The actor regarding the new romantic comedy “Meeting in Rome”, new projects and love: “We people who are over 70 – we are also 17 years old”
Published 2024-04-05 10.34
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Now Rolf Lassgård, 69, is making his second film in a row regarding a man who messes with his emotions.
First “The Second Act” once morest Lena Olin. Now “Meeting in Rome”, which in just a few weeks has been seen by over 300,000 in Denmark.
– Over the years you feel that in itself, that we people who are over 70 years old, we are also 17 years old, love has no age in that way, he says.
- The actor Rolf Lassgård, known for roles in i.a. “A man called Ove”, plays the main role in the new romantic comedy “Meeting in Rome”.
- The film, which has already been seen by over 300,000 people in Denmark, is regarding a man who comes between a Danish couple on their honeymoon.
- Lassgård emphasizes that love has no age and that it is important to see people of his age represented in film.
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Rolf Lassgaard has over 70 film and television roles behind him and even if he certainly did not always play kind-hearted and sympathetic characters, it is as if there is something regarding Lassgård that radiates something that everyone just likes. That’s why everyone takes him to their hearts even when he plays a really pedantic sour old man like in “A man called Ove”.
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full screen Rolf Lassgård Photo: Magnus Wennman
Not to be “mys-Lassgård” anymore
But in last year’s “Second Act” he was, at least initially, a sour, grumpy and wonderful Dramaten actor. And in “Meeting in Rome”, his Johannes is an expatriate Swede who just barges in and disrupts the marriage of the Danish couple Gerda (Bodil Jørgensen) and Kristoffer (Christian Halken) who is on a wedding anniversary trip in Rome.
For years, we have known you as mys-Lassgård, both in front of the camera and as journalists, when we have met you. But in these movies it’s not like that, is it?
– Well, that’s right. But even those people… I try to put my heart on them too. I have faith in people and an inherent good in them. And a thoroughly evil person, I don’t know if it’s that interesting to play, more than it can be deliciously dramatic, says Rolf.
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full screen Bodil Jørgensen and Rolf Lassgård in “Meeting in Rome”. Press photo. Photo: Andrea Miconi/Scanbox
“No films are ever made regarding us”
How did you end up in this Danish film?
– Five years ago I met the director Niclas Bendixen and Christian Halken, the idea comes from him, he who plays Kristoffer. I turned on what he said. He felt that at our age we are the core audience at the cinema, but no films are ever made regarding us. Then I’ll get the hell to write it myself, he said. I sympathized with that, it made me nag.
So once the script was ready, it was a no-brainer for Rolf to play Johannes, the art history teacher who encounters the Danish couple Kristoffer and Gerda (Bodil Jørgensen) in Rome. Eventually we in the audience understand that Johannes and Gerda have a past…
– In the first stage, Johannes is mostly a function for the story. But then we wanted to incorporate him into the story, show that there was a seriousness behind it. Over the years you feel that in yourself, people who are over 70 years old, we are also 17. That’s how you meet the love of your youth, you end up back in that, love has no age that way. That was the fun of trying to portray and try to make a person out of him, not just a function.
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full screen Rolf Lassgård. Photo: Peter Wixtröm
“Has lived a golden life with ladies, wine and art”
Who is Johannes in your eyes?
– He is connected to Gerda, he is a winter resident in Rome and has lived a golden life with ladies, wine and art and everything, but even in that there can be a saturation and emptiness.
Does he have any traits of yours?
– Not really (laughs), I’m looking for the countryside instead.
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full screen Rolf Lassgård Photo: Magnus Wennman
“Knew everyone in Rome”
The entire film is shot in Rome. What was it like filming there?
– Yes, but thank you, I met someone who said: How did you get to all the places you filmed at? There were American productions there at the same time that raised money and closed streets, there were no more thieves here. We had an Italian team, a woman who I think everyone in Rome knew, she managed access to all the places like the Trevi Fountain and she even got the train to start rolling at Rome Central Station, that never happens.
What are the expectations for the film?
– Big, with a hope that it will go like in Denmark, where it has gone like a train. So all you ladies: Pull up the old men and go to the movies!
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full screen Rolf Lassgård Photo: Magnus Wennman
Was part of “My truth” in SVT
Standing in front of the film camera, that’s what Rolf Lassgård has done for most of his adult life. But not so long ago he did something that made him feel like “Bambi on slippery ice”. He spoke out with Anna Hedenmo in SVT’s “My truth”.
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full screen Rolf Lassgård in “My truth” Photo: SVT
– Otherwise, I can seek that feeling, to find something I haven’t done before. Like playing Edna Turnbull in “Hairspray”. Musical, playing a woman, such challenges are sought following.
