Joachim Trier And His ‘Sentimental Value’ Family On The Road To The Oscars

Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value has nine Oscar nominations, and just last weekend it won the Best Film in a Foreign Language prize at the EE BAFTA Film Awards in London.

It’s a family drama that slowly but surely unearths intergenerational family trauma shared by Nora and Agnes, two sisters, played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, when their estranged father, a once celebrated Norwegian filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård), re-enters their lives after his ex-wife, their mother, dies.

Gustav has a motive for hanging around. He wants Nora, a stage actress, to star in his new film, his first in years, but she rejects both him and his offer. Enter Rachel Kemp, a Hollywood star played by Elle Fanning, who Gustav wants to be in his movie, one that reawakens deeper, darker traumas from further back in his family’s past.

Trier and his longtime writing collaborator, Eskil Vogt, have shown a rare skill in allowing real women to emerge in their films. Prior to this, Trier, Vogt and Reinsve all collaborated on the acclaimed The Worst Person In the World. Reinsve was a revelation in that film, just as she is in Sentimental Value. The emotional rawness that she brings is unbelievable. Indeed, all four of the central performances are finely, intricately drawn portraits of human beings, which is why each of the quartet of actors received Oscar nominations for their work in a movie that is also up for Best Picture, Best International Film, Best Director, Original Screenplay and Editing.

For Trier and Reinsve, it’s their third time working together. The actress once said of her relationship with her director, “I think we recognize something in each other. There’s a playfulness, and we’re able to laugh about these things and be curious and also go really deep into these themes. We kind of have the same questions, not necessarily wanting an answer, but seeing the complexities… They’re so dynamic, and they’re never judged, even with all their chaos. It’s a really free space to be in.”

While Reinsve was busy filming Alexander Payne’s new film Somewhere Out There in Denmark, Trier, Skarsgård, Fanning and Lilleaas assembled over Zoom to discuss all that “playfulness” and “chaos. “

DEADLINE: This is a film where, in a sense, women triumph over male failure, that’s been written by two men, and I’m keen to hear Inga and Elle’s view on this.

ELLE FANNING: Gosh, there’s just something about Joachim and Eskil when you meet them. They’re just such open people. They’re very curious people, and you can see that. They really absorb everything around them. I mostly was working with Joachim, obviously, and we had rehearsals together. And just what struck me the first time was how interested he was in me and in my thoughts, allowing me to add layers. I guess I can only speak about Rachel, but I didn’t want her to be one-dimensional and I wanted to expand on that. After the rehearsals, they would go back and rewrite and kind of flesh out each character and actually make them more complicated. I think the complications really excite them.

But it wasn’t necessarily something that we talked about — ‘Oh, these female characters…’. After seeing The Worst Person in the World, I felt like, ‘Well, I know I’m in good hands.’ I think women all around the world in their thirties were so touched and moved and felt like, “That’s my experience,” even though it was written by these two men. I certainly could relate in my own ways, even though I was younger when I saw that movie. I didn’t necessarily categorize it in that way in my mind, but it is [a talent] that Joachim has. I mean, he could speak to this, he has two daughters now. He’s watching his daughters grow up and have that experience. And so, I think he’s surrounded by women also. His wife is pretty extraordinary.

DEADLINE: Elle, I’ve discussed this with Joachim and Stellan before, but now you’re here, what were the discussions you had? Because Rachel could have been just a caricature of “a Hollywood actress”.

FANNING: I think, in her own way, she’s yearning and really looking for something. And I think that builds to make the last scene work, where she steps away. That scene is in there, but there also were scenes that didn’t make it into the film that helped color the character for me. There’s a scene where she’s talking about her own complicated relationship with her dad, and that’s something that Joachim and I talked about.

We added the element that she’s been in this industry for a really long time. I don’t even know if that’s mentioned in the movie, but because we shot those scenes — and we had these long conversations about it — it adds dimension and depth to her. I feel like audiences can feel that, even though the scenes didn’t necessarily make it in. Inga and I also had a scene together that didn’t make the final cut. But there’s something about having done those scenes — you live it, then you bring it to the next. You don’t know what’s going to end up in there, but, for me, it made Rachel come from a deeper place.

JOACHIM TRIER: Elle is making a great point. We talked about that, that we’re showing the tip of the iceberg. The feelings around it comes out of unconscious, conscious conversations about life. [To the actors] My big privilege is that you all brought something of yourself, which is never discussed specifically, but something of yourself to these roles in a more revelatory way, where I saw you do the research about who these characters are, and then, on the day, bringing it.

