biography of Lena Olin

Lena Maria Jonna Olin : 

 (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈlêːna ʊˈliːn] ^ⓘ; born 22 March 1955) is a Swedish actress. She has received nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Mentored by filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, she made her screen debut with a small role in his film Face to Face (1976). After graduating from drama school, Olin joined the Royal Dramatic Theatre, followed by roles in Bergman's films Fanny and Alexander (1982) and After the Rehearsal (1984). She made her international breakthrough in the role of a free-spirited artist in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), which earned her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.

Olin garnered further critical acclaim for her portrayals of a traumatized Holocaust survivor in the dramedy Enemies, A Love Story (1989), based on the novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and an abused wife in the comedy-drama Chocolat (2000), for which she received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Her other film roles include The Adventures of Picasso (1978), Havana (1990), Romeo Is Bleeding (1993), Mr. Jones (1993), The Ninth Gate (1999), Queen of the Damned (2002), Casanova (2005), The Reader (2008), Remember Me (2010), Maya Dardel (2017), and The Artist's Wife (2019).

On television, Olin starred as KGB agent Irina Derevko on the spy thriller Alias (2002–2006), which earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Her other television roles include the sitcom Welcome to Sweden (2014–2015), the drama series Riviera (2017–2020), and the drama series Hunters (2020–2023).

Lena Maria Jonna Olin was born on 22 March 1955, in Stockholm, Sweden, the youngest of three children of actors Britta Holmberg and Stig Olin.^[1] Olin worked as a nursing assistant and as a substitute teacher before starting drama school.  She studied at Sweden's National Academy of Dramatic Art from 1976 to 1979.^[1]

In October 1974, at age 19, Olin was crowned Miss Scandinavia in Helsinki, Finland. 

Olin performed for over a decade with Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre-ensemble (1980–1994) in 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 (1976). A year later,  she began acting on the national stage in Stockholm in productions directed by Bergman. She toured internationally with Bergman's production of King Lear (in which Olin played Cordelia), including Paris, Berlin, New York, Copenhagen, Moscow, and Oslo. 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 adaptation 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 the neurotic Charlotte in the contemporary drama Nattvarden (The Last Supper) by Lars Norén.

In 1980, Olin was one of the earliest winners of the Ingmar Bergman Award at the Guldbagge Awards, initiated in 1978 by the director himself, who was also one of the two judges

About : 

She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 1989 film Enemies: A Love Story. She received additional fame for her appearance in Chocolat.

Before Fame : 

She was crowned Miss Scandinavia 1975.

Trivia :  

Before becoming an actress, she was a substitute teacher and a hospital nurse.

Family Life : 

She married Lasse Hallstrom in 1994. The couple welcomed a daughter named Tora in 1995.

Associated With : 

She starred in Chocolat with Johnny Depp.

• Moved to the U.S. permanently in 1995 with her husband Lasse Hallström as their international careers developed separately, and they have since lived in Bedford, New York. However, they still have their summer house in Sweden, located in the Swedish province of Skåne) where the family spends their summer holidays, as well as an apartment in Stockholm.
• Before becoming an actress, Lena worked both as a substitute teacher in languages, and as a hospital nurse; she first studied medicine at university back in Sweden.
• Was a top student. Graduated with 4.9 average in her graduation scores (the highest in Sweden at that point was 5.0). After failing twice in the test for drama school, she began to study medicine at university to become a doctor. However, she was convinced by Ingmar Bergman (who had directed her father in several films and watched Lena play amateur theater) to try a third time. She did and was admitted, and gave up medicine.
• Lena studied the course of Classic Humanities with Latin as her major language in the Swedish equivalent to senior high school/upper secondary education (1971-1974). Later she also extended her course for half a year with the subjects of Maths, Physics, and Chemistry, as it was necessary for her medicine studies at university.
• Considered for the role of Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992).
• Lena has said in a Swedish interview that contact with others got her to act, even very early as a child, describing it as "an uncontrolled need of contact" and to "invent things": She remembers when she was seven and in love with a boy and staged an argument with him and then acted out a faked concussion. She got carried home as he apparently believed her. It ended with him coming home to her with apples and Andy Pandy books.
• Is one of four Swedish actresses to be nominated for an Academy Award. The others are Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, and Ann-Margret. The only Swedish actor to be nominated is Max von Sydow.
• Daughter of actor Stig Olin and actress Britta Holmberg.
• For the role of Masha in Enemies, A Love Story (1989), she received the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actress as well as an Academy Award nomination.
• Failed twice--both times in the very last test--two years in a row before she was accepted the third time at Sweden's prestigious National Theatre Academy (Teaterhögskolan) in 1976.
• Has a son F. Auguste Rahmberg (b. 1986) with former boyfriend Örjan Ramberg and a daughter Tora Hallström (b. 1995) with husband Lasse Hallström.
• Member of Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre (1980-1994).
• Has a fine singing voice. Recorded, a.o., Swedish song "Människors glädje" (written and composed by her father Stig Olin) and Swedish country/folk tune "Sommarbrevet (Jag skrev ett brev)" in the 1970s (Polar Music, Sweden).
• Reprising her role as the duplicitous "Irina Derevko" for the season finale of Alias (2001).
• Younger sister of singer Mats Olin.
• National Theatre Academy; Stockholm, Sweden (1976-1979).
• Stepmother of Lasse Hallström's son Johan Hallström.
• Member of the "Official Competition" jury at the 45th Venice International Film Festival in 1988.
• Is one of five Swedish actresses to be nominated for a Golden Globe award. The others are Ingrid Bergman, Anita Ekberg, Ann-Margret, and Rebecca Ferguson.
• Stated in a May 2005 interview with "TV Guide" that, along with her appearances in the final two episodes of Season 4 of Alias (2001), she is open to appearing in Season 5 as well.
• Member of the "Official Competition" jury at the 51st Cannes International Film Festival in 1998.
• Considered for the role of Maria Ruskin in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).

