Persbrandt and Sjöholm in dream games that put relationships at stake

Mikael Persbrandt in a dark suit and Helen Sjöholm in a green dress standing in front of a window.

Helen Sjöholm and Mikael Persbrandt play a married couple in Until the Sun Rises. Photo & © Barzan Dello

Dagens Nyheter 2021-12-25

By: MOA MALMQVIST

Peter Dalles Until the Sun Rises is about controlling your dreams, an enticing thought that proves to have devastating consequences. Mikael Persbrandt and Helen Sjöholm play a married couple, whose relationship is put to the test when one of them seeks another reality. DN meets the actors to talk about the postponed Christmas drama.

The handwritten and leather-covered book that Peder receives as a Christmas present is only available in five editions. The old treasure soon turns out to have a greater purpose than as a collection, because the book can be used to control dreams.

Mikael Persbrandt, who plays Peder, and Helen Sjöholm, who plays Peder’s wife Lena, lean back on a surprisingly trouble-free zoom link when they tell about Until the Sun Rises. Persbrandt describes his character as a “sleeping middle-aged guy in a happy but perhaps a little bit sleepy marriage”.

– Peder works as a stockbroker where he doesnt feel really comfortable. He has an interest in antique books and dreams of this treasure that is found in some antique shop, which he then receives as a Christmas present, Persbrandt says and continues:

– There are men like Peder for real, who I myself hope I will not become and who I fight against. I see them walking the streets, all these men who are like lost in the pancake, completely inside their routines and in themselves. But the dreams make Peder happy for a while.

Helen Sjöholm’s character Lena notices that her husband is becoming increasingly absent and hilarious from his dreams.

– We´ve a need to indulge in our dreams, and open up another part of our personalities. It’s a bit interesting… it doesn´t have to mean anything bad. But in Peder’s case, it seems to go a little too far.

The recordings began just weeks before the very first case of corona was found in Sweden. Peter Dalle has both written and directed the movie. In addition, he´s seen in the role of husband of Hanna, the main character’s youthful love. The movie would have premiered over the Christmas weekend of 2020, but due to the pandemic – and the movie’s obvious Christmas theme – the cinema audience had to wait a whole year.

– We´ve all been affected by the pandemic. I should have filmed some last summer, but it was either interrupted or postponed. It will be finished, but it’s a choppy schedule right now… which has meant that I have been a farmer at home on my farm. It has not been entirely wrong to drive a tractor a little bit, Persbrandt explains, who was recently seen in the TV series Den osannolika mördaren (The Improbable Killer).

He´s referring to his horse farm which is less than an hour’s drive south of Stockholm. He has worked abroad for the past three years. When the interview takes place, he´s at home between two recording blocks for season three of the British TV series Sex education, which premiered in September this year.

– For many, the pandemic has been misery and for others it has been a moment of respite and breathing. Like restructuring and not feeling the need to do a lot of things. Many people I know think that the pandemic has brought a certain peace of mind, says Persbrandt.

– Then the break creates a longing to get out and do things, and a craving for lots of new ideas, Helen Sjöholm adds.

Last year she would have played in the musical Next To Normal at Uppsala City Theater, but after just eight nights all performances were cancelled. She has since been seen in Amy Deasismont’s TV series Thunder in my heart and in Så mycket bättre (So Much Better). During the autumn, she has toured around the country with music from the album En ny tid (A New Time), which was released a year ago.

– In the middle of the pandemic, I and some musicians were playing at a nursing home. We never wanted to stop, one more song and another one. It might have been a bit of a wrong forum, but I´ve longed so much to play, work and rehearse as well. There’s some kind of power in it, and it’s been amazing to finally get out in the country and play my new music.

Vanna Rosenberg plays Peder’s old love Hanna. In the dreams, they meet in swimwear on white beaches with azure blue water. Soon they begin to be seen in real life, to plan common destinations at night.

The film is admittedly not a pure Christmas movie, but it takes a leap into Christmas, when it also premieres. I ask them why many Christmas movies revolve around infidelity – like Tomten är far till alla barnen (Santa is the father of all children) or Love Actually.

– I rarely watch Christmas movies and I’m not entirely sure that this is a Christmas movie, except that the characters celebrate Christmas. What really makes a movie a Christmas movie? Nor would I say that this is a film that explores duality as an idea or non-idea. If it´s discarded or if we are to live in other relationships and constellations, Persbrandt says and continues:

– Peder and Hanna’s dreams are not just about a new partner, but about another life. My character feels alien to his life, but it´s probably more recognizable when you are around 50 years old than when you are 25. The escapist element in the film is probably more an expression that life is short.

Helen Sjöholm takes over:

– We usually talk about that at home, as well as free cards and all that stuff at the same time as you have to play with the idea. Does living with a partner work if you don´t acknowledge that you are attracted to other people? I might not tell you if I fantasized about others, but I think it’s inevitable.

What constitutes the film’s sense moral, the actors don´t seem to be able to really answer. Because it’s not about duality or infidelity, nor that you should beware of dangerous forces when you are bored.

(…)

The conversation leads to old loves and relationships that sometimes visit dreams, decades later. Helen Sjöholm refers to the play Hugh och Nancys många världar (Hugh and Nancy’s many worlds) where she played together with Vanna Rosenberg. The play is about a physicist who researches parallel worlds and causality.

– It´s very difficult to take in the idea that everything lives on in other worlds. When you choose to end a relationship, it lives on somewhere. It seems to remain in the emotional bank, so they pop up in the dreams sometimes, she says.

– I think we all dream, it´s a cleaning of the hard drive I guess, Persbrandt adds.

He tells of a recurring dream, where he will play a Shakespeare play at Dramaten, and gets there without knowing his lines.

– I try to explain that I know what to say but then the curtain goes up… It was a bit like that when I worked with Bergman. That I always thought that he mustn´t accuse me of not knowing the lines, Persbrandt says.

– I´ve dreamed several times that I suddenly find a door at home that I have never seen before. I open it and there is a completely new part of the house I have never seen before, Sjöholm says.

(…)