In Conversation with Birgitte Hjort Sørensen

Thank you Monique, hello everyone. Yes, fantastic to have you here and such an honour to have you on this stage. Now we have about 30 minutes, 35 maybe, and we have so many interesting areas that we could discuss, but let's start at the very beginning because, you know, now it's obvious that you are this big star that you are, but how did it begin? How did you know that you could act, that this was something you had in you? When I was about 19, I had finished high school and I didn't really know what to do. And so I stumbled upon this sort of pre-drama school course that was an initiative between a theatre, local theatre, and the community there. So basically it gave people from 18 to 23 who were contemplating. Having a career on stage. The opportunity to pursue it, meaning we had lessons, we had instructions in singing, dancing and acting from professionals during six months and then at the end of this course we did a professional production. So everybody, the instructor, the choreographer, the band, everybody else was professional, but it was the students on stage. And that for me really, first of all, made it clear to me that I really like this, I like the whole process. But also. The inspiration from the teachers, from the instructors, that this was something I could do. And I remember going into one of these evaluation sessions with the teachers and one of them said, you know you have the presence that could kill a horse. And that's the sort of thing that's really, you know, okay so I'm not completely crazy in thinking about this. That's a very nice, strange compliment to get. To kick start a whole career. And in the beginning you were also singing and dancing and acting as well, right? So you've been doing that on different kinds of stages as well. Yes. So if you think about the acting as a profession, what is the most important part for you? I mean where do you focus, where is your skill, what do you do after all these years that you see you had to learn to be able to do it? So in its essence it's about trying to understand the character. So basically trying to understand how other people think and act and do. And then. And then projecting it through yourself. If I were this person, how might I do? And then really it's so much about being present. There is a whole thing about preparation and reading the script and understanding the context and all of that. But ultimately what people connect to is actors who are present in the moment. And how, I mean how are you present in the moment? Because it's easily said but I think a lot of people, if you put them on a stage or in front of a camera. They're very certain. They're very self aware. Yeah. And that's natural. And I think that's important to say that it's incredibly natural and normal for everybody to get that sort of tension in your body when you are in front of a camera, in front of a crowd. I think it's, you know, prehistoric I was going to say. A very, very simple brain that feels in danger basically. When you feel eyes staring at you. You don't know if it's a pack of animals coming to eat you. And I think that's the same sensation. We all get, that's why we all get nervous. We get the adrenaline rush and that can trick us into thinking oh so maybe this is not for me. But don't think about that at all. It's perfectly normal. I still get nervous as well. So knowing that, you have to prepare for that situation because the adrenaline rush, the shaking, the trembling voice, all of that, that can mess you up if you're not properly prepared I think. So it's about knowing what you're going to do, why you're going to do it, who you're going to do it with. And then relaxing so much in your own preparation that you can allow yourself to not think about all the stuff you've prepared. Just be here. Feel the ground underneath your feet. Take a deep breath and then be. Is that, I mean, because you don't prepare the script and what the words you have to say, but you also prepare the body to be present. So how, I mean, is it as simple as that? You know, deep breath. You're good to go? I mean, it varies for different people. What I like to do is if I feel nervous, I'm going to do it. A lot of adrenaline, I feel very nervous. I like to put on some music in the back room and dance or do pushups or something to get sort of the energy out. But if you can practice in all kinds of situations to actually feel the chair underneath your butt or the ground underneath your feet and then just breathing just a tad more slowly than you would normally, then you are, there's a good chance you are connected to the present moment. Okay. It's very basic. It works for most people. Did you ever have a nervous attack on stage or in front of a big camera crew or anything? Or can you always find yourself and focus? I've, sometimes it goes wrong. Yeah, yeah. I've, you know, I've fallen on stage in the middle of a dance number. My heel got caught in my own stocking. I've had my voice break in the middle of the final note. I've forgotten lines. I've done all the things you think you're going to die if this happens. And it's a nice experience to have because you don't die. Everything goes on. You get up off the stage. You finish the song anyway. You realize nobody's going to kill you because you made a mistake. So that's also an important lesson to learn. But usually what happens to me is I can feel very nervous just up until the point where I enter the stage. Then I sort of forget about it because I meet the audience. I look at them and I try to connect with them. And then it actually goes away for me. Now, we are, of course, very curious about some of these huge productions that you've been part of. Can you recount a little bit, for instance, of Game of Thrones? How you, because that's one of those very high tension sets I would choose. Definitely. And you just showed a little clip and I was part of this massive battle sequence. So we had 300 extras and 300 crew members and 50 stunt performers and 20 boats and four cameras and snowmen. And it was such a huge technical set up. And even though, you know, when you do film and TV, you kind of feel like, well, if I mess up, we can just do it again. If there are several hundred other people waiting, you don't want to be the one person messing