00:02
Maria Sten
I picked the painting Museum from 2002, by Nina Sten-Knudsen, who happens to be my mother. The canvas is so big. The spice jars, the alleys. The way that the light comes up from the top, the way that the light falls into these buildings, you really feel like you are walking into a world.

00:27
Maria Sten
You want to know what's behind this beam, what's behind this wall. I get Aladdin vibes randomly, Akbar, you can smell it, you can see the dust hanging in the air. I feel like an explorer, like an anthropologist or archaeologist diving into a pyramid or something and looking through these collections of things of old. So it's like you're, yeah, going into a world.

00:56
Maria Sten
As an artist myself, and telling stories and building worlds, that is something that I really respond to.

01:08
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've made a significant mark in the US.

01:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today, our guest is Maria Sten, a Danish actor, writer, producer, and dancer. Welcome, Maria.

01:33
Maria Sten
Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

01:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's our pleasure. So you just spent a few days in Los Angeles where we're talking to you right now, but you don't live here anymore at the moment.

01:46
Maria Sten
That's true. I spent nine years here and then I decided I wanted to move back to New York which is where I first came when I came off the boat so to speak. I moved to New York when I was 18 to be a dancer and then transitioned my way westward and ended up in LA, was doing the acting and writing thing for a while. And then when the pandemic happened, I thought it was time to see something else.

02:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And Maria, I wanted to be nosy and ask you what you were doing here these past few days.

02:19
Maria Sten
I was taking meetings. I recently changed management companies. So I was meeting up with my new team. We were strategizing for a couple of projects that I have in development. And meeting with some casting directors, meeting with some producers, talking about what we would like to do together.

02:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
All very productive and creative stuff.

02:41
Maria Sten
Very productive. Very busy. It's been a busy couple of months for me.

02:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And, as you said, the whole adventure in the US started a long time ago. You came to New York when you were 18 years old to become a dancer. What made you decide to move across the pond?

02:58
Maria Sten
I always had a longing to go elsewhere. Denmark, as so many people know, is a very small country. But I also do think for me, growing up as a mixed kid in Denmark, I did not see myself reflected in the landscape much. And I always felt that New York is such a melting pot.

03:16
Maria Sten
I initially was going to move to London to do musical theater, but then ended up in New York, and I did feel that there was more opportunity for me. Of course, you make it much, much harder for yourself because the competition is much harder, but I just felt like there wasn't even a space for me to operate in Denmark, which I know is, thankfully, hopefully, that's changing now. But that was probably the main reason, yeah.

03:41
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And when you say you're a mixed kid, it's because your mom is Danish and your dad is from Congo.

03:46
Maria Sten
Indeed.

03:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Would you talk a little bit about that? How did your parents meet and it's exciting having a dad from Congo. What's your relationship to Congo?

03:55
Maria Sten
Not so much. I grew up with my mother. My mother is a painter and quite known in Denmark. My father, also, is an artist. And I believe that's how they met. But I grew up with my mother and my sister, who's a writer and poet in Denmark. My family is my mother and my sister, that's who I grew up with. So my relationship to Congo has always been quite obscure.

04:20
Maria Sten
But of course, when you do grow up in Denmark and you don't look like anyone else, you definitely are made aware of the fact that you are an "other." Even though my family is my family, of course. But it does give you a different experience in terms of just, like, how you feel or don't feel that you belong in a place.

04:45
Maria Sten
And I consider myself Danish, especially being over here. I'm definitely Danish, but at the same time, when I go back to Denmark, I do feel that there's something about Denmark that makes me feel like I also have to be somewhere else. I don't know that I could live in Denmark full time and do the Danish lifestyle, so to speak.

05:11
Maria Sten
But I do think that it isn't necessarily just about race and belonging. I think that it also has to do with just lifestyle and mentality and the arts. I think you have so many more opportunities over here, and if you are able to make it, so to speak, this is, of course, where you want to be.

05:30
Maria Sten
I miss my family, and there are so many great artists in Denmark, so I think it would be nice to be able to go back to my roots a little bit. But yeah, it's a very complicated thing, identity. It's complicated to figure out where you belong, where you can thrive, most of the time, I think.

05:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you feel at home in the US?

