“You Have to Go Into Something Unpleasant”: Anders Danielsen Lie on The Summer Book, Silence, and Grief
Playing a character with minimal dialogue, who’s dealing with grief and constricted by emotional restraint is going to be a challenge for any actor. And this was very much the challenge that leading Norwegian actor Anders Danielsen Lie faced when playing the father in Charlie McDowell’s film adaptation of The Summer Book. But at least this was familiar territory for Danielson Lie.
“I’ve learned something about playing those kinds of characters because I’ve done it many times, but every time I’m amazed by how hard it is,” says Danielson Lie. “There’s no way around it: you have to get into those unpleasant feelings. At least, I have to do that, because otherwise I don’t believe my own acting- I have to go into something that feels real, and that’s unpleasant.”
First published in 1972, The Summer Book is the celebrated, semi-autobiographical novel by Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, best known as the creator of the Moomins. The book distils the essence of island life, aging, and childhood through a series of vignette-style chapters. The film adaptation stays true to the observational, slow pace of the book, but develops the story into a film narrative that follows the young Sophia and her elderly grandmother as they spend a long summer together on a tiny, remote island in the Finnish archipelago.
“This was a hard book to turn into a feature film because it’s a meditation – it doesn’t really have a clear story. I thought it was such a bold choice by Charlie to try to adapt it,” says Danielson Lie.
The Challenge of Silent Roles
Arguably the biggest change that McDowell makes was to develop the character of the father, who has very little presence in the book. But it was a development with considerable freedom for Danielsen Lie to interpret. “It’s funny, because sometimes we tend to think that it’s easier to play a character if you have more dialogue – that the more dialogue you have, the easier it is to create a character on screen. But that’s not always the case,” explains Danielsen Lie.
“It’s always challenging to play a mostly silent part as you feel like you have a responsibility to tell the story through words. But that’s not always the job of the actor. Sometimes it’s more about giving the audience hints so that they can produce their own thoughts and feelings and project that onto the screen.”
Danielsen Lie began acting as a child. He studied medicine at the University of Oslo and has continued practising as a doctor alongside his film work. His reputation for playing characters struggling with trauma and struggling to articulate their emotions has very much come from his work with Norwegian director Joachim Trier. He starred in Reprise (2006), gave an acclaimed performance as a recovering addict in Oslo, August 31st (2011), and played Aksel in the Oscar-nominated The Worst Person in the World (2021). More recently, he reunited with Trier in Sentimental Value.
With his medical background, it’s an obvious question to ask Danielsen Lie whether he brings his own experiences to the characters he plays.
“I always feel like I’m doing that. Because I don’t have any formal training or specific techniques, it’s just me,” says Danielsen Lie. “I always feel like I’m bringing a part of myself into the characters that I play. Playing someone who is going through grief, depression, or melancholy is something I’ve done a lot, and when I do that again, I try to come up with new ways of doing it because I don’t want to repeat myself too much, which is obviously hard.”
Isolation, Archipelago Sets, and the Feeling of Nordic Summer
And in The Summer Book a key challenge was playing a character that is very much apart from the central relationship in the film. Glenn Close and Finnish newcomer Emily Matthews have received huge praise for the way they played the close bond and interactions between grandmother and granddaughter. Its relationship built on curiosity, preparation for life and delightful humour.
“Yeah, I had this feeling that they were on vacation together, hanging out, spending a lot of time, and doing fun things that I wasn’t a part of,” admits Danielsen Lie. “It’s always hard for an actor not to engage in what’s going on between the other actors. This is something I felt for 40 days while shooting Oslo, August 31st – being on the outside of everybody else, isolated from the rest of the people both within the fiction and on set.”
And several critics have pointed out that the cabin and its beautiful location is almost like a fourth character in the film. But this was a character that Danielsen Lie and the character of the father are very much at one with: “It shaped me a lot – it was everything to me. We got so much from the island, the light, and that feeling of a Nordic summer, which is something I know very well because we have those summers in Norway, too. In that respect, it reminded me of my own childhood.”
Looking Ahead: From Bill Evans to Dark Comedy
The Summer Book had its world premiere at The BFI London Film Festival in October 2024, but has only just gone on theatrical release in the UK. Danielsen Lie has been working on several film projects since The Summer Book.
“Right now, I’m in the process of releasing a bunch of films. For example, the Bill Evans film, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, which is coming out this fall in many countries. I also had a film at Cannes called Low Expectations, which is coming out this fall as well,” says Danielsen Lie.
“Bill Evans was a fantastic musician, but he was also a drug addict, so when we shot the film, it felt a bit like revisiting Oslo, August 31st because it’s a pretty dark story. But some of the other films coming out this year are lighter. I play much lighter and funnier characters than I’ve done before.”
Asked whether comedy is a welcome new direction, Danielson Lie is very quick to respond: “Absolutely! I would love to play funnier characters and do more comedy.” But he qualifies this by saying that humour is likely to be dark: “That’s where the real humour is sometimes!”
The Summer Book is out now in UK Cinemas