up. So I was really nervous. And I had to fight. I had to, you know, of course, know my lines. And there was so much going on. So I knew I need to know my lines backwards and forwards. That's non-negotiable. So I just rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed. Then, of course, we rehearsed the whole thing. And then, of course, we rehearsed the stunt sequence with the stunt crew. And that's kind of like doing a dance. You know, when do you duck? When do you attack? And then I just knew once we get to the actual shoot, I have to rely on my own preparation and forget about it. Don't go all crazy like I have to remember what I... You know what you're going to say. Breathe, feel the ground, be present. Because this allows you to respond naturally and organically. And then it becomes believable, you know? Now, for a lot of people, I think some of the acting looks so natural that you get the idea that somebody is not even acting, right? That's the best kind of acting. And exactly that kind of acting can be very, very reversed. You also have an example of where you were really, really preparing very, very well for something that was supposed to be an improvisation. That's true. And there was also some clips from the teen comedy Pitch Perfect 2. I don't know if there are people in here who have actually seen it. Yes, somebody's waving. Oh, I see you. Thank you so much for watching. It's a really nice movie, actually. I watched it because of this. Yeah. So these movies, for those of you who don't know them, it's musical comedies. They take place in college time and it's about a cappella choirs. So it's music, singing and dancing. And the first film had become a massive hit. It created this huge... It was a huge global fan base. So there were a lot of expectations for film number two. And in film number two, the main group, the main girls, the Bellas, they were to compete internationally. And I was playing the lead of the villain group, the Germans, of course. And so we were just being really vicious and, of course, superbly effective and super in line, super in sync, just like machines doing this. And one of the lead ladies was played by... She was played by an Australian comedian called Rebel Wilson. And she had become such a star in film number one, has some of the funniest lines, and most of them is something she came up with because she's really good at improvisation. So this skill was something the producers wanted to entertain on film number two. So they had decided and communicated to the rest of us, once we're done with every scene as it is in the script, we're going to do a rebel take, meaning she can go to town with all of her improvisational... Just... Genius. And good luck to the rest of you. You can just keep up. So this type of way of working is amazing, but it really only works if everybody can keep up. And improvisation is not my strongest skill. And even though I speak a proper... A pretty good English, it's not my first language. And being funny on your feet in a different language in a stressful setting, I wasn't sure I would be able to compete. So I thought to myself, how can I make the conditions as good as possible for the way I function? And the answer was preparation. So I just sat down and I thought to myself, what are the possible scenarios she might go to in her improvisations? And I wrote down, like, 50 one-liners that I could have in my arsenal as something to fire back with. And it really helped me because then I felt secure enough. I felt safe enough in the situation to feel relaxed. And I knew I had something to come up with. And then I could just deliver these lines as if I just came up with them on the spot. But they were actually pretty well prepared. It worked really well for me. And most of the lines ended up in the film, actually. So preparation. Preparation. Exactly. I mean, I work in the world of events, so I also so often see speakers at the back, you know, and they come on and they have one little joke, but they have done it 20 times at the time. What other advice do you give to people? Like a lot of people in this room are in front of cameras or doing podcasts. What practical advice do you have for them? What could they do that really comes from your trait, the trait of acting, but it now transfers to anybody who's on camera? So I think what a lot of people mistake being natural for is being laid back. Un-energetic. Sit up, Monique. Yes, exactly. No, but I think also in film and TV, you want it to feel natural. And sometimes people feel like, then I need to lower my energy level. I need to not prepare. I know actors as well who say, well, it gives it a nice natural feel if I sort of search for my lines, if I don't know exactly what I'm going to say. And it's just not true. It makes it unclear. Most of the time, we know what we're going to say. The Americans have a wonderful expression calling, aim for the end of the line. Yeah. And that's usually how people speak, because we know in our heads what we're going to say. So if you see an actor on film going, you know, I just wanted to tell you that it's not natural. It's just unclear. But it's a mistake, a common mistake. So what you want is spontaneity. And spontaneity for me is you've prepared, I'm going to say preparation and prepare so much during this session, but it really is. You've prepared enough. So you know, what you need to know is in my body. It's in my memory. I don't need to worry about it. Instead, I can allow myself to be present and stay open to whatever input comes from who's sitting across from me, what's going on in the room and act and respond naturally and organic to that. That is natural and spontaneous. If you are not prepared, you're going to wing it. And winging it basically means fighting. Fighting for your life. And I've done it a few times and I've been across from other actors and I could just see in their eyes, they were just searching for the lines. They were anywhere else but in the moment. They were just fighting to be in the scene and to not fuck up. And it's not a nice place to be and it's not a constructive place to be. So preparation. Yeah. But there's also, this goes for all speakers, I mean, at some point, the TED talk became very popular. And speakers all... Yeah. All felt like, okay, I can do this talk and I