05:52
Maria Sten
Yeah, for the most part, yeah. New York is probably the place that I feel like I can belong. But I also don't feel American at all.

06:01
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
But you are, right? I mean, you have an American passport?

06:04
Maria Sten
I just became a citizen, a year ago? Two years ago?

06:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I became a citizen two years ago, so I know how that feels.

06:09
Maria Sten
Congratulations! Yeah, and I did it only in order to vote, basically. That was the only reason why I felt that I needed to become a citizen. It's crazy what's going on over here. I felt that I needed to make my voice heard and I thought, okay, say that I randomly get arrested for something, I can't risk getting deported. So I should probably become a citizen, yeah, not that I have plans on getting arrested anytime soon.

06:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh, we hope not. And the big city is quite famous for being a tough city to survive in. Frank Sinatra saying, "if I can make it here, I'll make it anywhere." And I can imagine being a dancer falls under the category of being a very tough business. How did you survive in New York?

06:52
Maria Sten
I got there when I was 18, and of course I didn't have a work permit, so I worked as a nanny while I was training as a dancer. And then I was going back and forth every three months, every 90 days, basically. And I just worked my ass off. I mean, I don't even know how to explain it.

07:10
Maria Sten
I went back to Denmark, would make a lot of money to save up, and then I would go back to New York and train and meet people and do little random odd jobs here and there. But then, I also randomly went back to Denmark and became Miss Denmark and went to Miss Universe —

07:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Wow!

07:28
Maria Sten
— which helped in terms of building my portfolio and building my visa case in order to stay in the States. So I think being a dancer and a model, or in this case a beauty pageant participant, it was all in order to basically just find a way to stay in the US.

07:46
Maria Sten
And then when I got my first visa, I booked a gig in Atlantic City, at a casino, singing and dancing. But I also, I think, very quickly found out that I did not want to be a dancer for the rest of my life, which is very much par for the course in terms of my life.

08:03
Maria Sten
You know, I've lived a lot of lifetimes, I like to say. I lived a lot of different lives and been a lot of different things and I always wanted to be a dancer. And then when I became a dancer, I was like, oh, I don't think this is it, because it's too hard and you don't get paid any money in terms of the toll it takes on your body. I have so many injuries from my dance days.

08:24
Maria Sten
But I love creative expression. I love self expression. I love being in my body. And of course, now I get to use that all the time as an actor. When I do stunts, when I do anything, as an actor, you have to be in your body all the time.

08:40
Maria Sten
And I did music for a while. While I was dancing, I was producing and writing songs and recording. And also very quickly found out, okay, this is probably not my career. I'm not Beyoncé and I don't like the music industry as a place to operate. And so finally when I found acting, that sort of was where everything came into place. And I was able to use all of my tools within this one career.

09:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you're now in a very popular TV show called Reacher. And you are an accomplished actress already. How did you manage to transition from dancing into acting? How did that opportunity arise for you?

09:24
Maria Sten
I've always been interested in performance in general. I saw Fame, the musical, when I was 13 in London, and I thought, okay, I know what I want to do for the rest of my life. I very much remember sitting at Tate Modern, looking over the Thames and like having this epiphany moment, and that's why I thought I was going to move to London to do musical theater.

09:45
Maria Sten
But then decided musical theater was just too specific. And then it's interesting because now I've gone through the disciplines of musical theater, being a dancer, being a singer, and then going into acting, but separately. And I think that was the way for me to do that, to explore, okay, what is it that really lights my heart on fire?

10:06
Maria Sten
I had moved from New York to Vegas after my show in Atlantic City, because I sort of intuitively knew I wanted to be on the West Coast. Every time I went to LA, things would just start happening. And I had taken an acting class in Copenhagen at Scandinavian Theatre School when I was a teenager. So I had already dabbled a little bit when I was younger, but never committed.

10:34
Maria Sten
When I was living in Vegas, I was very miserable, because I was living in Vegas. And I was having this moment of, okay, what do I want to do with my life now? Because dancing is not it. It pays the bills for now, but it's not it. Dancing and modeling and music is not it.

