00:04
Conny Nielsen
I react to a piece of art, physically almost, being in front of it.

00:10
Connie Nielsen
The thing that speaks to you is not necessarily something that you're conscious of. I'm conscious of the fact that I have an almost physical relaxation because something is speaking to me. And I feel a kind of relief. And I think that's the same thing that people feel when they watch a movie that is speaking to them.

00:30
Connie Nielsen
There is a relief in feeling seen. You're speaking to something that's keeping me up at night. You're speaking to something that's disturbing my peace, the peace in my heart. And thank you for not letting me be alone with this thought or this problem.

00:51
Connie Nielsen
And I think that's what it's like, even in a completely abstract piece. There is something in there, that attention in shape or in colors, between colors, or of light and shadow, of structure. Oftentimes, I would prefer not to try to analyze why, but to allow myself to be swept into that experience.

01:29
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.

01:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today our guest is Connie Nielsen, a Danish actor. Welcome, Connie.

01:53
Connie Nielsen
Hej, Tina!

01:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's very lovely to have you here. Connie, we speak to you remotely. You live in San Francisco, but you are in Copenhagen right now doing promotion for Gladiator II. Does it come completely naturally to you to speak Danish while in Denmark? And do you feel you blend in immediately in Denmark?

02:13
Connie Nielsen
Absolutely. And it completely feels natural for me to speak in Danish. Nothing's really changed for me in terms of my experience of my Danishness, despite having lived outside of Denmark since I was 18. So I haven't lost any of that. I still feel deeply connected to the land here, the nature here, and the culture and history that is here.

02:44
Connie Nielsen
I feel almost like a Roman, in the sense that I feel very connected to my forebears. I feel connected to my mother, my grandmother, great grandmother, and great great grandmother. I saw on a DNA profile some time ago that my DNA is in all these Viking graves all over the place. And that kind of really brought home to me, the actual genetic experience of being from a place.

03:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
We talk to you at a time when you can be seen on the big screen in Ridley Scott's Gladiator II. You became a star with the first Gladiator, which came out in 2000, which is more than 20 years ago. Seeing things in perspective, what would you say that the first Gladiator film meant for you and your career as a Hollywood actress?

03:40
Connie Nielsen
I think what was really amazing is that the universe that Ridley created with Gladiator (I) made it so that the relationships that people had with Lucilla at the time, really carried over throughout the past 25 years, and allowed me to live a life outside of the screen and still come back again and again, after each child, and after each family decision, to continue to return to a career again and again.

04:20
Connie Nielsen
And I do credit Gladiator (I) with giving me this incredible gift throughout these past 25 years, to just be able to maintain work even when I often took a big timeout with work.

04:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You landed in New York from Milan just a few years before you had your big breakthrough with Gladiator. It came after you did The Devil's Advocate with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves. Talk about these first years in New York, which were not completely easy, and how you paved the way to get someone like Ridley Scott's attention.

05:01
Connie Nielsen
So I actually can't really take credit for that, because Ridley cared not about The Devil's Advocate or anything like that. He actually spoke on stage last week about how he cast me. Now he hugely simplified the process by sustaining on stage that I was basically cast the minute he saw a video that was sent to him by the casting director called Louis DiGiaimo.

05:30
Connie Nielsen
And I remember very well. I'm a really bad casting person. I do terrible reads and stuff like that. I'm not good at casting at all. But in that particular video, I remembered that the role and the film had kind of transported me. And that particular casting director, Louis DiGiaimo, made me feel very safe in that environment.

05:56
Connie Nielsen
That, you know, a gray office and a gray office chair, allowed me to enter into my imagination fully. And so I did that scene for a completely different film, that, by the way, was never made. And when Ridley was casting Lucilla, he really just had received that tape that Louis said, take a look at this girl. And on stage last week in London, Ridley told the audience and me that he had basically cast me off of that tape immediately and decided that I was Lucilla.

06:34
Connie Nielsen
But really what I remember then is that actually I was told to interrupt my family vacation, fly to London, sit down with Ridley for a meeting, during which I was really kind of annoyed, because I had to interrupt my family vacation and because he asked me about the role of women in Hollywood and what my experience thus far was. I was so irritated already with the way women were being treated in Hollywood that I kind of was blunt and as frank about this particular subject matter as I have always been.

