Interview with Lena Olin and Tora Hallström, stars of HILMA

By Raphael Jose Martinez

Films about artists are often hagiographies, a way to elevate someone into some sort of canon. The most interesting things about them are generally paved over in order to tell stories of overcoming struggle and making these people into messengers of hope. Swedish writer-director Lasse Hallström’s HILMA deftly avoids all the trappings of the banal, cliched bio-pic and gives us the story of a truly strange and powerful artist without any generic window dressing.

The film tells the story of Hilma af Klint, a queer Swedish artist who, despite predating popular abstract artists, was completely unknown until well after her death in 1944.

And by choice. An iconoclastic mystic, who used her powers as a spiritual medium to paint what she saw in the metaphysical world, Klint was unknown until her first gallery showing in 1986, 42 years after her death. In 2019 her show at the Guggenheim Museum drew over 600,000 visitors, making it the most attended exhibition in the museum’s history.

HILMA gives a beautiful overview of the often fraught and difficult life of Klint. Starring the mother-daughter duo of Tora Hallström and Lena Olin, both as Hilma at different points in the artist’s life, we get a powerful telling of woman who, to this day, seems to exist outside the bounds of conventional society.

I had the pleasure to sit down with both Tora and Lena for a conversation. What began as a simple question-and-answer session about the film eventually turned into a wonderfully weaving, meandering conversation about solace and comfort in a post-pandemic world, the power of manifesting, the need for witches in contemporary society, and the soul of art. I think Hilma would have enjoyed it very much.

Raphael Jose Martinez (RJM): So what drew the two of you into doing a film about Hilma af Klint?

Tora Hallström (TH): My dad [HILMA writer-director Lasse Hallström] started out by being really interested in UFOs and through that he met some guy who used to work at the Pentagon. There was this whole process of figuring out if there are extra-terrestrial beings, and there was some connection with that and mediums. Through that he became very interested in mediums, being able to talk to the other side, and at the same time Hilma was becoming really big in New York. And she was a medium, obviously, and Swedish, so he started doing a lot of research. I was working in investment banking at the time when this started becoming an actual topic of conversation, and I was on my only vacation, like, ever, and my dad was talking about this project saying, “I think I’m going to make a movie about Hilma af Klint and you should play Hilma.” I was like, “I’m… I’m a banker.” [Laughs] I can’t do this. But then during the pandemic I moved home and had this period of reflection…

RJM: I think a lot of us did.

Lena Olin (LO): Oh yeah.

TH: It was this awful time, but it was kind of a blessing to have all this time to be bored. I was also 25, so quarter-life crisis thoughts were coming to me, too. Do I actually like what I do? And I was tracing the common thread of, “I think I want to do acting, actually.” And at the same time there was a first draft of this script and ViaPlay wanted to buy it, so all these things just kind of intersected at the same time. I was ready to change my life and do this.

RJM: And what drew you to it?

LO: Well, it started with a fascination of Lasse. Because the first time I heard her name mentioned was when I watched a movie with Kristen Stewart on a plane called  PERSONAL SHOPPER, where she looks for her dead brother. And she says that there's a Swedish painter who has a connection with the other side and her name is Hilma af Klint. And I didn't know… I thought it was a fictional character because I hadn't heard of her. I was playing a painter, and I was shooting in the East Hamptons, Tom Dolby (THE ARTIST’S WIFE) was the director, and Lasse was staying with me because he was writing this film about UFOs. And Tom Dolby said, because I was playing a painter, he said, “I love Hilma af Klint, do you know her paintings?” And I was like, “She’s real?!” So then we started reading about her, and I could see that Lasse got obsessed with her and he said, “I have to make a movie about this woman.” Because she’s such a powerful, extraordinary, brilliant character. He started contacting the family and traveling to places she’s lived, places she’s worked, and became obsessed with it. And he said, “There’s one person that should play Hilma, and that’s Tora.” So it all came together in a magical way, actually. It was almost like everything was meant to happen.

RJM: Do you think the fact that it was a family of Swedish artists wanting to do this project allowed it to happen so quickly?

LO: I think so. Yeah. And we get the question, “Why is it in English?” Well, Lasse first went the whole bureaucratic way in Sweden where you need to wait until next year’s decision by the Swedish Film Institute… it’s very sort of Eastern European heavy in that regard. Then ViaPlay came in and said they wanted it to be specifically Nordic but reach internationally. They said, “We’ll take care of it. We can pay for the script.” They loved the script, they loved the idea, they love Lasse… and they had seen tapes of what Tora can do with the character. But we wanted to make it in English because we want to go international.