10:50
Maria Sten
I randomly googled acting classes in Los Angeles and I found one and I drove to LA and audited an acting class and definitely had the same epiphany moment in that acting class and I thought, okay, if I can only do one thing for the rest of my life and it is acting, I'm okay with that.

11:10
Maria Sten
And then I started the journey, so I would literally work in Vegas, dancing and modeling, doing shows and doing runway shows Friday, Saturday, Sunday, like 16 hours a day. And then Monday morning I would drive to LA and take acting class Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday evenings. And then drive back to Vegas every week for a year.

11:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Determination.

11:33
Maria Sten
Yes. And then on the way I would listen to, you know, podcasts about creative screenwriting and acting and — Yeah, I'm a very intense person and I'm very goal oriented, like, I get hyper focused. If I get an idea about something, I'm like a bull with a red flag. I just cannot be dissuaded or anything.

12:00
Maria Sten
I think stubbornness is also a huge part of it. I'm very stubborn. Ask my mother. She knows if there's something that I want to do, I am going to find a way to do it. That's what I did in LA. As a dancer, I can find little random gigs here and there. And as a model, same thing.

12:18
Maria Sten
But as an actor, it's a hard career, because it's not about merit, really. It's not that the best actor necessarily will get the job. It's the actor who's most right for any given job. So it's a very strange way to approach it — the amount of rejection that you get, and especially as someone who is, again, I'm European, but I'm not white European. I'm black, but I'm not African American.

12:46
Maria Sten
So, and then, of course, there's a lot of other things going on. I'm guarded and have a bit of an edge, but I'm also like, silly and goofy. So with casting they had a very difficult time figuring out where to place me. And essentially, I just ended up writing my own stuff and directing and producing shorts because I felt that I could not sit around and wait for the opportunity to come. I can't sit around and wait for the phone to ring.

13:10
Maria Sten
So I started to get active and do my own thing with my friends, go shoot things. And then I started writing pilots, and then that essentially is what got me noticed in the industry, actually, as a writer first. And then I signed with a great team, and then the first audition I got from CAA, which is the biggest agency over here, was the lead in a show, and I booked it.

13:38
Maria Sten
So it's interesting how this journey is roundabout, so that I became a writer first and they were ready to present me to Hollywood as a writer. And then I started becoming a working actor, and then I didn't have to write. But then I had gotten a taste of how much control you have as a writer creatively.

13:57
Maria Sten
And I now feel like, oh, well, I can't not write because I am in charge of the opportunities that are created for people who look like me. So that's why I'm still compelled to write, but I'm an actor first.

14:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So what is it that lights your heart on fire?

14:16
Maria Sten
I think I've always just had a need for expression. I've always had a need to express myself. It's my emotional language. Everything that I'm going through personally, going through a breakup, going through hard times, dealing with family, relationships, for me, writing, acting, telling stories is the way that we can process those things.

14:40
Maria Sten
It's the way that we can feel seen, probably, which is also, I think, a big thing for me, having a need to feel seen and feel like there's a place to belong. And I do feel like movies and TV can do that for us. Yeah, I think it's just coming out of this necessity to express myself and tell stories.

15:00
Maria Sten
I've always been a kid who lived in a fantasyland in my head. I loved Lord of the Rings growing up and I would come up with stories all the time as a kid 'cause we traveled a lot. I've been all over the world and yeah, just living other lives, living in other worlds. It's always been sort of an escapism for me.

15:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You were Miss Denmark in 2008.

15:25
Maria Sten
Indeed.

15:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you were modeling and you were in Vanity Fair and other magazines. What is that part of your career like and is modeling, in your opinion, also a kind of storytelling?

15:38
Maria Sten
That's a good question. I think when I was modeling at the time, it was literally because I could, and I needed money. I needed to find a way to make ends meet, and that was just one of the things. I mean, I was doing everything from random little gigs as a hostess, modeling, dancing, whatever it was.

16:01
Maria Sten
I've even done out here, when I was really broke and struggling, I did something called audience participation. Basically, you're a cute girl, you get paid to go to a game show and sit and look like you're excited about what's happening. Whatever pays the bills, is what I was trying to do at the time.

16:19
Maria Sten
But I think modeling, to me, always felt very superficial, initially. It's just your beauty or your body or your face. There's no personality in it per se. However, I think now, I just did this photo shoot for Vogue Scandinavia with this Canadian photographer and I just love how the photos came out.

