The evening earlier than Renate Reinsve obtained the name from director Joachim Trier, she had determined to surrender appearing after years of frustration with the roles being provided her in Norwegian movie and TV. “Two-dimensional female characters just there to serve the plot,” she remembers.
Then she acquired the name.
“It was literally the next day. Joachim called and said, ‘I’m writing a movie and I want you to play the lead. I’m writing it with you in mind,’” she says.
Trier remembered Reinsve from her one-line position — “Let’s go to the party!” — in his 2011 movie, Oslo, August 31st, when the actress was nonetheless in theater college. After seeing her onstage in works by Chekhov and Ibsen, he knew her expertise was being wasted on unhealthy Norwegian sitcoms. The position he was providing in his “anti-romantic romantic comedy” was one thing fully totally different. Julie in The Worst Person in the World is a girl approaching 30 who doesn’t know what she desires from life. Funny however flawed, charming but chaotic, Julie slips in and out of jobs and relationships, unsure or unwilling to commit.
“It was very important to me that Julie not be me, but I do see a lot of myself in her,” says Reinsve, “her indecisiveness, how restless she is. When we started, I studied Diane Keaton a lot, in Annie Hall but also in all her interviews. That was my baseline. Then, and this might sound strange, but I looked at Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name because of how deeply he goes into emotions while still keeping a levity and charm, and there’s a certain messiness about his performance.”
Actress Renate Reinsve in The Worst Person in the World.
Kasper Tuxen/Oslo Pictures
The title of Trier’s movie comes from a self-deprecating Norwegian saying — “It’s what you say when you’ve done something shitty,” says Reinsve — however The Worst Person has been the neatest thing to occur to her. The movie premiered in competitors at Cannes, the place she gained the pageant’s prize for finest actress. Cut to awards season, and The Worst Person in the World has made the 15-film shortlist for the 2022 Oscars in the finest worldwide characteristic class and is taken into account a frontrunner. The National Society of Film Critics additionally named Reinsve a runner-up for finest actress of 2021 on Jan. eight. Neon will bow the movie in North America on Feb. four.
“It’s been totally surreal and totally amazing,” she says, “to go from wanting to quit acting to suddenly winning this award and have this response, having everyone watching the movie feeling the same way about it as we did when we made it.”
It’s virtually, she says, like a scene from the movie when time appears to cease and Julie runs by means of the streets of Oslo, passing people who find themselves frozen like statues.
“There was no CGI for that,” she remembers. “All those other people were extras standing still as I ran up and down, again and again, for each take. As we were doing it, ordinary people kind of understood, and they joined in, just freezing in place and staying for the rest of the day. It was as if the whole city just joined in. Like the opposite of a flash mob.”
This story first appeared in the Jan. 5 challenge of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click right here to subscribe.