RJM: That makes sense. And I love that you two are speaking specifically about the draw of the aspect that she was a medium, because that makes it far more unique than most biographical dramas about artists. I’m particularly intrigued by how the film does focus on the mysticism, with the constant refrain of her being a “witch.” You can’t really speak of her life story without having the mysticism in there, it’s inextricable, but this also seems to follow this uptick in films about female mysticism–for lack of better terms “witchcraft”–that seems to be happening. What do you think the pull is to stories like these nowadays, that more people are wanting to see these representations–or at least these tales, stories–of women who are doing, not anti-scientific stuff, but para-scientific stuff?

TH: I think it’s because a lot of people have these sides to themselves and believe in a lot of it, but it hasn't been acceptable for a long time. And so they see it and are like, “I recognize that. I haven't seen that someone else has seen what I’ve seen and believe.” And people have it to varying degrees. Like people like to go to yoga. That’s like one degree. Then some people actually have medium capabilities. Through this whole process I’m very open about the fact that I believe in this type of stuff now, and people have come to us and been like, “Yeah, I talk to the other side, too.” It’s become a hope in being able to talk about it openly. I actually believe in it, and it lightens everything. I felt a lot of fear of death in my life and the hope of thinking that if you lose a loved one you’ll be able to speak to them and they’ll always be with you. I think there’s something really beautiful and comforting in that for people. And especially seeing a woman doing this type of work in that time and being so brave to be able to do it when it was kind of dangerous, I think is really powerful.

RJM: The film makes it very, very clear that she was going to do what she wanted to do regardless of even her closest loved ones.

LO: Right. I think that's what’s so moving about her. The fact that she was so incredibly brave to just keep going. She followed what she saw, the stories she had to tell. And I think that, speaking of witches and mysticism, I think we need it now. I think in those days when they burned them maybe they didn’t need them. I don't know. Cause they were more in touch with the earth. People were more spiritual. Today we understand the power of it, that we need it … I think Hilma is brilliant example of science and creativity going together. It’s the same thing with medicine. I wouldn’t go to only holistic medicine and be like, “Yeah!” But I trust what they say–and the combination is amazing. I think where we are, as human beings on this planet today, we need it! What did those witches say that was so powerful they needed to burn them?!

TH: Yeah!

LO: Let’s listen up. Like everything, like old people who understood the earth. I just came from Arizona, and you see that we are now coming back to what they tried to show us. There’s a power in the earth. You just have to respect it. All of those things, we need them now. And I think therefore people are waking up. I think a lot of people have carried this, “I think it’s a little embarrassing, but I think I feel my dad’s presence when I…” You know? And now the more we speak about it the more everyone is like, “Yeah! Maybe we’re not alone. Maybe we are all one. Maybe there is something bigger. Maybe there is hope in that.” [Deep breath] Yeah!

RJM: Absolutely! Because there’s nothing specifically about this film that makes it overtly a post-pandemic type of film, but I felt it really was. It offers that hope. Because as a world we’re processing this mass amount of death…

LO: Yes, yes.

RJM: …that we’ve all seen, if it hasn’t affected us directly. All those images we were just bombarded with when we had nothing to do but watch them.

TH: Right…

LO: You’re right!

RJM: And now this film kind of offers a soft way of helping deal with that, which I really enjoyed.

LO: Totally. That’s a really good point.

RJM: The other thing about the bravery of Hilma that I thought was quite specifically in the narrative here is the focus on her queer relationships, which is not a thing that you really hear about even now when they speak of her. If anything they only focus on the mysticism. Or a strong woman in a time, and a culture, that didn’t allow her to do what she did. A lot of artists kind of get desexualized, because “nobody wants the tawdry details,” when I think that everyone actually wants the tawdry details! What was that like in the making of this, and in focusing on this aspect of Hilma? Why did you feel the need to do it? And how did you go about navigating that?

TH: I think it’s because that was the truth–or at least as we understand it. It’s pretty much confirmed. We’ve spoken to her family… I haven’t spoken to them directly, but my dad spoke a lot with her family. We read the correspondence with Anna, who was her love in the movie. I feel like it needed a love story. But what I love about how it’s handled in the film is that it’s just a beautiful love story, it’s not necessarily about trying to sexualize the fact that it’s a queer relationship or anything like that. Like, “Ooh!” We’re not going to make it a big deal. It’s just so natural that she loves Anna, and Anna loves Hilma.