16:42
Maria Sten
It's probably one of my favorite shoots I've done and I think they were talking a lot about telling a story with the photos that we were doing and I think you can do that with photos. When you look at photography from an art point of view, I look at photojournalists and I think that that's definitely art. So in a way, you can say in these photos, the subject that is captured, yes, can be part of a story, a part of a creative expression. I guess it would depend on the intention, maybe.

17:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Your mother is a painter, you mentioned her before, Nina Sten-Knudsen.

17:22
Maria Sten
Yes, which is also my name, by the way. I just shortened it. I shortened it because no one could pronounce it over here.

17:30
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And she had your pose for her when you were young. How did that influence you artistically, you think?

17:36
Maria Sten
Probably a lot. I know how to pose because I've done it since I was four years old. She'd put me on a chair and she's like, Stop! Wait there! Okay, wear this scarf! Hold this artichoke! You know, and like, Move! Look at the light! And then she would paint me into her paintings, which is amazing. And I was like, Mom! No, I want to go play! And she's like, Just one more! So I think in a way, I have known how to use my body as a tool as an artistic expression for a long time.

18:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And Amazon's popular series Reacher is based on the Jack Reacher book series by Lee Child. Alan Ritchson plays the titular role. You play Frances Neagley, who is also a retired US Army Master Sergeant. When we meet her, she is a badass who knocks a man out and tells him when a woman says no, she does not want to be touched and you kick him in the balls. Talk about her as a character and having a long time to play the same character.

18:40
Maria Sten
I love her as a character. She's obviously from the books. So there were five books that she's featured in of the 23, I think, of the total Jack Reacher books. I came on to the show quite late in the process, in the first season, so very quickly I had to get her under my skin, so to speak. So I read all the books and that information very much informed my portrayal of her.

19:11
Maria Sten
She is a woman who has some severe trauma in her past. And that is why she does not like to be touched, and why she's quite guarded emotionally. The way that me and my showrunners looked at it when we were creating her, so to speak, was that she's a child in most ways. She has this stunted growth, like she stopped growing emotionally when she was 14 maybe.

19:41
Maria Sten
And so I also think she didn't really have a childhood. So now that she can afford it she just does all the things that she wished she could have done when she was a child, eat cereal and play video games and whatnot. But she has this other part of her, that's the "badassness." And I very much appreciate that we added this texture to her that wasn't just, yeah, she's cool, she's tough, she's a badass.

20:08
Maria Sten
I think we've seen that so much recently because we're trying to create more opportunities for women and women can do what men can do, which is all great. But I think it can be a little reductive sometimes. And I think I like the other side of her, that she has this warmth and she's adorable, you know, she's cute. I think it gives her dimension and it makes her specific and I think it grounds her more.

20:37
Maria Sten
The second season is really Neely's season, so to speak, where she's the one that reaches out to Jack Reacher to go on this mission of the season. And so I got to explore more of her. It is interesting working on a character over a period of time. Now I'm doing the third season so this will be my third year working on this character.

20:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You mentioned that you write yourself, so I can imagine that you have many creative ideas when you're reading the script. How much can you tell the writing team, hey, I think we should do this and that with Reacher, this doesn't seem plausible, or even the other characters, maybe?

21:13
Maria Sten
I think with this particular show, the showrunner knows exactly what he's doing, right? There are certain things where I will throw a flag and say, no, actually, she wouldn't let someone come this close to her. We both have the same understanding of who this character is. And he's a collaborator, which is always lovely. I think the best part of what we do is collaboration.

21:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Your character is also very physical. There's a lot of action for you. Does it help to be a dancer? It's about choreography, right, when you're doing things like that?

21:44
Maria Sten
We have a huge stunt team that works very closely with us because the show has so much action. I train with the stunt team and I also happen to do my own stunts because I have the dance background. And I did kickboxing and I was a gymnast, so I have a kinetic background and I'm able to perform the stunts that are required. And I go in and train with them and we go over choreography over and over and over again. And I'm able to pick that up quite quickly.

