Lena Olin

Lena Olin: In some ways TV is hard. You get the script and you shoot it right away. There's no thinking or process in searching it out. It's an adrenaline kick in some ways, but it's also dangerous. I think that something can break along the way in television. You're doing it so fast all the time. Maybe if I'm always going that fast with my acting I'll wear something out that I can't replace. I've been thinking about that a lot. For the actors, it's so different. If you have a script and rehearsal and time to find the fifth or sixth way to play a scene, you're strong. With the tremendously short time you have on TV, it can wear you out and be dangerous.

Lena Olin: (on having an "Alias" action figure) I like that. There weren't many [of them] for the Bergman stuff. He didn't do many action sequences.

Lena Olin: I want to show that from the negative, when you dare to see it, the positive is born, because there is the root to the good. I have inside myself, for example, a sharp aggression. But if you remove it, I loose my creativity. I have a great insecurity, but if you remove it, I also lose my sensitivity. Good theater is the theater that can make it a little attractive, a bit cool, to have these dark inner depths. You must be a bit afraid of them. I have a big need of spending time being alone, just to fear these dark sides. We must have secrets. That's why I almost never agree, or rarely, to really personal interviews: you must have large pools, untouched inside yourself.

Lena Olin: There are no patterns that lasts a lifetime. Some people can't stand the floating boarders. They decide on one life philosophy and live thereafter. But I've decided not to decide. I don't know everything. I don't understand everything. Both my own and others reactions are often a mystery to me. I let it be that way, hoping that maybe, instead, I can learn to understand the pattern of no patterns.

Lena Olin: I've always made a point to do things that people wouldn't expect me to do because I think there is danger in becoming the big actress, the star, because then you have things to protect, and there's no way you can work as an actor protecting things.

Lena Olin: We built a house in Sweden and we spend the summers there. We go swimming and play a lot of golf - it's like paradise.