00:02
Amanda Collin
I've picked A Lady Mounted on Her Favorite Horse. It's a sculpture from Anne Marie Carl Nielsen.

00:10
Amanda Collin
I love horses. They're so dangerous and big and scary, and to ride in a movie would be crazy.

00:18
Amanda Collin
I found a really beautiful quote of her: "She had, through her art, defeated all prejudice. and was now equal on her natural spot between the best of her male colleagues … She fought her way through, despite everything and everyone, and now it's history, but once it was for her, just the bitter truth."

00:47
Amanda Collin
And I think for everyone who fights their way through something, it's just the bitter truth of their very present moment. This is something that they have to do. And I think that's a really important thing to remember in art, not to put people anywhere else, that they do it from exactly the present moment, and that's what they needed to do right there.

01:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark and the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today, our guest is Amanda Collin, a Danish actress. Welcome, Amanda.

01:40
Amanda Collin
Thank you so much.

01:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's lovely having you with us. We are separated by an ocean and a continent, actually. You are in Copenhagen and I'm in Los Angeles. Can you describe to the listeners where you are at the moment?

01:59
Amanda Collin
Right now I am in my living room in Copenhagen, looking at a tower of a mix of toys and books with a microphone on it.

02:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And some artwork in the background.

02:17
Amanda Collin
And a little bit of artwork in the background. Yeah.

02:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
On a green wall.

02:22
Amanda Collin
Yeah, it's very green, this living room. My friend was just in here and she says, I always get this deep English vibe when I'm in your living room. And I think that's very accurate, actually.

02:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Makes sense. I want to immediately take you back in time. You studied in New York at the William Esper Studio in 2011, I believe. You were young. You were 23 years old. What made you decide to make this move?

02:51
Amanda Collin
Fear, I think.

02:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Fear?

02:55
Amanda Collin
Fear of rejection. No, I think I'd postponed my dream of being an actress until I was 23, and then I couldn't really postpone it any further. And then, I don't know, I think it was too terrifying to follow the traditional way. I think when you want something a lot, for me, it was easier just not doing it because then there's no failure involved.

03:20
Amanda Collin
I read a good quote today that says everything that's really exciting or really worth doing always starts with a little bit of cringe. Which is very true in acting. William Esper, I came across it and it had a six-week summer intensive and I thought, okay, no matter how that goes, I hadn't tried acting before, but I can fail for six weeks and then be a decent human being afterwards.

03:45
Amanda Collin
And no one will know me. No one will know my name. I don't know anybody in New York, so I'm just gonna do that. And then I saved up some money and went to New York and did the six weeks summer intensive. And of course, after two weeks, I was like, I'm home and I found life. I found purpose in life.

04:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What was it about the city that made you feel this way? How was your time in the Big Apple?

04:13
Amanda Collin
It was not so much the city. It was more the school. The city is crazy, right? There's — I think, actually, I didn't spend that much time in the city, to be honest. I spent time at the school and in my apartment. And when I was in my apartment, I just felt really guilty for living in New York and not being in the city.

04:34
Amanda Collin
I don't know, I'm kind of an introvert. I think everyone would describe me as an extrovert, but it takes a lot of energy for me to, I don't know, engage in social events. I don't know what New York is like. You tell me. I lived there for three years. I have no idea.

04:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You talked about the apartment. You spent a lot of time there. And I was watching this movie the other day where a lot of rich people were talking about the first apartment they had in New York, which was tiny. They could hardly move in that apartment. What was your apartment like in New York?

05:12
Amanda Collin
It was huge.

05:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Really?

05:17
Amanda Collin
So it's actually a great story, right? The very first apartment was tiny, like you say. It's always, oh, you can sleep in the foot end of my bed while I'm not sleeping or whatever. It's always like you sleep in bunk beds or whatever to make it work in New York, right?