22:13
Maria Sten
And a lot of stunt performers often come from a martial arts or dance background. So when they are thinking of sequences, they will take what they know that I am able to do, and try to infuse that into the sequences, so that I can do it myself, which is lovely. Again, great collaboration. We work very closely with them.

22:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm going back a little bit in time. You have a small role in Straight Outta Compton from 2015, a film about a legendary hip hop group. What did you learn from this experience? Your role was not big, but I'm assuming that the set and everything taught you quite a bit.

22:52
Maria Sten
That was really a glorified extra role. I just happened to be on screen a lot. And that particular scene, I was only there one day. But, of course, the fact that it became a huge hit was exciting. A lot of people saw my face and recognized me from that, which was interesting. And I was like, oh, I didn't have any lines, I was just there to be part of the landscape, so to speak.

23:17
Maria Sten
But it's always exciting to be on set, when you are not yet a working actor. I did a bit of background work before I became a working actor. Again, because I was broke and I needed to feed myself. And I would use it as an opportunity to learn, always. What's the director saying? What's the producer doing? What's the cameraman? What are the conversations?

23:42
Maria Sten
I stand close to the camera and I just listen on the conversations that are happening, to learn how to make a movie, or how to make a TV show. What's the director doing? How's the actor preparing? Because I want to make movies. So I always use it as an opportunity to learn how a set is run, and how each person is participating and what their roles are. So I found that very helpful, yeah.

24:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have mentioned being broke quite a few times. And I would like to ask you a little bit about that because that is the reality of starting in this world and creating a name for yourself in the US. There's no way around it. It's a very tough business. Can you talk a little bit about the reality of that and how it's very different from what Danes are used to?

24:31
Maria Sten
Yeah, there's no safety net here. In Denmark, you have a safety net. Here, you do not. And I think I was working as a dancer and I was dancing in nightclubs basically. That was like my main gig out here for quite a few years and that's how I was able to pay my bills and have the freedom to go to auditions during the day, go to acting class.

24:54
Maria Sten
And then I would have these shows all over town, whatever nightclub or big DJ was coming in, we would do these performances. That gave me a lot of flexibility, but it's also very unpredictable. You don't know when you're going to be working, and if you get hurt, you are not working. I tore my trap muscle in my shoulder, and I couldn't work for a week or two, and suddenly I am struggling paying my bills.

25:19
Maria Sten
That's just how it goes, and it is very challenging. And then what happened also is that the work just dried up, there was just less demand for these shows. I was working with a production company that would put on these productions in nightclubs all over town, and there was just less demand for it. So before I maybe was doing like four and five nights a week and then suddenly it was like two nights a week or once a week.

25:48
Maria Sten
That's not a lot of money. So suddenly I'm struggling and I started stressing over how to actually pay my bills. Because it's so inconsistent. And I then decided, okay, I cannot spend all this energy figuring out how to pay my bills. I have to get a regular job. So that I can use my energy, my brain space to focus on creative.

26:17
Maria Sten
So I got a job as a waitress. Which, for me, was a little bit of swallowing my ego in a way. Because I had been a dancer like out here doing my thing. And being a performer, being an artist. And then I had to become just another waitress trying to be an actor.

26:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Waitressing is also an art form, right? It's a role that you're playing.

26:40
Maria Sten
Yeah, I've waitressed since I was 16 and I very much enjoyed it if I had to do a "regular job," that's always what I would come back to, because it's something I can do very easily. But it's just when you are a waitress in LA and trying to be an actor, I don't know why, but so many times people would be like Oh, you're an actor? Of course you are. Good luck.

27:06
Maria Sten
And maybe it's just their own crushed dreams reflected back to you, I don't know. But that happened to me a few times. And so you're like, people don't believe me when I say I have a dream or whatever. But it helped me in terms of, okay, now I know I can pay my bills. I sold my car and I literally was rollerblading from my house to my restaurant, because that's how I got there.

27:33
Maria Sten
And I was able to save money by not having a car for three years, maybe two years. And then I was able to focus on the creative and I was able to have all this free brain space to write, to go to auditions, do the work. Of course I was busy because you have a job, where you pay the bills, and you also have this other job, which is going to auditions, writing. I was writing scripts at the time, and no one's paying you for that. But that's ultimately the position I was in, when I booked my first job, yeah.

28:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And talk a little bit about the things that you've written. Big Sky's one of them, and David E. Kelly's the showrunner of that, right? He's behind Big Little Lies, for instance. He's one of the best in the business. What's it like working with somebody of his caliber? And how involved was he with your writing?

28:26
Maria Sten
He was very involved. I took the job because I wanted to work with David E. Kelly. And it happened to be about a woman of color in Montana. I have a house in Wyoming and ride horses. So I was like, okay, I know this world, I can do this.

28:40
Maria Sten
It's great to get a peek at his process. He has a very specific process because he's written like 4,000 episodes of television. He is the most prolific TV writer you'll find, probably. And he generally will not do a writers' room, he will just write all the episodes himself. So that was also a different experience.

29:01
Maria Sten
And then working for network television versus working for cable television. There are other rules that apply, you have to have commercial breaks, you have to fit a very specific market that that network has. It's always great to work with people who've been doing it for a long time and see how they're approaching the work, how are they realizing, oh, this scene isn't working, I think we need this.

29:25
Maria Sten
Or intuitively realizing, I think we need to skew the story, lean the story in this direction. It was very helpful. I wrote on another show before that that never got made, and then I wrote on this show and it went to production and I got to produce my episodes and you learn so much.

29:47
Maria Sten
The process of getting something from script to screen is really where you learn the stuff. Because you can sit in your little basement and write things all day long, but once you actually put it on screen, then you realize what's working and what isn't. And you have to do a rewrite with 24 hours notice.

30:07
Maria Sten
And it's crunch time. And you have to deliver. And that's how the business works. You're not like, oh, I'm not inspired right now, I'll get back to you next week. It doesn't work that way. You know, there are people waiting for your script, go away for a couple of hours, rewrite it and come back. You learn a lot in terms of how to approach actually getting something made.

30:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you mentioned that David usually works on his own, and this time he had a writers' room. Explain to the listeners who might not know what this is, the process behind writing a TV series. There's a lot of people writing together. Try to explain the process.

30:41
Maria Sten
Yeah. It's quite different. So usually, when we think of screenwriters in movies, it's the one person sitting with his typewriter writing. Over 90% of TV shows are written by writers' rooms. So it's basically anywhere between 4, 5 to 10, 11, 12 people sitting around a table and basically just throwing ideas at the wall, and figuring out, okay, we have eight episodes or ten episodes or 13 episodes.

31:11
Maria Sten
Back in the day, of course, with network television, they had 23 episodes they had to do in one season, which, I don't even know how you can do that. The pilot's usually been written by the person who created the show. Sometimes not, but the person creating the show will usually write the pilot. Then you have to figure out, okay, what happens in the rest of the season? And that is what the writer's room is for.

31:35
Maria Sten
So we all sit and basically just pitch ideas all day long. And then each person is designated a script to go off to write. And then generally you'll send that to the showrunner. The showrunner will maybe rewrite you, maybe give you notes, depending on what kind of showrunner it is and what's needed. And then it'll get sent to the producer and then it gets sent to the studio, etc, etc.

32:00
Maria Sten
So it's a lot of people involved in writing a TV show. It was created that way, I believe, mainly because back in the day you had to make so many episodes and you were also writing while you were shooting. So you're like laying track as the train is coming and that requires a lot of people to be designated different things.

32:26
Maria Sten
So you have a writer who's off writing a script and then you have a writer who's prepping shooting another script and then you have a writer who's giving notes on a cut of another script. Basically in a perfect world, each writer oversees their own episode, so that's why you designate a script to different writers, and then they can go off and oversee their episode while someone else is working on something else, and the showrunner can be in meetings and talk about props and budget problems and dealing with actors, etc.

32:59
Maria Sten
It's a very collaborative process and now of course as television is changing you have more people just writing a whole season of something themselves. But still, most things get written as a room.

33:12
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How do you juggle everything and what are you working on right now?

33:16
Maria Sten
I like to say I have a zero chill. Even as a kid I was doing gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics and riding horses every day and kickboxing and hanging out with friends and sleepovers. Like I just am always engaged.