  Biography : 

  A powerful and beautiful Swedish actress in the tradition of Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann, Lena Olin first came to prominence in Sweden as a "Bergman actress," working in plays and films directed by the great Ingmar Bergman. The child of actors-her father, Stig Olin, appeared in Bergman films during the 1940s and 50s-she gravitated to the profession in an attempt to overcome her crippling shyness, and though she failed her first audition for the Royal Dramatic Theater school, Bergman saw enough to cast her in a small role in his "Face to Face" (1976). She went on to appear in "The Adventures of Picasso" (1978) and acted for Bergman in "Fanny and Alexander" (1982). In "After the Rehearsal" (1984), she played Anna, a character written expressly for her. Her role as an actress who infuriates her director by getting pregnant while working on one of August Strindberg's plays prefigured actual events when her own pregnancy would complicate a Bergman production of Strindberg's "A Dream Play."

  mini bio : 

  Swedish-born Lena Olin already had a successful career as an actress before she came to Hollywood. She acted at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm and was directed by Ingmar Bergman. She was born in Stockholm to actors Britta Holmberg and Stig Olin, who appeared in six of Bergman's films. She also belongs to the Bergman "family". As a young actress, she played in the great classics of William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, and August Strindberg. She made her international debut as a movie actress in After the Rehearsal (1984) (aka "After the Rehearsal"), directed by Bergman. In western Europe, she became well-known in the political movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) as "Sabina", in a story about the Prague spring (1968). After coming to the US, she played mostly distinguished, exotic temptresses, intelligent women, and crude vamps. Bergman had developed Lena's artistic gift to play different human emotions and express them in a subtle way. Sydney Pollack, director of Out of Africa (1985), rewrote the screenplay for Havana (1990) especially for her. This explains why this film recalls associations with the classic Casablanca (1942), starring Ingrid Bergman, also from Sweden. Olin received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Enemies, A Love Story (1989). She went on to have a choice role in Chocolat (2000), which received a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. She made a move to the smaller screen and played the role for one season as the deliciously evil "Irina Derevko", the mother to Jennifer Garner's "Sydney Bristow" in the series Alias (2001). Olin received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

  Personal life

  Olin has a son, August, from a relationship with actor Örjan Ramberg.^[5] Since 1994, she has been married to filmmaker Lasse Hallström, with whom she has a daughter, Tora. They reside in Bedford, New York.^[17][18][19]

  Filmography

  Year	Title	Role	Notes
  1976	Face to Face	Shop Assistant
  1977	Friaren som inte ville gifta sig	Gypsy Woman	TV movie
  	Taboo	Girl (uncredited)
  1978	The Adventures of Picasso	Dolores
  1980	Love	Lena
  1982	Som ni behagar		TV movie
  	Gräsänklingar	Nina
  	Fanny and Alexander	Rosa (The Ekdahl house)
  1983	After the Rehearsal	Anna Egerman (older)	TV movie
  1985	Wallenberg: A Hero's Story	Marta	TV movie
  1986	Glasmästarna	Lady with Dog	TV movie
  	Flight North	Karin
  	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
  	Friends	Sue
  1989	S/Y Glädjen	Annika Larsson
  	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
  	Havana	Bobby Duran
  1993	Romeo Is Bleeding	Mona Demarkov	Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
  	Mr. Jones	Dr. Elizabeth Bowen
  1995	The Night and the Moment	The Marquise
  1996	Night Falls on Manhattan	Peggy Lindstrom
  1998	Polish Wedding	Jadzia
  	Hamilton	Tessie
  1999	Mystery Men	Dr. Anabel Leek
  	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
  	Darkness	Maria
  2003	The United States of Leland	Marybeth Fitzgerald
  	Hollywood Homicide	Ruby
  2005	Casanova	Andrea
  	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
  	Night Train to Lisbon	Older Estefânia
  2017	Maya Dardel	Maya Dardel	Best Actress Award at the Prague Independent Film Festival[20][21]
  2019	The Artist's Wife[22]	Claire Smythson
  2020	Adam	Yevgeina
  2022	Hilma	Hilma
  2023	One Life	Grete Winton
  2024	Upgraded	Catherine Laroche
  	Spaceman	Zden