The only point I want to make is that I don’t work ideologically. That means that I don’t sit down with Eskil and say, “Oh, I’m going to write a person of this age, or this gender.” The only times we spoke about gender — as far as I remember — with Elle and Inga were about very specific moments. If Inga and I talked about being a mother, or a sister’s experiences of siblinghood, then gender plays into it. Maybe there was some gender aspect that just came up naturally in conversation with Elle, like, what is it to be a female star in your 20s as opposed to a male? We talked about dresses, fashion, and the pressure of representing something physical that women are very exposed to in this industry. But we didn’t say, “OK, so you’re a woman and I’m a man.” [Laughs.] Now and again, it would become specific, like [to Elle] “You’ve got to wear a beautiful dress. How would Rachel feel about that, and what has she been through?” Suddenly you guys come in and give a lot of interesting information that I learned from and that builds the character out. Again, the tip of the iceberg.

INGA IBSDOTTER LILLEAAS: The difference between this script and a lot of other scripts is that it’s not written for a woman or three women. It’s written for human beings. So, it’s like a collective experience of being. I’m a woman, so that’s naturally going to be a part of it, and you fill the character with that experience. I don’t need a man to tell me what that’s like naturally. So, the whole experience was working with human beings. And that’s maybe one of the first times I’ve had that experience. actually.

DEADLINE: I may have phrased the whole question incorrectly, on purpose, because I got some fire there. I’m keen to understand more about what was underneath the iceberg, because it’s true that we’re able to intuit vicariously everything about the Borg family.

STELLAN SKARSGÅRD: It’s that the characters are really, really full. And as Joachim says, he uses our experience, our discussions, everything at the bottom of the iceberg, and it comes through. And it comes through in small things, that you might not be aware of as an actor even. Small signals, like a dog biting his tail or sniffing or whatever. It’s a different language. Like Inga says, it’s about human beings. Lars von Trier has written some of the best female roles in the history of filmmaking, and Ingmar Bergman has written some of the best female roles as well. You don’t have to be blind because you’re a man.

DEADLINE: Very good. I’m interested in how the decisions were made regarding what was left on the cutting room floor.

TRIER: There’s a saying that you hear when you’re a kid, and in film school, and all the time from some people out there that make the films you admire. If you listen, they talk about absence, how to engage people in the absence. So, in all art, there’s something outside the frame, something that leaves space for us as human beings when we go to the movies or watch a painting or a photography or read a book. There’s something outside of it that we can engage with, which is the opposite of what I would call the idea of a totalitarian narrative, the idea that I’m going to cover everything: “You’re not going to have to imagine anything in this. I’m giving you everything.”

That doesn’t engage us on a deeper level. So, the ideal is just enough for people to discuss afterwards. Someone will say, “Hey, I felt this,” and someone else will say, “But I felt the opposite,” and it still kind of works.” That’s the ideal, right? So, how do we represent enough specific beats and take out the exposition? I do a lot of test screenings and the most painful part of this process was to have to lose really amazing material. The whole scene with Inga and Elle? It’s about Rachel [Fanning] going to the younger sister and saying, “Your dad is not giving me the information I need. What really happened to his mother?” And then Inga’s character is talking about how her father was avoidant and all that. It’s a beautifully well-acted scene. I’m actually rather proud of how it’s shot, even.

They also engage in conversation about being a child actor, and we see Rachel discovering that the part was meant for Nora [Reinsve], which Inga’s character reveals by mistake. It was a beautifully written scene, and we were terribly proud of it, all of us. But when we took it out, the film just became more exciting because we didn’t have to set everything up. People did understand who the father was. They did understand. And it’s so interesting and vibrant and electric how Inga — slowly, through her great subtle acting — builds this momentum. We don’t want her to have said too much about her relationship to her father.

What’s going to happen? All of that is a million times more exciting for the audience. And — sorry — I killed some darlings to achieve that. Lena Endre, who’s one of our favorite actors in the world, did a long dialogue scene with Stellan Skarsgård. She plays Rachel’s mother in the film inside the film. What an honor to work with an actor like that. They did a fantastic dialogue scene, but it just explained too much about Stellan’s character, about Gustav. They talk too much about things I already feel that the audience has a version of in their mind. Again, engagement and interpretation.

So that’s it. It’s again, the tip of the iceberg, the idea that absences are loaded in a film. What you don’t tell is equally important to what you do tell.

SKARSGÅRD: You gave me a wonderful phrase there — totalitarian narrative.

TRIER: You know what I mean?

SKARSGÅRD: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

TRIER: Humanist narrative says, “I’m humbly offering you this. Engage with it, if you will.” Totalitarian narrative is like, “OK, I’m going to come up with all the right sugar and I’m going to seduce you totally, so you can leave it and it’s digested already.” I mean, I’m exaggerating a bit, but there’s something that worries me about it.

