Lena Olin Quotes
"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." (on acting, theater and her interest in playing dark women roles on stage and in films)
"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." (on life, people and relationships)
"I am in love with my best friend." (on husband Lasse Hallström)
"I was supposed to play the world's most dangerous woman and do a lot of action scenes. Then you can't come in there like a couch-potato... so I started training at gyms, weight-lifting and all things possible, and then I've just continued with that a couple of times a week." (on how she manages to keep so fit when playing her "Alias" success-character Irina Derevko)
"What's most interesting and most real to me in my work is to never make the role a complete character, because then you lose a part of the truth. I can't say that this person is just like this or like that. Because you can never do that with real people in real life, so if you try that on stage you lose the truth. Since I myself strive to be able to be a great many things, I also want my character to have that very same liberty. Eventually in that way it will add to a sort of completeness. But it is the story that is told that is the interesting thing and the situations the character is in. And as we humans always are shaped by a special situation or given circumstances, I can never ever say: Thus is my character." (on her acting work, Swedish interview, 1990)