will take no notes and I will just do my talk and rehearse it. But rehearse it 90%, which means that you stand on stage and you're thinking, what's the next line? It has to be so rehearsed that you don't think that anymore, right? That you'll just go to the end of the line. There you go. Absolutely. And of course, sometimes you need to know something word for word. That's one situation where you really need to just tackle all of those words. Other times, you might not need to stick word for word to the script, but you need to know what are the messages I want to convey. And in that situation, it could be nice to know the blocks. You need to know what's the theme or what is the thing I want to project to my audience and who is the audience? Who am I speaking to? If you have clarity about what you want to, what message you want to lay on the receiver and you know who is receiving it. Then you're in a good place, I think. Can you tell a little bit more about how you work with the team? You work with the director, you work with other actors, you work with the camera people. How is the combination? Because a lot of what you do is preparing on your own. You know, you do the script, you rehearse your body, so to speak. So how does it work when you start to work with other people? So you need to be, to allow yourself to let go of any plans. You know, you had prepared from home, basically. Because you always get a different input from the other actors or the director than you had imagined. But that's okay. Because you still, it's not wasted time, the preparation. You still have an idea about where you want to go with the material. But you stay open to the inputs that come from the others. And of course it varies. Sometimes you get, I've been, you know, acting with coworkers who were incredibly present, who were very giving, very responsive. And that's so joyful. And you know, it's playful. And I feel confident that even if I do something a little bit differently, you're going to catch the ball anyway. That's a fantastic place to be. It's not always the case. And you kind of learn to adjust to, because there are also actors who act for themselves. And you know, usually they get away with it and it's fine. But it's not necessary. How does that work? They don't respond to your facial expressions or they basically look at the camera all the time? I played a film called Marie Kroyer, which was based on an actual Danish painter. And she was not at all as well known as her husband. Her husband was a very well known Danish painter called P.S. Kroyer. And all her life she struggled in his shadow basically. And the man who was playing him was a very well known theater actor. And he did a wonderful job. But he was so used to his own process and being on stage that he completely sort of, he didn't ignore me. But he wasn't actually present. So what he would do to be passionate, he would like grab my head and hold me and give a love speech. But he was actually covering my ears. I couldn't hear a thing he was saying. And he was crushing my hand when he was, it was like he wasn't noticing me. And I thought to myself, how am I going to do this? And I complained a little bit to the director. And he was, in a way I liked it because he said, well, it works on camera, so I don't care. But then it dawned on me. This is what the character felt like. This is what Marie felt like all her life. She felt like she was being not noticed. She felt like she was being crushed. So I used it to feed my own character. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. If you, I mean, you've done musicals and dancing and singing and being on this big stage, like here, you know, stage is huge. You guys are far away. We can see you, but you're far away. But you've also done, you know, obviously for movies or TV series where you, the camera is so close to you and it observes you so well. Is it a different way of acting? Totally. Yes. And I like the anecdote you mentioned just before I came on. Because the camera can't see you. It catches everything and it makes everything look intentional. And we all have mannerisms. You know, we scratch our ears or we do something when we get nervous or we have a twitch or whatever. And we don't always know it. And the camera will absolutely capture it and make it to look like this was on purpose. So a really good idea can be to watch yourself. And I know it can be hideous and we all, nobody likes to hear their own voice on tape. I have the same way. It could be the same experience. The first time you watch yourself on film, you go, is that my face? But it really helps because then you can actually see how distracting it sometimes can be if you're constantly like fiddling with your necklace or whatever it is. I don't, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so that's like step one. The positive side of that is that you don't need to do very much. Sometimes just the thought of something can be enough. And what I learned from doing a lot of TV was also sometimes you can't do a lot of things. And sometimes if the camera zooms in on you, even if you do nothing, the audience will think you're being extremely dramatic or present or something else. It brings such a, it's so loaded if you do a zoom. So you really need to do not very much if you are projecting different emotions. The thought alone is enough. And it's just, yeah, it's a good idea to watch yourself. And so that's for your face and the camera. What about your voice? Is there something specific about your voice? Is there something about, well, listening to your own voice, as you mentioned, is horrible for everybody, I think, because you hear something completely different than what you've heard your whole life. But are there things about voices, because of a lot of podcasting and a lot of, you know, webinars, et cetera, the voice plays such an important role. Yeah. What can you do with your voice that makes it better and stronger and more convincing and more lovely? I mean. Well, obviously you can take lessons with a microphone. But usually I think what people tend to do is, especially if they're reading from a script, if they're doing a voiceover, they tend to go down at the end of the line. And then you go like this. And that becomes quite monotonous. And you can actually hear what they're