Movies
For the Swedish actor, filmingLambwas an experience unlike any other.
Noomi Rapace: actor, artist, mother of lambs.
Thats how the 41-year-old Swedish actor will be known from now on (at least to me).
Rapace earned the latter title withher latest film,Lamb: a movie about a half-lamb, half-human baby.
Unsure of how to digest the foreign fable,the American presshasrepeatedly labeledit weird.
And after hearing more about it from Rapace, I realize thatLambisnt actually weird.
Its this overhanging threat of violence or being abducted, she adds, laughing.
Folklore feels as real as anything particularly in northern Iceland, whereLambwas filmed.
We shot in the valley you drive into the valley, you lose phone signal.
Theres an hour to the nearest gas station there.
So you’re like, this civilization and technology, it just feels like a strange dream.
Its so far from that reality.
Get far enough away from society, and its norms and strictures begin to lift.
Director Valdimar Johannssonhas insistedthatLambis not a horror film, and Rapace agrees.
I dont think it belongs to any category.
Maybe we have a lamb genre from now on, you know?
You often do physical preparation, like exercises or movements, to prepare for roles.
Did you do anything like that to play Maria?
I was spending time at farms and driving tractors, walking a lot, and isolating myself.
I didn’t interact with people much when Maria was living in me.
She took me on: She basically felt like she hijacked my body and mind a lot.
I couldnt sleep, had problems sleeping.
Also, we shot in the summer in Iceland, and it never goes dark.
So in the middle of the night, it’s like full-on daylight.
So your body doesn’t know what to do.
Between this movie andPrometheusandDaisy Diamond, you’ve played a lot of characters who have complex experiences of motherhood.
What is it about these stories that youre drawn to?
And in the end of the day, we are animals.
It becomes quite obvious as soon as theres a crisis.
And I find that break point really interesting, when we stop being civilized and something else takes over.
[Theres] also great power in that.
And that, I find really beautiful, if its handled right.
Have you experienced that yourself, when your child is briefly in danger or something?
Every time there was a situation when my son was younger.
I mean, he cut himself on a piece of glass and his face.
He was 2 or 3, and there was blood everywhere.
And I just became super calm and I just patched him up.
I was in pajamas and running down the street into emergency center.
I was like, Move!
You have to queue over there.
I was like, Im not going there.
I was just like the mother sheep, coming in.
Its like, You have to stitch up my kid.
I don’t know how deep it is.
I don’t know if it’s his eye.
And then youre not rational anymore.
Its like the lioness in you.
And it happened a couple of times.
And that side of me can kick in with friends as well, like family.
And I stopped thinking, and I just kind of protected her.
So I have a lot of that.
I feel like I’ve always been very connected with that side of myself sometimes too much.
So in terms of the filming, were you mostly cuddling a real lamb?
Or a CGI stand-in?
We didnt have CGI at all.
It was a mix of real babies and real lambs and sometimes puppets.
But when I was interacting and acting with Ada, it was a lamb or a baby.
And what are lambs like as scene partners?
They don’t do what you want them to do.
I mean, you have to be very patient.
It was a hard shoot in that way.
It felt like we were always waiting for the lamb to fall asleep.
And the whole crew is outside of the house.
And the lamb caretaker is like, Its low on batteries now.
So basically, finally after 20 minutes, the lamb is sleeping.
And then they call in the team.
And everyone’s tiptoeing in, and they hand over the lamb to me.
And I’m like, Okay.
And then they roll camera and action.
And I’m just standing there.
And then the lamb opens his eyes and, Baa.
And every one out.
I was thinking that when I was watching.
They always say that children and animals are the things you dont want to film with.
And there were plenty of both.
Its the worst setup.
Im going to raise it as my own little baby?
I mean, that is the strange thing.
After halfway in, I stopped thinking about Ada as something strange.
It was very much just a part of me.
Were sitting outside, and the lamb just started breathing with me.
And she put her face really close to my face, and she was stroking me.
And I was breathing, and she was breathing in the air that I was blowing out.
It was this very strange, a powerful connection.
And Valdimar didn’t say, cut.
Everyone was just looking at this strange thing happening between me and the lamb.
Did filmingLambmake you want to hang out with animals more, or less?
It makes me want to do more art house films.
And if they contain animals, fine, I’ll go with that.
I prefer humans though.
And that’s a good way to do that.
Working with animals and kids, you just have to be open.
It’s like, you never know what’s going to happen, and you might’t plan anything.
Im so tired of politeness and empty words.
Id rather hang with animals then.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
All photographs are courtesy of Noomi Rapace.