05:35
Amanda Collin
But then, I was going there and everyone from Copenhagen was like, Oh, you're gonna go live with Tatiana. Tatiana, this is my friend who's a model and a singer and now she's becoming an actress and she's just this great human being and extremely beautiful and funny at the same time.

05:55
Amanda Collin
So I was like, Oh my God, maybe she can shed some glitter on you. And she did because we found this crazy apartment together in an old loft, an old pasta factory. Back then it was a famous pasta factory in Williamsburg. And of course we went in there and we saw an apartment on the top floor.

06:16
Amanda Collin
And I don't know how this was possible, but we ended up getting this apartment and we ended up making it work, because Tatiana was dating a guy who was in a band, and his bandmate could move in with us, and I could stay there, and they could share rooms. It worked out. And we had a great time there.

06:39
Amanda Collin
And she still has it, she still lives there, and just gave birth to her second daughter. And of course, back then we had a beautiful view to the river, and now there's just a beautiful view right into another building.

06:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Okay. And what was the school like, Amanda? You spent so much time there and you felt you were home. What made it feel like home?

07:02
Amanda Collin
It just hadn't really occurred to me that you could have so much fun in a grown-up life. And so obviously when you're in school— if you want to draw houses and you find a school with architecture, you're like, Oh my God, I get to do this every day. It was like that for me, Oh my God, I get to roll around on the floor, screaming an "ah" sound because it opens up my third chakra, whatever.

07:31
Amanda Collin
Or doing accent work and just really getting involved with the placement of the tongue in the mouth. And of course doing all the scene work and all the Meisner work that we did at the time. I don't know, it just made me so happy. I think when you do something that resonates with your soul for some reason, the whole world starts making sense, right? All the people you meet make sense.

08:00
Amanda Collin
It was definitely that feeling for me. And then when it's over, it's such a shock, right? Because then you go from doing what you love every day to being unemployed and be like, Oh my God, what am I going to do with all this energy?

08:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Did you have to have extra jobs to make a living? I mean, New York is a very expensive city.

08:24
Amanda Collin
It's a very expensive city. Well, you can't really work when you're on a student visa. I begged and pleaded my parents to help me out. And then I didn't have a lot of jobs when I came back home.

08:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you remember that moment in your life when you knew that you wanted to be an actress? I know that it took a while for you to sort of realize it, but were you a little girl?

08:52
Amanda Collin
I was a little girl. I think it was around fourth grade or something. How old are you, ten? We did a first school play. And I don't know if it's the story, but it just felt really comfortable being on that stage. We did a Western or something and you get to wear high heels, which I wasn't allowed, not high heels, but two-inch heels or whatever, enough heels to make a sound on a wooden floor, or a big skirt and an apron.

09:28
Amanda Collin
And there was just something that felt really, really good. And then I started being like, I think I want to be an actress. And everyone was like— I think my grandma was the first one I told, and she was like, Oh no, why, why, why would you do that? Right? Which is terrible, actually. I mean, bless her. What could she do?

09:52
Amanda Collin
When you want to be an actress or an actor, it's because there's a center in you that's highly sensitive. Right? So that first reaction was actually maybe why it took me to only being 23 before I had the courage to pursue it because all this time, I walked around with this voice being like, why, why do I even want this? It's so stupid.

10:17
Amanda Collin
I just heard a podcast about a Greenlandic shaman. She was four when she was, I'm going to be a medicine woman or whatever. And her mom said, no, you're absolutely not. And so she spent her entire life being so confused about this true inner voice that said one thing and then all the outer voices saying a different thing.

10:42
Amanda Collin
And I think that's true for many people in so many directions, right? In terms of sexuality or in terms of what you want to do in life, who you want to marry, who you love, who you don't love, all of these things. It's life, basically.

10:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you did have a detour. You went to study film and media science at the University of Copenhagen, which I actually did too. But you were not very fond of that, I believe.