saying. So that's one thing to keep in mind is that punctuation is for reading, not for speaking. You can easily ignore all punctuation when you're speaking. Another thing is. Can you. Can you. And if you're doing like an on-camera thing and you don't really have somebody to speak to, it can. It can sometimes make it difficult to really connect. I. At the beginning of my career, I started out in musical theater. I did a production of Chicago, the musical. I don't know if anybody knows it here in Copenhagen. And I played Roxy Hart, who has a big monologue leading up to a musical number. And the way the director worked with me was brilliant because in the beginning he would ask me questions and then I would answer with the lines from the monologue. But it would be like, so what did you do then? And then Roxy explains, how did that make you feel? She explains it more. What are you going to do next? She explains it more. And it made it actually into a dialogue. And then at one point he removed the questions, but I kept answering them to him as if I had been asked them. So once I got on stage and I was talking to the audience, because it's a direct interaction with the audience, I had a clear line of me answering questions and that gave me a clear direction, a projection, and somebody actual to speak to. So even though this is maybe extreme, but it can be a nice exercise if you are alone with your camera and you're struggling, maybe get a friend or somebody to rehearse with and have them ask you a question so you get that production. I mean, this is a very small thing from my life, but I do a lot of tech events and not every technically gifted person is a natural speaker. Not everybody is a natural speaker anyway, but they have so many interesting things to share. So you make it into an interview, because if they tell you, it will be fine. But if they tell the audience, they will sort of freeze and rattle it off. So talking to somebody, almost everybody can do that. In a lively and interesting way. It must be why podcasts are so popular, because it's just talking, talking. You've honed your skills for many years. What would you really like to do now with them? Well, lately I've sort of added to my work. So I'm still acting, but I've also actually gone into politics in a way. And it's so funny for me, because it started with Borgen opening my view to, you know, society and how politics are put together. And now, because I'm also on the board of the Danish Actors Association, so I've actually been in the actual Borgen lobbying for various agendas. And it's incredibly satisfying to use the platform I have to actually make differences. So right now, I'm working on a... I'm working on a suggestion we have to make maternal and paternal leave easier for people who have different streaks of income. It's very... Well, thank you. And if we ever get a new government in Denmark, I have good hopes that they will include this. Are you also working on... Because obviously in this event, AI has been coming back in every other talk, because this is a really big issue for voice actors. Yes. And actors giving their image or their voice or their style to systems that can use them. Some people sell it. Some people don't. Some people hate it. The biggest problem is that for years, we were all contributing without knowing it, you know, because data was collected without our knowledge or without getting paid. So that's sort of the first hurdle I think we need to get fixed, is that we actually get paid if they want to work on our... our material. And in audiobooks in Denmark, there is an outline of an agreement where you can actively say, you're allowed to use my voice to train the models, but I get some sort of payment for it. That's a start. But obviously, it's a matter of concern. What I really liked was the previous speaker who said AI cannot duplicate or mimic human connection. And I really believe... that that's going to stay on. I think we can all sense when we are actually connecting to another human being. So hopefully I won't be unemployed. I mean, this is a very small anecdote, but to prepare this conversation, we talked before, I recorded it, I asked my AI agent, like, okay, you know, I've got it all transcribed. I mean, you know, how shall I structure this? And first of all, I got instructions from my... from Claude to not interrupt you. This was a very clear... First stories are very good. Please don't interrupt her when she's talking. I'm with Claude on that one. Exactly. And then, but weirdly enough, also, you know, I had an introduction, which I had already written. It was there. And it sort of tried to improve it. And it put you into Grey's Anatomy. I mean, where did that come from? It was amazing. Two extra jobs. So that's not good. I think we're almost wrapping up. But one thing, being an actress and being so aware and being... aware of the humanity of your voice and your body and all the expressions you can have, this helped you be a great actress. But has this also taught you something about how to be alive, living? Yes. In everything that matters, we rely on each other. Because every good performance you see, everything that feels natural and organic, is because somebody was staying open to input from somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. And you feel and can respond to other actors, but you also feel and can respond to an audience or a room. It is a very special skill you have. Not everybody has it. No, but it can be trained. I mean, it's about, yeah, obviously having the awareness of your own body, but also about what's going on in the room. And that's also something you train. And I was really lucky doing so much TV in the beginning of my career. Yeah. And being on a film set means you have to be present, act, know your lines, hit the mark so you hit the light, don't lean too much to your right because then you block in front of the camera for the other actor. You really get a lot of training in having so many sensors out in the room. Yeah. And you become sharper the more you do it. So it can be trained. So the final advice to this audience is... Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Prepare, rehearse, take a deep breath, feel the ground underneath your feet. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Thank you.