DEADLINE: This film fascinates me so much because it’s like going to see a Harold Pinter play or Ibsen at the theater. The great joy is in interpreting it on so many levels. Like, how Rachel Kemp could’ve been the most horrible screen monster …

FANNING: The thing about it, too, is I think there’s a little bit of mystery when you first meet her. The beach scene in Deauville almost feels like its own short film, in a way, apart from the movie. It has a very different quality to it. It’s more kind of dreamy, but it does have a Hollywood sheen on it, introducing Rachel. You don’t think about audiences when you’re in a scene. I mean, the editing is so brilliant in this movie. Olivier [Bugge Coutté, the film’s Oscar-nominated editor], was also recognized this year, which is just so brilliant and so he’s so deserving because we did a lot of different takes. I give a lot of credit to him for crafting the performance in a way.

But I guess, yeah, when Rachel’s first introduced, I was aware that I had to make her a believable movie star. How do you act being a movie star? Like Inga said, I was acting, I was trying to be a human being, but she’s coming into this world and you want people to get, “OK, she’s the outsider here, and I do believe that she’s had this life of being an actor.” I guess, for me, it’s not too far away. I’ve been to Deauville, I’ve been to the film festival there, I’ve sat in that theater before. I definitely — certainly — wear a lot of red-carpet dresses. And so that’s a life that I knew, but I guess the question was, specifically, like what type of actress is she?

I didn’t model it off of anyone in particular, but I think she’s someone that hasn’t had the meaty role yet or maybe hasn’t been recognized for her talent quite yet. There’s something to her that she appears very powerful, but then on the beach, you realize, Oh, she’s just kind of this very young, vulnerable girl who’s searching, and then she finds Gustav, who brings something out of her and actually gives her this confidence. And then — of course, she doesn’t know it — she is actually morphing into a surrogate daughter for him. All those dynamics were just so interesting for me to build her out.

I think she’s probably too young for that part. There’s a lot of insecurities that are brought up for her. But I do love her just, ultimately, doing the right thing… We talked about this earlier, but doing the right thing is, I guess, the unexpected choice for her, in a weird way. I mean, there’s many heroes in the story, but she has to walk away in order to have this family come together. Not everything’s wrapped up in a perfect bow, but there’s a start to some type of understanding or reconciliation. It’s just a beautiful part; I’ve never played anyone quite like her. It felt kind of also grown-up and very grounded in a way. And so that’s why she’s very special to me.

DEADLINE: Inga’s Agnès is the grown up, although she has her own trauma. She’s the counterpoint to Renate’s Nora and to Elle’s Rachel. She’s the only one …

SKARSGÅRD: …Who won’t beat me.

DEADLINE: [Pretending not to have heard the comment] She won’t what?

SKARSGÅRD: [Laughing.] She won’t aggressively beat me. No, but I see her also as a grown-up. I mean, even probably more grown up than I see myself. And so, she has to bear the burden of everybody coming to her with her problems and nobody asking, “What’s your problem?”

LILLEAAS: I think that’s how she’s developed; she puts herself to the side for the others, and that’s how she manages to keep them all together by not putting herself, her feelings, in the mix, which is interesting and kind of heartbreaking, I think.

DEADLINE: When you say that I think of the scene where Agnes and Nora [Renate Reinsve] are packing up the house and Nora’s no help at all.

TRIER: This is the magic of what Inga has done. Paul Thomas Anderson calls her the best special effect of the year, in a humoristic, complimentary way, of course. I’m very inspired by Yasujirō Ozu’s films, the Japanese master of humanist cinema. And if you look at them, very often he does this thing where a character in the beginning that’s not the lead, you listen to them listening, and then slowly they come to the center and align themselves with the audience in a very, very, very deep way. [To Inga] I feel that that’s what you were able to do — we have a lot of shots of you listening, and you listen well. That’s a great skill as an actor, and we feel something deep inside you.

Eskil and I were really scared when we wrote Agnes, because she’s so much in the background for a lot of the film that we wouldn’t be able to make her interesting enough. And I think Inga solved the problems. I really think so. [To Inga] Every time you’re in a scene with someone, you ground it, you bring some “OK, we got to keep it real” feeling to it. And it’s a perfect dynamic because all the three other characters are so skilled at the charismatic playfulness of it all. And then Inga comes in and is like, “OK, but underneath all of this, there are serious conversations that need to be had.”

DEADLINE: Do you think that’s because Inga’s character is the only one of the female characters who isn’t a professional actor? Rachel and Nora are skilled at hiding behind something else, aren’t they?