33:33
Maria Sten
I think I'm very much in a hurry to live, live life. I think that's also true in my work. I'm quite impatient generally, and it's not a good industry to be in if you're an impatient person. So I try to stay busy, but it is also quite challenging to be a full time writer and a full time actor at the same time.

33:56
Maria Sten
I have a team that helps me very much manage my time. My manager is very good at saying, don't write this thing, write that thing right now. And then right now we're on a break on season three right now, so I have time to write. And it's just about prioritizing, always prioritizing what's the project that takes the most priority at any given moment.

34:18
Maria Sten
And of course when I'm filming, it's the thing I'm filming that takes the most priority and then I bring my laptop to set and if I'm there for a long time not doing anything, which often happens when you're on set, then I am able to write. I do love left brain right braining it, and doing both things.

34:35
Maria Sten
But yeah, it's challenging with time. Like the last three, four months I was filming the show, doing press for the last season and also pitching a new pilot that I just wrote that's going around and I'm taking meetings with producers on that. So that was busy. And I definitely am feeling that now, okay, I need to go home and relax and just be at my house and write and go ride some horses and be in my calm space.

35:13
Maria Sten
And I think I've gotten better at trying to find the time to reset and re-energize. I usually travel. I'll go to Mexico or to Southern Africa on horseback safari where I cannot use my cell phone or have WiFi at all. For me, that sort of disconnect from the world helps me also get inspired again and re-energize. But I think I just have this innate need to express, create, do something that makes me useful. And yeah, I'm just wired that way, I think.

35:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm impressed by everything you've achieved so far in your young life.

36:02
Maria Sten
Thank you!

36:064
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I think you are 34 years old, is that correct?

36:05
Maria Sten
Uh hmm.

36:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh wow.

36:06
Maria Sten
Shhh.

36:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That is very young.

36:10
Maria Sten
Oh, thank you. I don't think so, but thank you. I always have this feeling that I'm never doing enough, never doing it fast enough. But that's probably why I'm so busy.

36:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Please. I wanted to ask you, because you are so successful, if you've brought anything, you think, along from Denmark, that is particularly Danish, you know, on the road to success, that you feel is the strength that comes from where you grew up.

36:44
Maria Sten
Well, it's an interesting thing. It's a blessing and a curse, but Jante Law has been limiting in a lot of ways. Like when you are living in Denmark, I think it's very hard to say, yeah, I want to go out and do things because I think that I could be good at it. And people are like, calm down, you're not that special.

37:04
Maria Sten
But over here, of course, it's the polar opposite where everyone in America is, I'm amazing, I'm the best thing you'll ever find, better than sliced bread. So I do think growing up in Denmark and not growing up in a culture or a family dynamic that values beauty, materialism, success for the sake of success, money, all these things, status — that is not why I do what I do.

37:35
Maria Sten
I do what I do because I'm an artist. I know that sounds pretentious, but that's the truth. I do what I do because I have an innate need to express myself. I write poetry for fun. No one's paying me for that. But I do think this groundedness, this being able to not get lost in the clouds, not get lost in La La Land, I think is a Danish quality.

37:57
Maria Sten
In Denmark, beauty is not valued the way that it is here. Materialism can be, but not to the extent that it is here, neither. I have had a certain amount of success, but I also can put on my ripped jeans and my boots and I don't generally wear makeup in my normal life and go off and ride horses and get dirt under my fingernails.

38:19
Maria Sten
That's actually one of the reasons why I moved from LA, because I wanted something different in my life. I just wanted a different quality. I like New York a little bit better. There's more grit to New York. People are a little bit more in your face. And I think that is a Danish quality, staying grounded.

38:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is your favorite Danish word? And why is that your favorite Danish word? And would you spell it for the listeners who do not know Danish?

38:45
Maria Sten
I feel like it's been abused by Americans, but my favorite Danish word is hygge, you know, and now that's not cool anymore because it's been stolen by the international community, but I think hygge is such a Danish thing, to be cozy and comfortable with your family, cuddle up by the fireplace, and togetherness. I translate hygge, h-y-g-g-e, as cozy togetherness, because there is no word for it in English.

