Happy Birthday Suit: Lena Olin

 Lena Olin turns 57 today.  The Swede is the daughter of Actress Britta Holmberg and director Stig Olin.  Not only did she study at Sweden’s National Academy of Dramatic Art, but she was crowned Miss Scandinavia in 1975.  Before acting with Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theatre and in small parts with film director Ingmar Bergman (Face to Face, Fanny and Alexander, among others), she worked as a substitute teacher and nurse.  After an extensive period in Swedish film, she crossed over to American network TV in Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story about a Swedish diplomat played by Richard Chamberlain involved in saving Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust.

Unbearably Bareable

However, her major American feature debut was as Sabina in the international romance-drama based on Milan Kundera’s classic Czech novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  She starred along Irishman Daniel Day-Lewis and French woman Juliette Binoche.  A critical success, it led to her Oscar-nominated role as the sexy lover of a Holocaust survivor in Enemies, a Love Story.  Cast as the romantic interest in Robert Redford/Sydney Pollack’s first project since Best Picture winner Out of Africa, her career prospects were boundless.  Unfortunately, Havana (the Cuban-set movie filmed in the Dominican Republic and Florida) was an infamous bomb. 

Even with her memorable turn as a Russian mob assassin in Romeo Is Bleeding, Hollywood wouldn’t give her very many more chances.  Her forgettable romance with Richard Gere in Mr. Jones wouldn’t improve matters.  Still respected, she managed to work with Sidney Lumet as well as Roman Polanski in the underrated and delightfully kooky The Ninth Gate, where she plays a vampire opposite Johnny Depp.  She even got the opportunity to work opposite fellow Swede (and husband) Lasse Hallström in the BP-nominated Chocolat, also with Depp and Binoche. 

SPOILER ALERT.  Modern audiences will best know her as Irina Derevko, Sydney Bristow’s mother on Alias.  More recently, she was impressively double-cast in the Holocaust drama The Reader and guest-starred on Law & Order: SVU.  She’s currently working with her husband again on a Swedish production The Hypnotist.  With Hallström, she has one daughter, as well as a son from a previous relationship.  She is not be confused with American filmmaker Lisa Ohlin who is shopping her film Simon & the Oaks around film festivals right now.  

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