RJM: It’s a relationship between artists.

TH: We’re just celebrating their love, I think, which is even more impactful for the LGBTQ community. They just naturally have a love story.

RJM: It didn’t have to be all neat and cute.

LO: And it’s complicated, the way love stories are. Anna has the money, Hilma does not, and it became this sort of inflamed thing for them. And that’s something that the family may not speak of now, but she didn’t get any financial help from the family because she was an outsider. She was not accepted. And the way the relatives talk about her is like [puts on a cartoonishly snooty accent] “Well… she preferred to eat vegetables. Hmmmm. She was very odd.” When they speak about her they sort of walk around it, but I think in those days it was so not acceptable. I mean, she loved women. So she created her own little world of women who understood her and respected her, that she understood and respected. And it was complicated, the way love and relationships are! It was like because they were women and they loved each other it’s all flowery. It was awfully complicated.

RJM: It seems like a relationship that 50 years ago would have been relegated to, “They were… friends.”

TH: A couple of spinsters living together!

LO: And I think that Lasse has such a good take on that. I really love how he portrays them. It’s exactly as you said, they were “friends.” We all have uncles that everyone is like, “No… he lived with his best friend.”

RJM: “It was just easier for them that way!” But with an eyebrow raised… With this being a film that was also made by a family there must have been a connection that you all had in the process that would be more akin to a spiritual connection than, say, working for a hired job. How was that, versus some of the other stuff you have done?

LO: Well, I think that Tora and Lasse had a very… Lasse would say, “She freaking reads my mind! If I walk up because I wanted her to do something, Tora would be like, ‘I know.’” And then she would do exactly what I thought I wanted her to do!” Which is very cool! But Lasse knew that even though it’s family, I think that it was important to him to get the best out of people–that everyone is going to feel like family. That everyone is going to feel respected and included. But I think that the two of them had a very, “I know what you’re thinking..” [dynamic].

RJM: Was there ever a moment where you thought to–or did you–attempt to contact the spirit of Hilma?

LO: Tora did.

TH: Mmhmm. We met with a really talented medium in Sweden. Actually all the five women and I had a session with him together. I had a session with him alone where we talked about my personal life and talked to Hilma, and then we all did one together, which was really beautiful. And he only speaks Swedish. The rest of the actresses were English, so I actually translated as he was speaking. So I kind of had to take the role of Hilma…

RJM: So you became a medium for the medium?

TH: A medium for the medium! Which was very funny! So I got the experience of listening to him and communicating to them what he was saying. But it was so interesting. We spoke to Hilma directly. She had such a great sense of humor, which was very surprising. You feel like she would take her work very seriously–which she did–but she was so fun to talk to. Like she was someone I’d be friends with today! We had a great time together! Of course she had this darkness that she was dealing with, too, but there was this lightness. It was really beautiful getting to experience that together.

LO: All the girls were on fire! I remember after that, after one of the sessions you had with that medium, somebody had seen Tora and the other actors and was like, “I didn't dare walk to that table because they were such a lit group.” It was amazing.

TH: We got all these interesting anecdotes from her personal life. I mean, we can’t confirm that they’re true, but I believe that they’re true. Where she said that she didn't feel like a man or a woman, there wasn’t a word for that at the time. And I was like, “This is so exciting.” I got to bring this masculine energy to a role of woman wearing a corset in a period piece and make it so modern and fresh. Amazing little details that she threw in there that we got to hear directly from Hilma.

RJM: That’s so interesting that you say that because I thought there were moments in the movie, and from her life, that seemed kind of prescient and speak to things now. One of the particular moments is the scene where she has Rudolph Steiner come to her studio and look at her stuff and he comments that art that doesn't originate in the soul of the artist can’t really be called art.

TH: Mmhmm.

RJM: And she has a moment where she asks herself, “What am I doing?” And I think now we’re dealing with that on a technological level with A.I. art and stuff like that.

LO: Yeah! You're right!

RJM: Is that art? Is that not art? It translates into visual art, and now with acting even you can replicate people’s voices. Because Hilma said it was a tool. She sees what she does, that’s out of her control, as a way to get to the reality of it, whereas Steiner thought that was not it at all. How do you two feel about this weird in between of what you’re actually doing, or what this machine, this technological ghost is doing for you?