– But “My truth”… I’m more comfortable talking regarding my job. Because when it comes to relationships and such, I want to keep most of it to myself.
– Now it is as it is, I have gone through a divorce that was frictionless, it was our joint decision.
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full screenRolf Lassgård and Beatrice. Photo: Shimoda Media
Then he met Beatrice
In the TV program, Rolf told regarding how he met the woman he is now with, Beatrice, in connection with her working a little on the Richard Hobert film “Kärleksbevis” which he shot in Österlen, where he has been living for three years, in what used to be the family’s summer house.
What has happened following the TV show?
– Now there is no talk. Our relationship has deepened and it has gone so far that we will try to live together.
Will she move in with you?
– Yes, that’s enough.
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full screen Rolf Lassgård Photo: Magnus Wennman
Life at Österlen
Rolf and I met before Easter when he was in Stockholm. Then he would return and celebrate Easter in Skåne. Fix up in the garden and take the car and go on art tours, a tradition in Österlen during the Easter weekend.
– Sometimes I buy paintings, but I’m not a big consumer.
Interest in pop and rock music is greater.
– I have many shelf meters of CDs. Now I mostly buy vinyl. The sad thing regarding Spotify is that the record buyer thing has kind of disappeared, I’m still an album guy.
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full screen Thorbjörn Fälldin (Rolf Lassgård). Photo: Audrius Solominas / SVT
Playing Thorbjörn Fälldin
What else do you have going on, work-wise?
– I am waiting for word regarding a film and have chosen not to be involved in another project this spring. And then comes “Whiskey on the rocks”.
It is a TV series that will be on SVT towards the end of the year, takes place in 1981 and revolves around the grounding of the Soviet submarine U-137 in the Blekinge archipelago. Lassgård plays the prime minister at the time Thorbjörn Fälldin (1926-2016).
– It was with great joy that I entered that series. I was influenced by that Boss Parnevik did very funny imitations of Fälldin, but it really wasn’t like that, I’ve tried to get behind that image and wanted to portray a politician who stood with both feet in the crowd and who had contact with ordinary people. It attracted me and I believe it was also of great benefit to our country in those critical days.
He smoked a lot of pipe. Have you practiced it?
– I have had an eminent teacher in the cinematographer and director John O Olssonwith whom I made the TV series “Möbelhandlarens dotter” and the film “Miraklet i Viskan”.
– He is the most experienced and enjoyable pipe smoker I know, so I have taken a little course there (laughs).
FACT
This is Rolf Lassgård
Name: Rolf Lassgård.
Age: 69.
Lives: Österlen in Skåne.
Family: Soon-to-be partner, three adult children, grandchildren.
Current: At the cinema in the love comedy “Meeting in Rome”.
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Rolf Lassgård regarding…
… that the Dane Kristoffer, when he gets angry at Lassgård’s character Johannes in the film, jokes very wickedly and funny regarding Swedish phenomena:
– Most of it was in the script, then we improvised a bit to lift the jokes. Someone asked how it felt to be Swedish there and to be bullied. But I have seen the film with a Swedish audience twice, I think we have a love for laughing at ourselves.
… to do Bamse’s voice in cinema:
– Yes, I’m a superhero there. But neither of my grandchildren, they were both three years old when we saw the movies in theaters, reacted to me doing the voice. One was so inside the film’s story. Another wondered what grandpa was going on stage for following the film ended at the gala screening.
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full screen Rolf Lassgård and Lennart Jähkel in “Jägarna”. Photo: Zdf
… that following two films and TV series there will be some more adventure for Erik Bäckström in “The Hunters”:
– I have asked the question and said that it must not take 16 years as between the films in that case. There is a slight dissatisfaction to leave Bäckström, standing at a gas station, in a kind of total solitude, as the latest TV series ends. But I don’t know if there are any concrete plans.
… why he turned down playing Kurt Wallander in the TV series (as Krister Henriksson did) following first playing him in both two movies and three TV series:
– I have not regretted that decision, more than maybe for a little money, then. I was very done with Wallander. And if I had done that, I wouldn’t have been able to do, for example, Susanne Bier’s “After the Wedding”, one of the three films I made that were nominated for an Oscar and all of which were career highlights.
… last year’s “A man called Otto”, where Tom Hanks played Lassgård’s role from “A man called Ove”:
– From the theatre, you are used to several people doing the same roles. Tom Hanks treated it nicely. First wrote me a letter on typewriter. We had a nice weekend together in Stockholm. At the same time he said: You want to be the best. Now we have had no contact. And without going out and shouting it… Hannes Holm’s film is better. They had missed a bit with the blackness in the film.
