The plot twists, the shoot-outs, the poetically bleak landscapes and beautiful shots of the Øresund Bridge are incidental to the main story: the psychodrama of our odd couple.
By series two there has been a shift. Saga now has a live-in boyfriend and has even started to laugh at other people’s jokes (not because she finds them funny, but because she wants to fit in). But Martin is grieving over the murder of his son, August. He puts his faith in Saga for his emotional wellbeing. But the series ends with a mutual betrayal: Martin discovers Saga’s family’s dark past; she has him arrested for murder.
I meet Sofia Helin in the bar of the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm. And she is, of course, nothing like Saga. No leather trousers or military boots. She doesn’t have a car, let alone a Porsche 911. ‘I live in the city, I don’t need a car,’ she says. She is slight and sensitive and, at 43, is beautiful in an Ingrid Bergman way – high cheekbones, large pale eyes, full lips.
'I have to take care of myself, because I have a thin skin'
She has a soft accent and a kind, calm manner. She lives nearby with her husband Daniel Gotschenhjelm, a former actor and now a priest in the Church of Sweden, and their two children, Ossian, 12, and Nike, six (‘after the goddess of victory’).
Today, Sofia is chic in a chunky Marc Jacobs jumper and black jacket, her hair pulled back to reveal her impressively structured face. She likes fashion, unlike her alter ego. ‘Saga would buy 10 T-shirts in the same style,’ she says. Another major point of difference is Sofia’s capacity for empathy. ‘It’s my best gift and my worst,’ she says. ‘It’s why I can understand and create characters, but I have to take care of myself, because I have a thin skin.’
She finished filming series three of The Bridge in May, but her voice is still husky from an illness picked up at that time. ‘I got a bit exhausted,’ she says. ‘I’m now on my second course of antibiotics.’ Becoming Saga, she explains, requires a lot of physical effort. She has to change the way she talks, holds her head, moves; has to become straighter, tenser, more alert. ‘It’s like a vice gripping all over my body,’ she explains.