TRIER: She avoids [acting] because she was forced to kind of do that with her father as a child. I say forced because, as we see, there’s ambivalence. There was also a joy and a contact that was complicated. And I think the other two women are more yearning, and I don’t think that Agnes wants that. She wants her own family. I don’t know. Inga, how do you feel about this?

LILLEAAS: I agree. We talked about her making conscious choices of not recreating the same sort of dynamic and making the same mistakes as her parents. And she’s able to do that because she had a sister who took care of her and gave her some sort of stability. And so, I think that’s how she’s able to be also so incredibly patient with the people around her and so empathetic, because I think that’s sort of what drives her.

DEADLINE: And Stellan, please tell me something of your relationship with your three “screen daughters?”

SKARSGÅRD: It’s a great privilege to have three daughters. I only have one in real life. They’re so fantastic and so different personalities, all three of them, but I fell in love with all three. But it’s so remarkable to see how Joachim has let them become something from what they have inside. He let them develop that into the character. I saw that on the set. It was so beautiful. You always use your own material in a way, not biographic material, but your own feelings, your own flaws and everything in acting. But in this case, I’ve never seen it so obvious that — without revealing yourself by making it biographical — you are totally exposed.

DEADLINE: Having gotten to know all of you, Renate too, since last May back in Cannes, I’m struck by the genuine warmth, friendship and love that’s developed between all of you.

FANNING: It truly is. I think also, obviously, we had the film experience. For me, I was working with Stellan most of the time, so I knew him the most out of the cast. And Renate, I only met her when we had a one rehearsal day and then we crossed paths on the set one day. I had my brunette hair at the time, and I came out of the trailer, and she was like, “Wow… You have my haircut!” There’s a photo of this, behind the scenes, of us really mirroring each other. We’re both kind of tall and have lanky and have the same hair. And I think she was struck by what Joachim was doing. She was like, “Wait a second. She really looks like me.” And so that was our own little interaction.

But I feel like I really got to know everyone, and we became this band on the road, doing these interviews and having this experience. Yes, I’ve been a part of this end-of-the-year circus before, but maybe not to this extent because going from Cannes all the way until now… You don’t realize how long that is. But, genuinely, I love everyone so much and respect everyone so much. And I feel like I can lean on them, which you don’t always feel.

DEADLINE: I’ve seen a lot of the celebratory footage on social media, but, again, there’s so much genuine warmth during the moments your names were called when the nominations were announced. Certainly, when all four actors are recognized. Did you text each heart emojis?

LILLEAAS: Yes, a lot of hearts.

SKARSGÅRD: For me, it was relief and happiness because I didn’t want anybody to be left behind. It would have been terrible. So, they accommodated us there.

LILLEAAS: I just remember the first name that was called was Elle’s name, and the room went completely crazy. Everyone was screaming, and then my name came out, and then it just kept rolling and I couldn’t take it in. And when Renate’s name was called, that’s when I started to cry. And, Joachim, when you got the director’s nomination, that’s when I felt like, oh God, we’re all still together.

TRIER: I had tears in my eyes from the word go. I was in LA and so was Elle. Stellan was in Stockholm and everyone else was in Oslo, so we’d set up a system so that we would be together. Everyone was kind of in there, communicating digitally or for real. And the first two names out of the gate, of all nominations at the Academy Awards, were Elle and Inga. And as a director… When actors get nominated and you’re director, it’s the most lovely thing in the world. It makes me super-proud because I’ve seen the work, I’ve been in the trenches with them. I’ve seen how vulnerable they made themselves, how risky it is to do real work deeply from your own personality and all that stuff, taking those risks.

And also, of course, Olivier, our editor, and my dear friend Eskil as well. It’s been very, very moving, and it’s never happened for a Norwegian film before. We’ve barely been nominated at all as a country.

DEADLINE: Inga, I remember interviewing you in Telluride. And for a moment, when we first sat down, I got this sense that you’re thinking, ‘Why is he even interviewing me?’ And now, here you are.

LILLEAAS: At that point, I didn’t know that you could get nominated in other categories than international, with an international movie. I didn’t know that that was possible. So, I’ve been quite naive, It took such a long time [to sink in]. and everyone was like, “Well, it’s important.” I’m like, “God, you guys, you’re so delusional. This is not real.” But then, all of a sudden it became more and more real. Now I just don’t know what to think or feel, actually.

DEADLINE: What about you, Elle?