TH: Wow. Yeah, that’s really…

LO: I feel like what she was describing… that artificial thing is super creepy actually. And people have relationships with it, like, “I love you so much! Don’t leave me.” But it’s… artificial! But I do believe that in any creative job there is that divine intervention. If you’re on stage and you suddenly go and grab somebody’s arm and were thrown against the wall… then afterwards you ask, “Where did that come from?!” Or you're suddenly in a scene, and you do something, and you've prepared and prepared, and once you start shooting you let go of everything and let it happen. Then the things that happen, it’s like a summer wind that blows through a room. You have the windows open, and the curtains move. Something happened. And I think that is creativity. When we’re open. We can prepare, but we have to let it come to us. And I think that's what Hilma was describing. Then they put names to it, like the High Masters. But I think that anyone… we think that something is there. We’re listening to our gut, to our spirit. We are being lead by something.

RJM: Do you think that there will ever be an artist,  50 or 60 years down the road, that people will say that they were feeling the spirit of artificial intelligence? In this weird way that they felt they were being guided it? Personally, I don't.

LO: Does it scare you though? The artificial intelligence thing?

RJM: I am absolutely of two minds, because I think there is a definite use for it.

LO: Of course.

RJM: But for labor reasons.

LO: Yeah, yeah, yeah!

RJM: When you're making certain types of art there are certain things that aren't that important. “I wish that background just existed. I wish we didn't have to focus on that because it’s just not very important.” Which in that case, this is great. But then you have the idea of, “Oh I want it to help me write this script or this dialogue.” It can’t appreciate the world on a physical or sensuous level. It can’t describe the feel of your summer breeze, it can only describe the idea of the feel of a summer breeze. And there I find it scary. Because the moment when you conflate those two everything disappears and falls apart.

TH: But it’s all derived from human art, too. Are you talking about the A.I. app that creates art? Like, “Give me pigs in a cathedral drinking wine.” And then there's just a painting of that. Have you seen that?

LO: No! Oh my god!

RJM: And you can do “pigs in a cathedral drinking wine in the style of Picasso.”

LO: [Laughs] Oh no!

RJM: And it looks like a Picasso!

TH: But you have to say “in the style of a Picasso,” right? There had to be a Picasso to make it happen.

LO: Oh, that's true!

TH: Nothing original is going to happen without humans, who have the ability to imagine things that don't exist. Artificial intelligence just draws from that. At least I hope there's not a future where artificial intelligence can imagine things that don't exist or create things out of nothing!

LO: But you pray that there is something… in love, in art, that can only be made by humans. I was thinking, the thing that makes us human… I was sitting at the opening [of the film], which I haven't done in a long time, and I was sitting there with other people, and it was sensational. Like, god, we need other people when we watch something, when we experience something. And that's not artificial, that's human! But it can be helpful. Someone was telling me about how with some medical things they can do it faster than any doctor could put two and two together. If you have this x-ray of a lung and then you also have the blood work, boom, they do it in two seconds. But when it comes to art… that's so scary. But you're right. There needed to be a Picasso to make it in the style of Picasso.

RJM: So I have one final question, and it’s completely unrelated to the film, just a final question that I ask at every interview. Kind of an artistic outlook question. And it is… what is one thing that you as a person believe to be 100% true, a fact in your mind, that someone else would disagree with you about?

LO: God, that’s so interesting…

TH: I think a lot of things. I can’t choose one!

LO: I think that I’m very… I love to watch sport coaches, what they say, and how they coach people. I grew up with actors, I went through drama school, but I think I’m being so much more helped when I listen to sport coaches. And one of the ones who was training horseback riding, he was saying, “When a kid comes up to me with realistic dreams, I’m not interested. I want the ones with unrealistic dreams.” And I think I’m unrealistic in my dreams and what I believe to be a fact. This is what I’m going to do. This is the house I’m going to build. And I’m talking about the guest house I’m going to build, and I look at our house, and I look at my husband, and everyone is like, “It’s never going to happen.” But I know it will happen. It’s a very small thing, but I think that’s the one thing. And I can apply that to a lot of things that I truly believe. I’ve been right so far, but I'm not so sure that one’s going to happen. But I have a lot of those, where I have such strong beliefs. But I think that all of my dreams have been so sure. They're dreams, and I take that very seriously.

TH: I like that. Manifesting works.

RJM: That’s perfect. I kind of sums up the whole film as well. What a great way to end this.