Quotes from Lena Olin


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To be a good actor, you have to be very smart. But to be a great actor, you also have to have a streak of, 'I'm an idiot, a complete lunatic.'


It's important not to lay in a bubble bath drinking champagne. It's important to take part in what life's all about.


It strikes me every time I do an interview that I don't really sit around thinking about my goals and my life and my career. I do what I love doing and I get a lot of feedback. I'm free as a bird, you know? If I do something good, it's, 'Wow, that was brilliant,' and if I do something bad, it just goes away.


I use myself for each part. Naturally, it's my body, it's my soul, it's my feelings. That's the only way I know how to work. I couldn't pretend.


I love the camera; there's something very special and sensual about it, and I have a tendency to call it a he, like it was a man. But, unlike a man, a camera is accepting of everything I do.


I was so full of joy, the happiest kid. Things changed. I don't want to talk about it. I needed attention. I was pathologically shy. I'd climb the highest tree or try to ski off the highest mountain. I'd get into fights. I wanted contact. I'd hit somebody, just for that.


Acting is a very strange job.


Choosing a role is very difficult. There's no way to have a strategy.


Everyone is complicated one way or another. But it's interesting to dig into a complicated character, to try to find that within yourself.


By the time the discussion starts about a movie, it's like bringing up an old boyfriend. It's like, 'I don't even remember exactly what he was like, and now we have to talk about it?'


I consume music the way other people consume movies.


I'm not regimented. I don't diet, and I exercise the way I want to.


In Sweden, stardom is looked upon as phony. You walk to the theater every day like everybody else.


My favorite thing to do is eat and eat well.


There are a lot of things to get seduced by in America.


I always sort of create practical problems so that I don't have to see a film I've just done. I'm too vulnerable, too fragile. People see your work, and there's nothing you can do. You're completely exposed.