11:09
Amanda Collin
The film and media science was really a pursuit in getting a real education that had something to do with film, at least. And then I was there for three months and I was like, Oh my God, you have to read all this text. This is crazy. And so boring. Yeah. But it's not actually. It's a really interesting course and you learn great things. I just don't like reading.

11:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I really liked it.

11:38
Amanda Collin
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

11:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Was studying to become an actress then everything you thought it would be, or were there surprises when you were finally at the school in New York?

11:50
Amanda Collin
I think I'm such a nerd. Every day was just like those cartoons where their eyes pop out of their head. Or my mouth wide open every day. I was so committed. It was just the most fun I've had in my life ever. And I think it was also a good age for me.

12:12
Amanda Collin
Some people think that the earlier the better, but I was so happy that I was in my 20s and finding out lots of things at that time and just having this school as an anchor and all the rest of the confusion in the 20s. It was everything I wanted it to be and so much more. Yeah.

12:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What was the first professional job that you had? Was it Sjit Happened or was there another job before that?

12:43
Amanda Collin
I remember that was my first paid job, which is a big thing, right? I was on my bike on the way to work at five in the morning or whenever your call time is, and I was just like, Oh my God, this is crazy. Not only do I get to do what I love so much, but also getting paid for it is crazy.

13:04
Amanda Collin
And I still have that feeling actually. And I think, for me, it's really been a privilege to take my education in the States. It took a couple of years to make my way in or get a network in Denmark and a couple of years, like two, three years when you've just come out of school is such a long time at that time.

13:27
Amanda Collin
But then when a thing like this happens, I was 28 or 29 at the time, so super excited about getting paid for my first acting job. It's important to mention that it was quite late in terms of all this youngness in our industry. I don't know how to put it. Everyone's so young.

13:51
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
But you quickly got a lot of jobs in Denmark and you became the lead in a movie where you play a not so nice woman. Actually, I think it's called A Horrible Woman if we translate it into English. How does one do it in Denmark? How does one start making a career out of acting?

14:14
Amanda Collin
Well, how do you do it? I mean, for those three years when I wasn't working, there's a lot of frustration, right? And I think as an artist, okay, so when the outer world clearly doesn't know how amazing I am, what do I do? Because this is going to happen again, right? And so you can do two things.

14:36
Amanda Collin
You can think you're amazing, no matter what, and just make that a thing that you believe in, or you can practice. You can start practicing. I remember just at some point, I will be better than some other people that are casting, if I practice from now on like an instrument or whatever.

14:54
Amanda Collin
So I started just taking so many courses. And I wished for a week's course, that's all I wanted for Christmas, because everything costs money, right. But that's also how you build a network and you meet people at these courses. And actually, I'm so excited. I'm doing a casting on Friday and the director is a director that I did a course with probably ten years ago at the film school in Denmark.

15:22
Amanda Collin
And we just had such an amazing time, and he's done amazing things since. And I've done very cool things since, and now we meet up again. Maybe we can work together, maybe we can't. And who knows?

15:33
Amanda Collin
You can easily get caught up in knowing the right people or why I need to go to this thing or this thing in order to meet people or blah, blah, blah. But for me, it always just comes back to, I really love, I really love acting. And I really think it's a fun environment. I love the people that I work with. I think it's so much fun. I don't get scared.

15:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You got rid of that fear?

16:01
Amanda Collin
Yes, I got rid of that after a year of basically wanting someone to say, Oh my God, Amanda, you've come all the way from Denmark with this incredible talent? I can't believe that no one saw this before you were 24, but I see it now, girl, welcome to Hollywood. That doesn't happen, right?

16:21
Amanda Collin
So, I think after a year at that school, I did a scene from Good Will Hunting and it was in speech work and my teacher, Nancy, I think she corrected my spinal cord or she pushed my pelvis forward or something. And so out came life, right?

16:44
Amanda Collin
And I remember for the first time, I wasn't in control of what came out of me. And that bodily connection felt so right. And that has been the feeling that I've been connecting to ever since, the uncontrolled life that you're able to let go of in a moment.

