‘I also tried going out in the street and behaving like Saga. I remember I was going swimming and had to buy some goggles, and the man who served me said “Hello” in a cheery voice, and I just said, “I want…” as straight as I imagined she would be. And I could sense – me as Sofia, Saga wouldn’t sense it – his interest just died.’
She says Saga’s look was mostly conceived by Sieling. ‘When I first read the script, I thought I should have short hair, but Charlotte said she’d read somewhere that it’s “easier to get laid” if you have long hair. So we decided it should stay. My daughter was a year old at the time we started shooting and because she travelled with me, I wanted as short a make-up time as possible, so I just suggested I come with my hair unwashed and we leave it like that, because Saga wouldn’t do anything.’
Playing Saga means Sofia always wears the same outfit, and despite having a set of three, the leather trousers are wearing thin. ‘I’ve worn them so much, they stretched, so we had to make them tighter and now they’ve stretched again.’ Her military coat (‘from H&M, nothing special’), trousers, boots and the Porsche are currently on display in a special Bridge exhibition at the Malmö Museum.
Does Saga love Martin Rohde? ‘Sexually, no. Sexually she is into younger men’
Sofia has played Saga for almost 30 months in all, but has invested even longer in helping to develop her character. It’s perhaps not surprising that she feels the character changes her. ‘She makes me more closed, more controlled. And I know now that it takes a while to wash her out. For me to wake up again.’
Her future plans include a TV series, The Shared Sky, a family drama set in divided Berlin of the ’70s. And she doesn’t rule out The Bridge season four. ‘We’ll see.’
While filming The Bridge, Sofia stayed in a hotel in Malmö, Sweden, for four days and had three days at home, where ‘I try just to be mum.’ She met her husband at drama school. ‘He didn’t leave acting, he just wanted religion more,’ she says now, adding that he’s very supportive of her career. ‘I couldn’t do it otherwise. But it’s not a perfect situation for him.’