Super current Helen Sjöholm in a great interview – about her long career and love for Sundsvall: “I´ve followed my heart”

Helen i halvfigur, klädd i mintgrön kavaj. Pressbild inför Så mycket bättre.

Bild: Pär Bäckstrand, TV4/CMore

Sundsvalls Tidning 201211

By: PATRICIA JONESTRÖM

Despite the gloomy year with the corona pandemic, Helen Sjöholm from Sundsvall has a really good year on paper. She released a new album, participates in a Christmas movie at the cinema and is super current in the TV4 hit So much better.
– I´ve followed my heart and I´m proud of that, Helen Sjöholm says.

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The year 2020 looks on paper to be her year; a musical role, a role against Kjell Bergqvist in the TV4 series Bäckström, the newly released album En Ny Tid, a role in the Christmas movie Tills solen går upp and debut in the TV program Så mycket bättre (So much better).

She describes the year as strange and lost. Both she and her husband, who also work in the music industry, have been significantly affected by the corona pandemic.

– This year has been marked by anxiety and the strangeness in that everything has been canceled. This is something that we who work with human encounters and culture have really felt, Helen Sjöholm says.

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– I’ve been lucky. That the project with the record that I have been working on for many years came now and that the film role appeared, it turned out so well. It’s great fun and I’m grateful for the opportunities I get and that I stay broad. I do many things – and like it, which is an benefit now.

You work with both music and film – what is it that attracts the most?
– Many people probably see me as a musical artist as I´ve done a lot of musical theater. I don´t like labels, but of course the combination of theater and music is unbeatable when it’s right. The dream would be to film something where the music carries the action. It´s a bit unexplored in Sweden and it would be fun to experiment a bit with it, Helen Sjöholm says.

How do you look back on the role in Björn and Benny’s musical Kristina from Duvemåla?
– With a huge joy. It was a magical time – and it became a very important years. Being able to work with a character for a long time and develop it meant that it never got boring. Getting a role with newly written material in that way is almost impossible. It happens once in a lifetime – and for most people not at all. It´s an incredible gift to receive in your life even though it was very demanding super tough years, she says.

Even though she lives outside Stockholm, she goes “home” to Sundsvall as soon as she gets the chance.

– I grew up in Sundsvall and that means a lot to me. It´s a strongly marked choir city. SVT had many large broadcasts from Sundsvall where I was in choirs in my teens, including in Café Sundsvall. I’m glad I got the opportunity. Kjell Lönnå has done more for music-Sweden than he has received cred for, Helen Sjöholm says.

It´s on Alnö, to her parents in the house by the sea, that she goes when she comes here.

– It’s my place of recreation. We lived in town when I was little, but always spent the summers in the house on Alnö. It means a lot of joy, but there have also been tougher periods when you have gotten there. It´s restful to be there and it is valuable to have it, she says.

After previously refusing to participate, she is now finally actual in the TV program So much better.

– Those were intense days. Fantastic fun, but quite hard. I’m not that fond of having a camera on my face around the clock. I have a hard time formulating myself and am actually quite slow. It was a great pleasure to meet all the amazing people and hear all the interpretations – not least the versions of my own songs, she says, and continues:

– It was more nervous than I thought to stand in front of an original artist who you accept highly and perform my interpretations of their songs.

Do you think you are popular, or do you think you can be that for a new audience with the program?
– I think many people remember Kristina. It’s popular and there’s a lot of love for the show, but I don´t know if I’m popular. I dont think I can attract a younger audience now, it´s probably more mixed, Helen Sjöholm says.

Do you ever get bored of the songs from Kristina from Duvemåla and Du är min man?
– No, I’m probably getting more tired of myself. You have a bond with the audience to perform what they love and want to hear.

According to Helen Sjöholm, the key is to find different variants of the songs and how they can be performed.

What are you most proud of in your career?
– There are two things; that I could lift the role of Kristina and make it something that people embraced. I was quite inexperienced, only 25 years old. I had sung, but not been much on the music scene… I´m very proud that I could do that. And that I dared to follow my heart and gut feeling, she says.

Now she is also relevant in the Christmas movie Tills solen går upp (Until the Sun Rises) which she describes as a relationship drama with comic features. She plays the wife of the character played by Mikael Persbrandt.

– Peter Dalle called and wanted me to play wife, that I´m a real wife – and what do you say then? “Yes, Peter Dalle, how fun”, she says, laughing.

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Finally, what exactly is your dream job?
– My sister and I always wanted to be on the Christmas calendar on SVT. It’s a childhood dream. It´s something, a fairy tale, that everyone sits in front of and usually watch – even the elderly. It´s a good tradition and something nice about it – an escape from reality and a tension in how to build everything up to door 24, says Helen Sjöholm.


Facts:

Name: Helen Sjöholm

Age: 50 years

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Profession: Singer and actress

Family: Husband and three children

Interests: My job actually. Or cooking – I´m good at both eating and cooking. I like being in the kitchen.

Hidden talent: I can do a lot at the same time; cook, furnish and hang laundry, so I´m terribly efficient privately. There is one side of the corona pandemic that is not so bad that you can slow down – everything else is useless.

In ten years: Hopefully I am in the same situation as now; lives, works and is healthy. And of course I hope that I can continue to go to Alnö and “bring myself home”. There I have my roots and can gain perspective and gain strength. 

(The entire interview is not reproduced for copyright reasons)

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