17:05
Amanda Collin
And so from that moment on, I was like, Oh, okay, so I'm allowed to be here because I'm not even controlling what comes out. Something else is in play here. A character, probably. And that just felt really clean and good and not about me. I think most actors recognize that feeling, right? When you hit that part where it's not about you and then you're like, ah, yes.

17:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And then, Amanda, you got an international break. The legendary Ridley Scott got an eye on you. How did that happen? How did he find you, so to speak?

17:53
Amanda Collin
I found him. No, it's such an annoying answer because you can't really do anything. Life really pushes you where you need to be in every moment. And I needed to, for some reason, play "Mother." It was so weird, right? I was in Kilkenny at this festival where a lot of casting people come.

18:21
Amanda Collin
It's called Subtitle Film Festival. And Subtitle picked up A Horrible Woman to screen there. And I went there to be part of the festival and have meetings with all these casting directors. And I went to one of the screenings and I just sat in the bar afterwards and out came Kate Rhodes, who's the casting director of Raised by Wolves.

18:48
Amanda Collin
And she was like, hi, can I talk to you? And for some reason, the same sensitive child who at ten years old said, this feels really good. Sometimes you can feel when something is going to happen.

19:04
Amanda Collin
At the time, I had spent three months in the Royal Theater doing a play there where I was a blind angel. And I was like, why am I, why am I in this show, why do I need to do this, right? But the casting for "Mother," there was a scene where she was blind because she loses her eyes.

19:30
Amanda Collin
And so I was, wow, the universe is really crazy preparing you by putting you in a play in Denmark, prepping to seek out the land of no vision. So you can do a casting the day after and just know what it feels like. And yeah. It was a crazy experience. I did the casting the day after with her.

19:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And Raised by Wolves is a sci-fi series. You mentioned you play Mother, she's a robot. And you're dressed in latex most of the show. And it was shot in South Africa, I believe. What was that experience like?

20:11
Amanda Collin
It's kind of crazy to be cast as the lead in Ridley Scott's new TV production. And you're like, what? So there's, of course, a massive imposter syndrome going on. I remember, from getting the part, there was only a month after I had to leave for South Africa. But that month, you barely pick up the phone in order for someone to find out that this is a mistake, right?

20:38
Amanda Collin
I was just like, the days just need to pass. And I just need to walk onto that set. And the weird thing, which is not weird, is that I felt really comfortable on a big set like that. And I felt really at home. I remember our first meetings. Because we were in South Africa and it's really hot, so there was a lot of air conditioning.

21:00
Amanda Collin
And I think it took me two days in a really freezing room with Ridley discussing the script before I dared to say, can I get a blanket or something because it's just so cold in here? The comfort, I guess, also came with time with him.

21:22
Amanda Collin
Working with him taught me so much about play and the ease of doing what we do and that it's not supposed to be hard, but it's supposed to be playful and fun and easy. And yeah, I loved working with him because of that.

21:39
Amanda Collin
And I had my family with me. I had a daughter who was two at the time. She's now seven. And we've gotten one more. When you get to do those things and you get to bring your family, it's a great adventure as a family.

21:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I just met Ridley Scott at Gladiator 2. He was talking about that movie and he's an older gentleman now. He's not young. He's in his 80s, I believe. But he seems like such a goofball. What's it like being in his presence, having him as your boss?

22:11
Amanda Collin
It's extremely comfortable. I feel extremely comfortable around goofballs. We're just making movies. And it gives people, sometimes, an amazing experience. Sometimes people walk out of the cinema and they think it's shit. Sometimes we waste a lot of money, sometimes we don't, right?