FANNING: I woke up, I looked like a crazed zombie apparently. I wasn’t watching the stuff. I was just asleep and my sister and I actually had a really late night the night before. And so, we were out and I only got two hours of sleep and I woke up and we were at my mom’s house. It’s not our childhood home, but we were in our rooms in our mom’s house, and for me to be with my family when we’ve also been in this business for a really long time, there was just something quite surreal and amazing about that. And to watch my sister’s reaction to it and see how proud and excited she is for me… Yes, there were tears involved. I think I was honestly too shocked to cry, though. I was welling up.

DEADLINE: Sentimental Value has nine Academy Award nominations. What does it mean for Norwegians and Swedes?

TRIER: I know I’ve told this story before; I come from a film family, and my grandfather made a film that went to Cannes 1960. It’s true when I say there wasn’t an infrastructure. I’m third generation Norwegian, and I’m kind of living off that inheritance of that generation’s fight to get the government to understand that you have to invest in movies in a small language region.

Denmark, Norway and Sweden — these are small countries in terms of population. Sweden is, what, like eight, nine million people? Norway is five and a half million. That’s all we’ve got. That’s the whole local audience for a movie. So, you need government to support at least parts of your budget, and that infrastructure’s taken time…There’s been a lot of good Norwegian films, but there hasn’t been any infrastructure for continuity. So, if nothing else, at least Norway is a little bit more on the map. I think it means something because people are like, “Oh, hey, they’re making films in these countries.” It’s…

SKARSGÅRD: …A good thing. And it’s a good thing that the politicians notice and the politicians get flattered, because politicians are very easy to flatter. You know that. I mean, if they say, “Oh, we got Oscars, we got Golden Bears,” then they suddenly became aware that there was a film and they will give you more money.  Sweden is in a real bad shape. I know you have problems in Norway, but we’re getting half of what you have in Norway.

DEADLINE: What’s happening there in Sweden, Stellan? Is it just lack of funding generally?

SKARSGÅRD: Yes, yes. It’s a conservative government that says that art shouldn’t be funded, and that’s the big problem. Art shouldn’t be funded. They have the idea that everything should be funded by itself, which means that everything is commodified. Everything is supposed to be bearing its own burden, and it doesn’t work.

DEADLINE: Is it any different in Norway?

LILLEAAS: Joachim knows more about that, but, yes, we do have issues, but I think there’s more of an understanding that art has to be sort of funded in order to be free somehow, and that’s extremely important. And if you’re funded by someone who expects to get paid back, that makes it not art in a way, because then it’s all created for a result and not for itself. I don’t know how to explain.

TRIER: I agree with Inga that what I think is the important thing is the mixture. You need to take a risk. You can’t play it safe. It becomes stale. So that’s the thing. How do we create an environment for risk taking? So, I agree with Inga and Stellan that we need to encourage politicians to continue. What we need is the cultural ministry in Norway to step up. It used to be like that in the past, and the irony is that the part of the success [of this film] has made a lot of people think, ‘Oh, you don’t need government grants,’ but we do, to a larger degree right now, for various reasons. It’s more expensive to make films than it was [when we made] Worst Person in the World. Everything has become more expensive for many reasons that I’m not going to speak to, but in the world and salary, inflation, all those things. So, we need support.

DEADLINE: Did you receive a phone call from the Norwegian culture minister?

TRIER: No, but from the prime minister. Which meant a lot.

DEADLINE: You got a phone call or a text?

TRIER: Text.

DEADLINE: And what about you, Inga?

LILLEAAS: No, we all got the same message.

SKARSGÅRD: I got a text from the former prime minister of Sweden.

DEADLINE: But not the present one?

SKARSGÅRD: No, no, no.

DEADLINE: Before we go, what does the title Sentimental Value mean to you?

TRIER: On this call, I feel it has great meaning for me, personally. I mean, it’s true, Baz. I get shy as a Norwegian to flaunt that in public, but we really dig each other. We’re having a good time. And it’s funny now, I saw you in London recently, and Stellan, but Inga, I haven’t seen you for a little moment. I spoke to Renate on the phone a couple of days ago. We’re really happy and proud together to make this Sentimental Value. We’ve talked before, Baz, about this idea — I think we’re all going a little bit… We’re going acoustic, and that’s the radical movement.

SKARSGÅRD: Unplugged.

TRIER: We’re going a bit unplugged on this; I think that it’s about daring to be emotional at a time when things are tough. As Inga has often said — and as I think we learned from Inga’s character and from her approach to the character — there’s a through-line of love in this film. And I’m not going to be shy about saying it anymore. I would never have dared to say it before we wrote the film, because I’m trying to be still this cool guy, but actually I think it’s cool to be emotionally engaged in a world that’s pretty tough.