Lena Olin
Template:Short description Template:BLP sources Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person
Lena Maria Jonna Olin (Template:IPA; born 22 March 1955) is a Swedish actress. She has received nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Mentored by filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, she made her screen debut with a small role in his film Face to Face (1976). After graduating from drama school, Olin joined the Royal Dramatic Theatre, followed by roles in Bergman's films Fanny and Alexander (1982) and After the Rehearsal (1984). She made her international breakthrough in the role of a free-spirited artist in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), which earned her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.
Olin garnered further critical acclaim for her portrayals of a traumatized Holocaust survivor in the dramedy Enemies, A Love Story (1989), based on the novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and an abused wife in the comedy-drama Chocolat (2000), for which she received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Her other film roles include The Adventures of Picasso (1978), Havana (1990), Romeo Is Bleeding (1993), Mr. Jones (1993), The Ninth Gate (1999), Queen of the Damned (2002), Casanova (2005), The Reader (2008), Remember Me (2010), Maya Dardel (2017), and The Artist's Wife (2019).
On television, Olin starred as KGB agent Irina Derevko on the spy thriller Alias (2002–2006), which earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Her other television roles include the sitcom Welcome to Sweden (2014–2015), the drama series Riviera (2017–2020), and the drama series Hunters (2020–2023).
Early life and education
Lena Maria Jonna Olin was born on 22 March 1955, in Stockholm, Sweden, the youngest of three children of actors Britta Holmberg and Stig Olin.<ref name =encyc/> Olin worked as a nursing assistant and as a substitute teacher before starting drama school.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She studied at Sweden's National Academy of Dramatic Art from 1976 to 1979.<ref name="encyc">Template:Cite web</ref>
In October 1974, at age 19, Olin was crowned Miss Scandinavia in Helsinki, Finland.<ref>Lena Olin :: Press Archive. Template:Webarchive.</ref>
Career
Olin performed for over a decade with Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre-ensemble (1980–1994) in plays by William Shakespeare and August Strindberg, and appeared in smaller roles of several Swedish films directed by Bergman and in productions of Swedish Television's TV-Theatre Company.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Ingmar Bergman cast Olin in Face to Face (1976). A year later,<ref name="Post 1990-01-18">Template:Cite news</ref> she began acting on the national stage in Stockholm in productions directed by Bergman. She toured internationally with Bergman's production of King Lear (in which Olin played Cordelia), including Paris, Berlin, New York, Copenhagen, Moscow, and Oslo. Critically acclaimed stage performances by Olin at Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre included the leading part as The Daughter in A Dream Play by Strindberg; Margarita in the stage adaptation of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov; Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters; Ann in Edward Bond's Summer; Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare; Ben Jonson's The Alchemist; the title role in Ingmar Bergman's rendition of Strindberg's Miss Julie, and the neurotic Charlotte in the contemporary drama Nattvarden (The Last Supper) by Lars Norén.<ref name =encyc/>
In 1980, Olin was one of the earliest winners of the Ingmar Bergman Award at the Guldbagge Awards,<ref name="16thGuldbagge">Template:Cite web</ref> initiated in 1978 by the director himself, who was also one of the two judges.<ref>Ingmar Bergman Prize Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 18 October 2011</ref>
Olin's international debut in film was a small role in Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (1980), with Bergman later casting her in her first international lead role, After the Rehearsal (1984).Template:Citation needed In 1988, Olin starred with Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche in her first major role in an English-speaking and internationally produced film, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.<ref name=morris2025>Template:Cite web</ref> She also appeared in Sydney Pollack's Havana (1990) and Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate (1999).<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 1989, Olin was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for Enemies: A Love Story, in which she portrayed the survivor of a Nazi death camp.<ref name=":0" />
She starred in the 1993 thriller Romeo Is Bleeding, and in the 1999 American superhero comedy film Mystery Men.<ref name=morris2025/>
Olin and director Lasse Hallström collaborated on the film Chocolat (2000),<ref name=morris2025/> which received five Academy Award nominations. She worked with him again on Casanova (2005) and in the 2024 TV series The Darkness.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=morris2025/>
In 2002, Olin appeared in her first American television role, joining the main cast of Alias for its second season, playing the role of Irina Derevko. For her work on the series, Olin was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2003.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=morris2025/>
In 2005, Olin returned to Sweden for a brief period of filming and starred in a supporting role in Danish director Simon Staho's film, Bang Bang Orangutang.Template:Citation needed In 2008, Olin appeared in the Oscar-nominated film The Reader, playing a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz death march at a trial in the 1960s, and as the woman's daughter twenty years later.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=morris2025/>
Between 2014 and 2015, Olin starred in Swedish sitcom Welcome to Sweden.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2017 she starred in the American-Polish independent drama film Maya Dardel, which screened at SXSW.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
From 2020 to 2023 she played Eva Braun-Hitler / The Colonel, leader of the Fourth Reich and Hitler's wife, in Hunters, an American conspiracy drama television series.<ref name=morris2025/> In 2024 she played the lead role as Detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir in the Icelandic/American Nordic Noir TV series The Darkness, directed by Lasse Hallström, with whom she had previously collaborated.<ref name=morris2025/>
Personal life
Olin has a son, August, from a relationship with actor Örjan Ramberg.<ref name="Post 1990-01-18" /> Since 1994, she has been married to filmmaker Lasse Hallström, with whom she has a daughter, Tora. They reside in Bedford, New York.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Filmography
Film
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Hamilton | Tessie | |
| 2002–2006 | Alias | Irina Derevko | Main cast (season 2), guest 5 episodes (seasons 4–5) Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (2003) Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Television Series (2003, 2004) |
| 2010 | Law & Order: Special Victims Unit | Ingrid Block | Episode: "Confidential" |
| 2014–2015 | Welcome to Sweden | Viveka Börjesson | Main cast |
| 2016 | Vinyl | Mrs. Fineman | 3 episodes |
| 2017–2020 | Riviera | Irina Atman | Main cast |
| 2017 | Mindhunter | Annaliese Stilman | 1 episode |
| 2020–2023 | Hunters | Eva Braun-Hitler / The Colonel | Main cast |
| 2024 | The Darkness | Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir | Lead role<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
| 2025 | Nine Perfect Strangers | Helena | Main cast (season 2) |