22:31
Amanda Collin
I'm a big believer of the arts and everything that we do. And I so love what we do. But all art comes out of some sort of play, I think, right? If you forget the play that keeps your creativity going, because there's a lot of money at stake or if you are fearful of the outcome or of anything like that —

22:55
Amanda Collin
Yeah, I feel extremely privileged and super spoiled to start my international career with Ridley Scott because it's very, very hard to not bring your fear of failure into a set. Unless you're crazy or just pay for it yourself, which Ridley does. He can afford to make mistakes. But that's why I say I feel lucky because to have worked with it once, it's like that one experience in class where you're like, woof, okay, there's something else at play here.

23:38
Amanda Collin
Working with Ridley just felt so natural and how it's always supposed to be. And so when you meet it again here and there, you recognize it and it's fun and easy and playful. Playful is the best word for what we do.

23:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You can sense that with him, that he's a nice person to be around with a lot of humor.

24:02
Amanda Collin
Lots of humor.

24:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Lots of humor. Raised by Wolves was an HBO show, and it led you to be part of another HBO show called House of the Dragon. It's a prequel to Game of Thrones, which made Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, another Dane, a big star. You appear as Lady Jane Arryn. You appear in episode five of season two.

24:29
Amanda Collin
If you sneeze, you miss it.

24:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, you don't. I saw you very clearly. What's it like being part of something of this scale? I mean, that set is amazing.

24:41
Amanda Collin
I mean, I love this scale. I love working in big scale shit, because the playfulness is bigger, and creativity is allowed to flourish on a much bigger scale. And I love seeing people at work. It makes my job so easy when you go to four costume fittings, right? Just in order for the costume to be perfect.

25:03
Amanda Collin
And on the third costume fitting, the cape is done and you get to try on the cape for the first time. And the attention to detail. Yes, it's just so deep and rich. So it's so easy to build a character around all these people — they built it on you. So the only thing I have to do is say the lines and walk onto set and trust my impulses or whatever, you know?

25:32
Amanda Collin
Because there's so much going on in the room and I don't know, when I watch it now, those are living candles. Someone has lit all those candles in a scene and they've put them out between takes and they've made them match. And it's just insane the amount of work that is put into every scene and I love it so much because when you're on these sets, it looks like people are enjoying themselves, right?

26:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You're not only in international productions, you're also in Danish productions. And last year you were in The Promised Land, which was Denmark's Oscar contender. It's a historical movie taking place in Denmark when it was less civilized, and women did not really have a lot of power domestically or politically. But your character was pretty powerful, as powerful as a woman could probably be at the time. Was that part of the attraction of the film for you?

26:34
Amanda Collin
She really spoke to me from the very beginning, before I even knew anything about her. It was just a very clear attraction to be able to speak her words or whatever. I think also, I try not to think so much about where to go in what direction with myself. Because I always feel I learn so much from the parts that I play and that it's so right at the time that this part informed me about a shadow or a light in myself. I really enjoyed living in Ann Barbara because she's a very beautiful woman and very true to herself. And I think she helped me grow up in a little way.

27:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It takes place in 18th-century Denmark. Did anything surprise you about our country, how it was back then?

27:38
Amanda Collin
Well, the main question that I kept having was, why do we think that they were different? These movies that go back in time, we always think that they were different, but why would she have any different wants or needs or thoughts than I had just because her surroundings were different? And no one knows, right?

28:03
Amanda Collin
Because you can't really ask someone. You can read diaries or whatever. And people say, Oh, but you wouldn't think like that because women weren't allowed to know. But how do you know? Of course she had thoughts about love or sex or art or whatever. Maybe not art because she's a maid and she comes from scum and whatever, but what if? I was ten when I wanted to be an actress, who knows?

28:32
Amanda Collin
Your inspiration or the thing that you download as a child so doesn't come out of your environment. It comes from something else, right? And then you learn, then you grow up and you forget and you squeeze that inner child into a box and you lock it away in a closet somewhere.

