show, I'm, like, 'OK, let's go', and I want to be the first one out there. (Alias co-star) Victor (Garber) is always 10km behind me."
Despite her success with Alias, Olin is giving nothing away as to whether she will return next season. All she would say is "There are other things I want to do, other projects"
Alias, Monday, Seven 8:30pm.
© Sunday Herald Sun (Victoria, Australia)'s TV Guide 2003
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