39:18
Maria Sten
And I think that is such a Danish quality. Danish families, they come home and they eat dinner together around the dinner table. Not all American families, but a lot of American families will go get themselves food, and then they'll go hang and watch TV or go to their room.

39:35
Maria Sten
I remember coming here as a kid in the '90s with my family, and we saw that with this family that we were staying with, like they don't eat dinner together? That's weird. And of course, again, not all families are like that. It also depends where you are demographically, but that's such a Danish thing.

39:54
Maria Sten
You know, come, we're going to be together as a family. Tell me about your day. How was school? How was work? And I really like that, that quality that we have. Yeah, I feel it's just innately very Danish.

40:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You sound very American when you speak. I mean, you took on the American accent and you have to because you play American characters. Do you think and dream in English or Danish? And if you wake up from a nightmare, do you scream in English or Danish?

40:28
Maria Sten
That's a good question. I think now it's probably more English. I have a pretty good ear for languages. So, you know, I can also do a British accent and we can do this interview in a British accent also. But generally, American is what came naturally to me because I watched a lot of American movies growing up.

40:46
Maria Sten
And I spent a month in Arizona when I was eight and got an ear for it very quickly. And then I had a Pride and Prejudice phase and so I was just speaking with a British accent all the time. But now I do feel that English fills my life more than Danish does. I think in English most of the time.

41:08
Maria Sten
I also majored in English in school and I write in English. All my friends I speak to in English. I only speak Danish with my family. And it's scary to feel like you're losing your language a little bit. But it's also because Danish is a smaller language than English. There are not as many words.

41:26
Maria Sten
And because I'm a writer, I'm very specific. So, if I'm looking for a specific meaning of something, there's one Danish word for it, but then there'll be seven synonyms for it in English. And one of those synonyms will be more specific to what I'm actually meaning. And I think that's why often I will find myself speaking danglish, as we call it, because there are certain words that are just more specific to the meaning that I'm intending.

41:54
Maria Sten
But yeah, I try to remember my Danish. I find myself like, oh, I should probably read a Danish book just to remind myself. But of course I still speak fluent Danish, obviously. But it is weird to feel yourself thinking in another language. But then there are also times when I'm really tired. Sometimes if I'm just coming out of sleep, I have had moments where I will speak in Danish and not know that I'm speaking in Danish.

42:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So the nightmare scenario would be Danish.

42:26
Maria Sten
Maybe, maybe sometimes yeah.

42:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So my last question for you is, you're still very young so it might be impossible to answer. But do you see yourself staying in the US, do you have other adventures planned, countries you want to explore, other career paths that you want to explore? You've already shown that you have quite a lot of talent, so you might decide to do something completely else.

42:54
Maria Sten
Thank you. Yeah, I've thought about it. I think the thing that I probably would do if I wasn't working in Hollywood is that I'd be a cowboy and I'd wrangle horses in Wyoming and that's down the street from my house. So that isn't too far fetched.

43:08
Maria Sten
But I do love telling stories and I think if anything, I just want to expand what my roles are. So now I'm an actor, writer, producer on certain things. I'd like to direct at some point. I'd like to produce other people's stuff, eventually start a production company, building a platform and building a space where I can go make cool shit with my friends. I want to go make cool shit with my friends. So that was always my intention.

43:36
Maria Sten
But with what's going on in America right now, and the quality of life for most people in America, it's becoming very difficult for the average person to afford living in America. And sometimes, when I start thinking about family and all that, raising children, I think about my childhood in Denmark and I think maybe it would be nice to live in Denmark for a little while to raise some kids.

44:01
Maria Sten
I don't yet know. I like to make it up as I go also. But it is something that I think about. I do have a hard time being in one place for a long time. Right now I'm between New York and Wyoming and then LA also, and then I film in Canada. So I'm always hopping around and I think my challenge is always to find a place to stay grounded, rooted, and find a proper base. Right now I think I know what I'll be doing. Maybe I'll get a new idea in five years.

44:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you, Maria. It has been a pleasure talking to you, and we wish you good luck with everything. I'm sure you'll succeed in everything you do, actually.

44:44
Maria Sten
Thank you so much. Very good talking to you. I appreciate it.

44:51
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Maria Sten chose Nina Sten-Knudsen's Museum from 2002 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.