28:51
Amanda Collin
But yeah, I don't know, I was very inspired by that idea to make her as true to, as close to myself, just in a different environment. And the thing that I got so touched about when I watched the movie, was the inability to show love. I think I cried for ten hours after I watched the movie the first time because of the unfreedom, the captivity of yourself, in a way.

29:23
Amanda Collin
I don't know, it's such a stupid scene, but the first time he finds a little potato plant — spoiler alert — and she just looks at him like they are so in love at this point in time. And the fact that she didn't put a hand on his cheek, and she didn't kiss him — there's none of that. It's just a look. I mean, that broke my heart, in a way.

29:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You're talking about Mads Mikkelsen's character in the film, who's seeking to grow potatoes in a place where it's very difficult to do it.

29:59
Amanda Collin
Yeah, but now you know the movie.

30:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So now you know the ending to A Promised Land. Did that movie bring you to Los Angeles? Were you part of doing the Oscar campaigning here? Or did you not get to go?

30:15
Amanda Collin
The women don't get to go. No, I'm kidding. Not at that time. No, Mads was there. Yeah.

30:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You've been to quite a lot of international film festivals. You were in Toronto recently with The Quiet Ones, which is a movie in which you play a badass woman, a kind of action hero. How much fun is it going to film festivals to present your films and talk about them and talk to the audiences? Toronto is a very audience-friendly festival, for instance.

30:49
Amanda Collin
It's a very audience-friendly festival. I love the audience, 'cause then you get to talk about the movie and the geeky stuff. And especially in Toronto, you come out and people talk about specific shots, like the lighting or something. That excites me so much because that's also what I'm so excited about, or a score —Oh my God, it was so great.

31:11
Amanda Collin
So that's really fun. But the whole industry part of it stresses me out a little bit. You get caught up in a vibe. There's a lot of talking and a lot of people, right? I meditate two times a day instead of once when I'm at a film festival. But it's super fun because there's a lot of movies, right? And you get to wear pretty dresses or fun outfits.

31:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And The Quiet Ones is a heist movie. It's about the biggest robbery in Danish history ever. What attracted you to that film? It's quite different from roles that you've played before and the film is different from films you've done before. What was it about this one that made you wanna be part of it?

31:52
Amanda Collin
It's really Frederik who directed it. It's really really sweet he wrote me a letter first of all and then I met up with him and he was just the nicest guy on earth. And I think you'd be an idiot to have good chemistry with a director and then say no to a part.

32:11
Amanda Collin
Because that's really what it's all about, right? When I say yes to a movie, the most fun in it for me is to completely surrender into a director's vision and into, if a character speaks, sometimes they speak, sometimes they don't. Maria was quite a tiny part, but important to stretch the movie's theme into talking about something else as well.

32:38
Amanda Collin
But there's nothing that makes my tail wag more than seeing the director's tail wag. I've just done a movie in England and sometimes when you walk out of a scene and you catch the director watching the other people play in the scene, and laugh, I don't know, when I heard him laugh or when I heard him like, Oh yeah, hmm, yeah, oh oh, it makes me so happy.

33:06
Amanda Collin
Because you get all these people together, you spend all these money on sets and it's such a hard pressure being a director and believing in this vision for all these people for such a long time. When we did The Promised Land, Nikolai was just the happiest person for two months, in rain, in a field somewhere in far out Denmark, in a cold morning, and it's just, I get it.

33:30
Amanda Collin
And so back to Frederik. He's an amazing director. He has an amazing musicality and a really good sense of heist movies or fast paced violence, I don't know how else to put it. And it was extremely exciting to work with him and I felt, again, playful and safe in his company.

33:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Now that you've been an actress for so many years, is it everything that you thought it would be or more?

33:59
Amanda Collin
I meditate a lot and I've always been very seeking. I think many sensitive people are, what is the meaning of life and all this? Why am I here? I met this amazing meditation teacher in South Africa and I've been seeing him ever since.

