The Swedish star is current in the sci-fi series “Constellation”
Published 2024-02-28 20.02
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HOLLYWOOD. In Sweden’s current sci-fi series “Constellation”, Noomi Rapace plays an astronaut who is away from her family for a year.
Absence is something she has struggled with during her international career.
– It is an eternal conflict, she says.
Raptor sitting at the Four seasons hotel in Beverly Hills. I’m ten minutes away. Nevertheless, we’ll see each other on the link online.
That’s how Hollywood works these days.
– Haha, is it true? Noomi says when she hears about the distance.
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full screen Noomi Rapace. Photo: Jordan Strauss/AP
Playing Swedish in the new series
Usually don’t embed links for natural interviews. It’s easy to accidentally talk into each other’s mouths and the distance makes it difficult to have any kind of natural conversation.
But with Noomi, 44, there are no problems. She is compliant and chooses, to the great chagrin of the organizers, to conduct the talk session in Swedish (they prefer to keep track of the interviewers’ questions so that the conversation does not slip into something controversial).
This time the choice of language can be defended for several reasons. Noomi’s character in the series, Johanna “Jo” Ericsson, is Swedish. Jo and her daughter Alice (the twins Davina and Rosie Coleman) mixes Swedish and English during the eight episodes of the Apple series there as well Jonathan Banks from “Breaking bad” participates.
– When I read the script, I was very surprised. It was almost scary. It felt like it must have been written for me. All of me felt that Jo and I were expected to go on a journey.
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full screen “Constellation”. Photo: Apple TV+.
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full screen The Swedish astronaut Johanna (Noomi Rapace) is left in space when an accident occurs aboard the International Space Station. Press photo. Photo: Appletv+
“I can’t think of anything more brutal than going up into space”
It truly is a journey. In “Constellation”, which is written by the Sweden-based, British screenwriter Peter Harness, Jo is a Swedish astronaut who returns to Earth after a disastrous mission aboard the International Space Station ISS. Back home, she discovers that there are things in the new reality that do not correspond to the old one. Even the family relationship is different.
– I can’t imagine anything more brutal than going up into space and being away from my child for a year. But at the same time, if astronaut is the dream, if it’s something you’ve trained for for many years and always dreamed of and then comes the offer of a space flight where you’ve been selected.
The continuation is up in the air.
– It is among the most difficult questions there is. It’s something I questioned about myself and something I’m still working on.
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full screen Peter Harness, James D’Arcy, Jonathan Banks, Noomi Rapace, Michelle MacLaren and Will Catlett in “Constellation”. Photo: Willy Sanjuan / AP
Smet home to his son
What’s the longest you’ve been away from family?
– Two months. When I didn’t meet my son, that is. I always used to fly when filming. I was in Canada filming once. Then I flew 30 hours with layovers and was home for 20 hours. Then I flew back. It was an insanely expensive trip.
She laughs.
– But I got to lie down and hug him and watch some Disney films. I had missed. I wasn’t really allowed to withdraw from the production. But when the heart aches and it screams that you have to have your child, there are no choices.
Today, when Lev which she has with her ex-husband Ola Rapace managed to turn 21, it should be easier. But the actress who was born in Hudiksvall and lived in Iceland for three years refutes that.
– It’s more friendship now, but he will always be my child. I live in different places (including London, editor’s note) but we make sure to get together regularly.
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full screen Noomi Rapace. Photo: Willy Sanjuan / AP
Then she steps down after a mentally demanding role
The question is how funny Noomi is when she has spent a long day on some recording and, like the last role assignment, turned inside out on herself in a psychologically demanding role where she shows strong emotions in scene after scene.
– I have created rituals for myself. I usually go to the gym, sit and ride my bike and listen to music. Then the character releases. Sometimes I watch a series, but none that are great. It provides a kind of de-escalation.
She states that it must not be too active for her brain.
– I have very little space left for conversations in the evening. It gets like that when I get into the characters. They usually take over because I allow it. I don’t really know – for me there is no other way to do it.
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full screen Noomi Rapace. Photo: Willy Sanjuan / AP
Broke the nasal bone
She says that the roles affect her in different ways.
– When I made “Black Crab” in Sweden, I physically injured myself on the set, she says, referring to the fact that she broke her nose bone in two places when she collided with the camera.
– With “Constellation” it was first physical because I had to train hard for the scenes with weightlessness. Then when the series enters a psychological labyrinth, I was quite taken both psychologically and emotionally.
The scenes in the space capsule don’t look like they are set for someone who suffers from claustrophobia.
– I have no phobias but lots of fears. I’m afraid of heights, dark water, spiders.
pullquoteI was so scared I couldn’t get a word out
The former she was forced to tackle during the filming of the action thriller “Unlocked”, which was released in 2017.
– It was included Michael Douglas and I would hang upside down on a construction site. It was a violent scene where he pushes me down over a ledge. It was 12-15 meters to the ground.
– I was so terribly afraid. I was wearing some sort of safety harness but it was as if a primal fear kicked in. Everyone asked if I was okay and I just nodded. I was so scared I couldn’t get a word out.