07:12
Connie Nielsen
And I walked out of that meeting thinking quite sincerely that there was just no way this guy was ever going to hire me. Because who wants to hire someone like me who's just sitting there and being a brat? And then he actually had to, I think, fight for me with the studio, because I was relatively unknown. And not only that, Ridley was casting the two main male actors who were also just barely, not even, they had not broken through yet.

07:40
Connie Nielsen
There were promising young actors, but they had not really, they were certainly not stars yet. And so they were betting, I think at the time, the budget was $130 million or something like that. And they were betting a huge budget on two already relatively unknown people. And so here was a third one that they really, really did not know.

08:03
Connie Nielsen
And so I had to do a self tape while I was shooting another film in Canada. I then had to go and do a taping in Ridley's studio. Then, I had to fly and screen test in London among, I think, at least four other women. And I know a lot of people that were being screen tested that day, including Joaquin Phoenix for his role.

08:31
Connie Nielsen
And then I had to fly back out to Los Angeles and sit down with some of the producers from DreamWorks to tell them everything that I saw in the role and what I saw in the Roman Empire. So it was a huge process. But in Ridley's mind, I was cast the day he saw that videotape that Louis DiGiaimo had sent him.

08:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And he put you through all that anyway.

08:54
Connie Nielsen
Yes.

08:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Well, What were your first years like in New York, Connie? And what made you make the step to move from Europe to the US?

09:03
Connie Nielsen
I had been trying. I started when I was 15, in Denmark, doing political revue and variety shows, that is a very old tradition here in Denmark. And I went on stage with my mom, who was the star of the show. My grandmother made the costumes. My godfather was the director of the show. And the local newspaper editor was sort of the godfather of the whole thing, and had restarted the Frederikshavn Møllerevy. And that was where I started.

09:32
Connie Nielsen
And then I went to Paris because I desperately wanted to be an actor. And to me, it was very clear, in 1981, that if I wanted to become an actor, I had to do it in Paris, because that's where all the good films were being made. And my grandmother's cousin lived in Paris, and so I could live there with him and his family. And that was the story in Paris.

09:57
Connie Nielsen
Then I really realized that the way I looked was very clearly impacting how filmmakers saw me. And it wasn't until I sat down with an American director that I really admired, who was casting a film, a comedy he was doing in Paris. He said to me, you know, I got to tell you, I really think you're talented, you really should go and work in America. I think we'll take you seriously. I mean, he quite literally said that.

10:32
Connie Nielsen
I kind of loved my life in Italy, like I loved it. I discovered this concept of family that I thought was so beautiful. And then I was a mom, a very young mom. And at the same time though, every time I finish a film, that's it, there's nothing on the horizon. For a lot of European actors, the fact is that to actually make a living off of it, and that by the way, it's true in America too, you have to get to a point where the one job leads to the next one.

11:08
Connie Nielsen
And instead it was like, it starts, stops, starts, stops, starts, stops. And I felt like I kept hearing those words from the director saying, go to America. I was like, well, if I don't get my career to a place where— So finally, I took my little kid and I just was like, it's probably at this age, I was 31 and 1/2. And I was like, it's probably now or never. And so I decided I had this much money in the bank, I was going to use my savings to go and try for six months.

11:43
Connie Nielsen
And I literally arrived in August of 1996 and put my son into a private Italian school to do second grade. And I was offered, almost immediately, a TV series and also an action movie. And I turned them down because I said, that's not why I'm here. And then I went to a casting for The Devil's Advocate. And I quite literally was shooting my first scene on a rooftop of Park Avenue, the most expensive shot of the film, where they'd lit up the entire Central Park so that it would be visible in the background.

12:26
Connie Nielsen
And my first scene that day, and that was in, I think, October, was with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves. And it was a chance that I wasn't given. I was assumed to be some kind of sex pot because I was tall and blonde, whereas I'm actually a nerd and a bookworm and I really actually take myself, not myself seriously, but I take the world seriously and I take my art seriously. And that was the experience for me of America where they give you a chance.

13:04
Connie Nielsen
And so being given that opportunity was really all I needed. Just give me a chance. And I got that chance. And I'm so grateful for that, so grateful for that. And that was the first years. And then I did a lot of — it was about building little step by step. Then it was Ben Stiller. It was Soldier with the guy who'd done Unforgiven. It was like I was seeing how I was building on this. And that's when two and a half years later, Ridley came calling.

13:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And Connie, I've read that you don't like watching your movies, and it's partly because of this Danish humility that's ingrained in you. How do you keep that humility in a world where you're surrounded by Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves, all the biggest, you know, Joaquin Phoenix, Russell Crowe? How do you keep grounded and keep that humility?

14:02
Connie Nielsen
I don't see it like that. I think the process is everything to me. The process of making a film is everything to me. I so love acting and storytelling. I can't even describe the absolute joy it is for me to prepare a role and build this person and find her vibration, how her voice sounds, what kind of energy emanates from within her and what motivates her. And where is her wound?

14:38
Connie Nielsen
And that kind of detective work, the psychological and emotional detective work, and then at the same time how that has to vibe with the structure of the film, when to show what, it's so delicate and so intricate and beautiful and nuanced, and I love that.

15:00
Connie Nielsen
I love collaborating. I love working with other actors and with directors. And I feel in the big films, it's like you're serving that big sort of audience, as much as you're serving the vision of the director. And in the small films, it's like, I'm putting myself at the service of the vision of the director.

15:24
Connie Nielsen
And in the films that I write and produce myself, it's about what are my own reflections on the world and what are the things that I feel the need to talk about. And so I love all of that. I'm not in love with this idea that any person holds any more power or worth than any other person. I find that that is almost physically ingrained in me.

15:58
Connie Nielsen
I am pretty sure it's genetic. You know, the Vikings? Even though they had the høvding, the sort of leader of the clans, or the kings, as they later came to be called, they were still extremely egalitarian. And I do think that when we went into the whole Middle Ages, and this whole idea of the King God kind of subverted that egalitarianism, and then came out again with the advent of democracy, and of course, Enlightenment. I just feel that is a physical principle that I can't change that.

16:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You use your fame and the access that you have to the public by sharing your view of the world with people. How important is this to you and how important is it that you can create projects like the Human Needs Project in Kibera and Nairobi, for instance, that your fame is useful in that way?

17:06
Connie Nielsen
Well, I mean, that was a really difficult sort of thing to do for me. Especially in the beginning, I felt embarrassed to go out and use it, even though it was in service of that. I felt that the idea of the Human Needs Project, the idea that poverty is a very manageable problem. You give and put at the fingertips of people a handful of systemically integrated services that together work to provide the individual with access to opportunity.

17:47
Connie Nielsen
It's that simple. I felt that that idea alone, which is really based off of the Danish approach to ensuring that every citizen has access to opportunity through education, and through skills making, skills creation, and understanding of the process of work and career. Those were such simple notions that I felt that the idea had to stand on its own.

18:18
Connie Nielsen
Then you have to become pragmatic and realize that anything that we can do to provide the money, to provide that access to clean water, to education, to sanitation, to dignified access to services. Yeah, I will, I'll do it. If I have to stand with 17 people I don't know and take a picture, they think of me as a movie star, even though I don't, whatever it takes to spread the message, I'll do it.

18:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And speaking of Nairobi, you were recently back in Denmark playing Karen Blixen or Isak Dinesen as we know her internationally. And the reason why I mentioned that in connection with Nairobi is that she lived there for a while. You play her in a TV series called Drømmeren (The Dreamer) and it focuses on her creative life. What did you learn about being a female artist from playing this iconic and legendary female writer, who is very much one of a kind?

19:27
Connie Nielsen
I actually had the idea myself, the concept. I wrote the concept for the series. After a day of press spent at the museum outside of Copenhagen, the Karen Blixen Museum, where we were hosting, by chance, the press conference for another miniseries I'd made, because it was in Africa, even though it was about neocolonialism through NGOs, we hosted it out there.

19:53
Connie Nielsen
And I had an experience while I was out there. And that was, I was actually trying to leave out a side door to get home, when a painting caught my eye. And I stopped and went back inside and went over to the painting. And it was not a painting, it was actually a drawing, a very extremely well executed drawing of a classical bust. And I have this thing with classical stuff. I'm just a, I'm a sucker for it.