34:16
Amanda Collin
And we've come quite far on a journey of accepting the unknown and being in the present. And it makes me more happy than any job or whatever. I'm really just really happy and grateful every day. And so when you find that within yourself, it's also quite exciting what happens to your career because you don't really care about it so much anymore.

34:50
Amanda Collin
Not that I don't love what I do, but there isn't really a fulfillment that can happen any longer, you know? And I think that's a really good starting point as an actress. I've been saying for the past few months, oh, now I can really start acting. This is such a good ground zero. That's more than I've hoped for in life ever. 'Cause that's a really lovely place waking up to every morning.

35:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have other projects going on. You have a company called Yes Ma'am Productions.

35:24
Amanda Collin
Yes, Ma'am.

35:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is that about, Amanda?

35:29
Amanda Collin
Well, in this letting go of everything you ever believed in, stuff started coming out of me, right? And so I teamed up with an acting friend of mine, Marie. It was almost like a movie knocked on the back of our heads, you know? So we started writing and we just had so much fun writing on post-its and we started writing scenes.

35:54
Amanda Collin
And so we just — we'd been spending a year writing, and then we were like, hold on a second. Does your cycle affect the way that we talk about this movie? And it really does, right? So we ditched the movie writing for a little bit and we made this sticker and a poster and everything called The Creative Cycle Wheel, which is basically for creative women to start noticing the highs and the lows of their creativity.

36:23
Amanda Collin
And that you definitely have a high point, like I have a high point today. You must notice how much I'm talking. And then I'm in my inner spring. Lots of people are talking about this right now, women's cycle and that it's a game changer to start living from it. We had fun making this sticker and this poster and everything and combining it with your creative cycle.

36:49
Amanda Collin
Because actually, your creativity changes also in terms of when you plan meetings or when you put things out there and when you really reach out to people and when you are in a more receiving mode and when you're more open to not choosing, not planning, but flowing along with the river receiving.

37:13
Amanda Collin
And then if you don't have a deadline or whatever, someone random on the street might give you the book that you didn't know you were looking for, or a conversation with the bus driver or whatever might be just that first opening line for the play, you know.

37:31
Amanda Collin
I think we keep going back to the inner changes, the outer changes. People seem to be scared of changes. Changes are terrifying. But we change all the time. We change every day. The seasons change and the more you can accept change and just let things go, the happier you are.

37:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And my final question for you is, Amanda, what are your dreams for the future? What do you still want to achieve?

38:07
Amanda Collin
I don't want to achieve anything. I have two healthy children. I'm so happy. I'm so grateful that I have a beautiful family and I have love around me. And I can touch my husband's cheek whenever I want to, and other parts as well.

38:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Okay, great.

38:28
Amanda Collin
And I get to work with great people. It's funny because it's something that people often talk about, what's your five year plan or what are your goals or ambition, right? What's ambition? And I can try sometimes to be, Oh my God, it would be so amazing to do a film with so-and-so.

38:51
Amanda Collin
But what if it were a shit experience? And that's all you wanted in life. That's such a stupid thing to want for yourself, right? To really want to work with someone, and then that someone turns out to be a complete asshole. So it wasn't meant for you. So no, I'm really taking whatever comes.

39:16
Amanda Collin
And I love acting so much, so every time I'm done with a movie, I really hope I get to do another one. But nothing's for certain, right? Nothing's for sure. You can't really count on those things. So, yeah.

39:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You'll go wherever the circle takes you.

39:29
Amanda Collin
Exactly! Tina, life is cyclical, right? Oh my god. Yes.

39:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Alright, Amanda, thank you so much for being part of Danish Originals. We really appreciate that you were part of it.

39:44
Amanda Collin
No, thank you for allowing me to be a part of this great line of great Danes.

39:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you!

39:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Amanda Collin chose Anne Marie Carl Nielsen's En dame på sin yndlingshest. Frederikke Lørup, f. Helms, or A Lady Mounted on Her Favourite Horse from 1897–1901 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.