Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Interview by JANE CROWTHER

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When Noomi Rapace arrives at the Hotel Cipriani pool in Venice it seems she’s channeling her most recent role as nun and modern-day saint, Mother Teresa, in monochrome menswear. In Macedonian writer-director Teona Strugar Mitevska’s biopic, Mother, which looks as the Albanian-born nun’s pre-celebrity life in 1948 as she attempts to start a new order in Calcutta and wrestles with self-doubt and the issue of abortion, Rapace is seen wearing a black-and-white habit throughout, emoting through a wimple that she describes as ‘acting through a little hole. It’s just my face, and my body is covered’. It’s a role that required her to look at herself as well as the life of a world-famous woman. ‘I didn’t know anything about the person, just saw her with different political leaders, and Lady Di,’ she tells Hollywood Authentic. ‘And then when I got asked to play her, I started doing research. I started reading her letters. Her own words were really kind of the route into understanding her. You know what really surprised me? The eternal pain that she was carrying, and how much she was struggling with her faith, with her beliefs, with her own feeling that she was not doing enough; feeling that she was not worthy. All this self-doubt and pain. She said once, ‘If I ever become a saint, it will surely be one of darkness.’ And that’s fascinating. Also, we need to put into consideration that she’s a woman in a man’s world. She was writing letters, and calling the Vatican for years, insisting, and getting them to allow her – to give her permission – to start this vision, this mission that she had, this calling that had been given from God.’

The film explores Teresa’s inflexibility and her ambition – her single-mindedness in getting her calling accomplished. As an artist, does Rapace relate on some level to that drive and ambition that’s required to succeed in acting? ‘Yeah, the ambition and how determined she was. Coming from this small, isolated, quiet small farm in Sweden – I had no access. I had no connections. I didn’t know anyone in the world outside of the farm. I left when I was 15, and went on a journey on my own; Teresa left when she was 16, and went to join the Loreto Sisters in Ireland. I can find a connecting tissue between us in this very stubborn, determined fight for something. But also a lot of self-doubt. I’m very, very hard on myself. I grew up carrying a lot of pain, and a lot of my journey is very much to find peace, and to be accepting myself, and to forgive and be grateful, and to not be too hard. Teresa was very much ‘no exceptions – rules are for all’ – this was very much me when I was younger. You might sleep two hours, but you still go to the gym. I couldn’t understand people being like, ‘But I’m tired.’’ The actor smiles and admits to being kinder to herself these days. ‘That comes with success and aging. I love ageing. It’s been so good to me,’ she says. ‘I feel so much more at peace, and open. I think I was running away from things for many, many years, or running towards something. And now I’m really practising being in the now, and being in the moment.’

Success with films such as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Sherlock Holmes and Prometheus have also allowed her to take on films such as Mother, lending her name as well as her skills to smaller indie films and working with female directors. ‘I’ve been an actress since I was 16. I worked with so many men; amazing male directors, amazing male stars. But it’s always one woman in a group of men, and the imbalance has been shocking. How do you pave the way? How do you create a field – a stage – for women to practise their skills? I think it’s so important to make conscious choices. Because it’s so easy to take what’s in front of you, a more safe route. And when you work with a first-time director, for example, you do take a risk. So you need to step in, and be like, ‘OK, I commit to this. I’ll stand there with you. I’ll be frontline with you, and we’ll carry this together.’’

Rapace describes the robust relationship of questioning she had with her director on Mother – a freedom she says she might have labelled her a ‘difficult’ with other collaborators. ‘I’ve seen male stars coming in and being really difficult, not showing up, being late, and coming in and being really negative. And then I come in and be like, ‘I actually feel like we should look at this line, because it doesn’t really resonate with what we did yesterday’, it’s like, ‘OK, we really don’t have time for this, Noomi’,’ she laughs. ‘I mean, look at our history, women are witches. We are complicated. We are troublemakers if we come in and cause problems. But I feel a lot of hope. I feel a shift. There are such incredible female directors and producers and production companies. Look at Margot Robbie. Look at Emma Stone’s company. Female actors creating a space, and giving opportunities for other females. I get really moved by it, to be honest.’

Mother is providing space for more female stories she says; ‘It’s a feminist movie because we’re shining a light on a complex human who happens to be a woman’. It’s also an account of a pro-life woman that is pertinent to today’s erosion of female reproductive rights. ‘I was questioning Teona. I was like, ‘Why do you want to have this in it?’ She’s like, ‘Because this conversation is needed’. The fact that still today there are countries where women cannot drive, women cannot vote, women belong to the men, women cannot divorce – I mean, what the Fuck?’ 

For Rapace, living with the complex Teresa while filming on location in India was a draining experience. ‘We shot in the actual footsteps of Mother Teresa. We shot in the slums, the schools, in the spaces she created. I have a hard time finding words that match the feelings of what I experienced being there. But I felt like I was sort of peeling off layers and layers of myself. Towards the end, I was crying every day. It was just so beautiful to experience it – In the end, I wasn’t even entirely sure what was me, and what was Teresa. I came back to London after filming. I had two weeks, and I was so lost,  walking around in my house, just in a circle like a caged animal. And then slowly I started finding my footing, and finding ground again. And then this great sensation of feeling grateful for what I’ve learned from doing this movie, and allowing this person to live in me. Even though I don’t really like or agree with her, it was a really challenging and powerful experience.’

As an actor she admits to being ‘obsessed with the human psyche’ and an advocate of therapy. ‘I’m fascinated with how we become who we are, and what tools we are given from an early age. How big is our emotional, psychological toolbox, you know? I’m a firm believer that you can go pretty fucking far in your own healing. I’m working on myself, you know? I do think that it’s important to protect yourself, but also to keep reminding yourself of “What is my journey? What am I interested in? And not what they want me to do, and not what pays me the best.’ So the moments when I close my eyes, and I listen to myself, and I can’t hear my own voice – that’s been moments that it’s like, ‘t’s time to change. I need to change something here, and redirect my life route, to start hearing my own voice again. Because it’s the only one I have’.

That voice wants to work with Andrea Arnold, Kathyn Bigalow, Tilda Swinton, Molly Manning Walker and Chloe Zhao and has taken her on projects such as Maria Martinez Bayona’s This Is The End with Rebecca Hall, which she just wrapped on. ‘I came off set every day just filled with joy,’ she enthuses. ‘It questions ‘what is life for?’ and holding onto youth.’ And she’s completed Hot Spot with Agnieszka Smoczynska. ‘She describes the movie as a poem,’ Rapace says of her director. ‘She works with sound, images, symbols. She’s a very, very special human being. We did one scene – I think maybe 20 takes – and she just kept pushing me. I felt at the end I was a sort of jellyfish. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was completely allowing her to guide me. She’s an extraordinary human. I loved it!’