20:23
Connie Nielsen
And as I'm standing there, the museum director sort of ambushed me a little bit and said, you know, that was painted by Karen when she was 17. And she said, in fact, all of the paintings in here were painted by her. And I was astounded because they really were kind of creatively powerful. And she said, you know, no one knows that, she didn't become a writer until she was basically 46. And this happened after she basically tried to commit suicide because she had to leave Africa.

21:02
Connie Nielsen
And I'm in the car going back home with my fellow producer, Karoline Leth. And I just tell her, did you know that Karen didn't become a writer until she was 46, that she had tried to commit suicide? And she's like, no way, I said. And we looked at each other, and she's like, right? And I was like, yeah. And so she said, well, write me a treatment. And so I wrote a three-page treatment, and I gave it to her.

21:30
Connie Nielsen
And two years later, we were shooting it. And why did I want to write it the way I wrote it? It was because the thing that sparked my curiosity was, here is one of the most iconic women in the last hundred years, and the only thing that we know about her, other than that she was a famous writer, is that she had this famous romantic love story in this colonial setting that was very exotic for people back in the '50s and '60s, and so they elevated her, and it was this romantic story.

22:05
Connie Nielsen
And we do this again and again to female artists. Or the female writer, or the female painter, whatever it is. It's that thing that goes back to the fact that women are body, women are flesh, men are spirit, mind. And we have to stop, or at least be aware of that. And so what I really set out to do in my treatment was, I want to see what are the key issues in her life that she was trying to solve with her art?

22:44
Connie Nielsen
What were the moments à clés that she used even in the way that she created these portraits of characters in her stories that were helping her deal with whatever trauma or problem she was dealing with in real life? And in doing that, we wanted to really not just show what she was dealing with in her life, which was a fight to the death, quite literally, for her right to live with dignity, and therefore create her own income and not be hidden away in some room in her mother's house.

23:29
Connie Nielsen
What was the process by which her brain was working? That was what we wanted to show. And that is what I'm proud to say we did. And that was through incredible work by our team, which was an incredible writer, Dunja Gry, an incredible director, Jeannete Nordahl, and the incomparable production leadership of Karoline Leth and Marie Gade.

23:55
Connie Nielsen
And that is what I want to continue to try to do, to explore and free female historical characters from the body, unless, of course, the body is the point that they're trying to make, because that too, in my opinion, is a way of fighting for the freedom of women's bodies.

24:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And Connie, you mentioned art. Who is your favorite artist of all time? And what is your favorite painting, if you can pick one?

24:29
Connie Nielsen
I can't really remember the artist's name right now, but there is this extraordinary painting of a woman holding the harvest in her hand. And it's obviously, you know, using goddess allusion to Demeter and all of these classical allusions.

24:49
Connie Nielsen
There is this absolute serenity in this extremely strong body holding these sheaths of grain, of wheat. And the physical strength and this latent sort of creator, energy, strength in her is astonishing. I think it's hanging in Glyptoteket, and it's a beautiful piece of art from the Danish Golden Age.

25:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And what does art have to contain for it to have an impression on you, for it to speak to your soul? What does a painting have to have?

25:33
Conny Nielsen
So, there's always tension. And that's whether you're looking at a piece of work by Francis Bacon or William Blake. You take any of the artists that speak to me, and there are many. It would be too much of a thing to go in on now, because it's a huge question you just asked me.

25:55
Conny Nielsen
I take my sons every other year to the Biennale. We do not come home here without going to at least three museums here in Denmark every year. And I love going to see art just about anywhere. It's quite literally food for the soul. So, physically and viscerally for me.

26:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And final question to you, which is a simple one, since we started out speaking about you feeling completely at home in Denmark and with the Danish language. I wanted to ask you, how are you still Danish? And what is your favorite Danish word that comes to mind when we talk now?

26:36
Connie Nielsen
There's so many words. To pick one is not possible. I love the sort of way in which words, too, in their structure, create tension and release tension. There's a special cadence in Danish poetry that gives me immense joy. And it's soul-calming to sit and read out loud. And I love doing that.

27:10
Connie Nielsen
I wouldn't want to focus on a word. There would be a different word for every minute you ask me. That is not productive. What I love about being Danish is an understanding of an almost physical relationship to land, a physical relationship almost to nature, and which I profoundly experience when I walk out into nature here.

27:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate you being part of Danish Originals, Connie.

27:45
Connie Nielsen
Thank you.

27:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Connie Nielsen talks about what she looks for in art.