The Killing star Sofie Gråbøl plays queen at Edinburgh festival
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Version 0 of 1. Sofie Gråbøl, star of The Killing, is breaking the mould. This year, she said, she is deliberately playing the part of two powerful women who have much more direct control of other people than the character which made her famous in Britain, the Danish police detective Sarah Lund. "This is definitely the year for authority for me because I am playing a queen in Rona Munro's James plays here and a governor in a new thriller for television called Fortitude," she said. "This is actually new to me because, although I have played lots of different roles in my career, I haven't played powerful people for some reason." The 45-year-old actress arrived in Edinburgh this weekend ready to play the medieval Scottish Queen Margaret, a Dane by birth, in a trilogy of royal plays at the centre of the city's grown-up International Festival, which starts on Friday. She knows that in Britain she is closely identified with the role of Lund and that some of her audience may find it hard to see her in a new light. "One of the privileges the actors in The Killing had was that over here nobody knew any of us so we could become our characters in a way you can only do once. It was a gift we got. People really thought I was Lund and some were disappointed when they saw other actors from the series appearing later in Borgen!" Has the huge international success of her portrayal of Lund made it easier for her to imagine the public scrutiny that a queen must suffer? "No," Gråbøl said, "I am not famous in Britain in the way that Lund is famous. In Denmark I am famous as me, but I still don't compare that with being a queen. And one of the beauties of the way that Rona has written the part is that although, yes, Margaret is a queen that is not the focus. It is a story about a woman finding her place in life, so the play speaks to you even though you are not a queen." Her second big role for Gråbøl in 2014, following the year she was forced to take off from work to undergo treatment for breast cancer, is in the thriller she has made for Sky Atlantic alongside a stellar cast, including Michael Gambon and American Stanley Tucci. "I was attracted to the role in Fortitude because it has a very unusual setting. It is another thriller, but it takes place in a world of its own. And it has so many good people in it." Working in London for five months on the new television thriller and then rehearsing intensively with the chiefly Scottish cast of Munro's stage play, Gråbøl believes she has seen a contrast between the mentality of the Scots and the English. "I am no expert, but there are some clear cultural differences. The Scottish I think are a very social people and when they eat for example they have this need to share their food. I have the impression it is a symptom of this strong group energy the Scots have and I feel it among these actors. They are not solo players. They are telling the story together and it has been like plunging into a very big embrace. Gråbøl will be in her first English-speaking role on stage when the curtain goes up on her play, the final in the trilogy, next week on 10 August. She will not be attempting a Scottish accent she said. "I had hoped more of a Scottish sound would have rubbed off on me during rehearsal but it hasn't. In fact the director decided we should not put my efforts into the accent and anyway someone told me that in the Scottish court of that time they would have spoken German anyway! "And Munro uses the fact that Margaret was a foreigner and a stranger so much in the play that I hope my voice just strengthens that." The actress said that when she read the script she heard the dialogue in English voices in her head and was shocked at the first read-through to hear the cast members' accents. "Oh my god, I thought, it is in Scottish," Gråbøl recalled. Arriving in Edinburgh this weekend from her Copenhagen home she was delighted when her taxi driver had the same accent as her co-star, Jamie Sivie, who plays King James in Munro's James III: A True Mirror, a collaboration between the National Theatre of Scotland. The Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain that will be seen in London after its Edinburgh run this month at the Festival Theatre. The actress is not sure what role she will take next but knows that it will be back in Copenhagen. "I have two children in Denmark so I have been going home at every opportunity." Her daughter Gudrun and son Bror are 10 and 13 and live with her and with her ex-husband the film director Jacob Thuesen. Apart from the necessary separation from her children, Gråbøl said she has welcomed working abroad for the first time this year, particularly after facing a serious illness last year. "Challenges awaken you and when you travel you can't use any of your routines anymore. You notice thing you would never notice at home and it gives you a freedom to explore. You don't know what to expect from other people or from yourself really." Steeped in her tight-knit medieval world at the theatre, Gråbøl suspects she will have little time for sightseeing but she is planning a trip to neighbouring Stirling Castle, the former home of the other regal Danish visitor she is about to play on stage. |