{"id":6685,"date":"2016-09-12T15:15:37","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T13:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/?page_id=6685"},"modified":"2017-01-14T10:53:46","modified_gmt":"2017-01-14T08:53:46","slug":"conversation-helen-sjoholm-i-long-to-seduce","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/press-clips\/interviews-2016\/conversation-helen-sjoholm-i-long-to-seduce\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversation: Helen Sj\u00f6holm: I long to seduce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Afonbladet S\u00f6ndag 160904<\/strong><\/p>\n

By: JOHAN GUNNARSSON<\/p>\n

It\u2019s said that a butterfly\u2019s wings across the globe can basically affect and change the life of a human. That a measly small event can make the difference between black and white and between a life in a glittering spotlight and a life in the shadows. For Helen Sj\u00f6holm it\u2019s about a choice that two of our greatest stars did – and that led her to Kristina, the big screen, the Swedish scenes and out into the world.
\n– Without it, I probably would not have worked with what I do today. No, I hadn\u2019t, she says.<\/p>\n

She will become a diva. A tipsy diva who set fire to the hearts of men. This is because the time has come to classic G\u00f6ta Lejon in Stockholm. Helen Sj\u00f6holm, yes, not her alone, but Johan Rabaeus, Shima Niavarani, Linus Wahlgren, Johan Rheborg and some more are rehearsing for the premiere of the musical “Kulregn \u00f6ver Broadway”, or Bullets Over Broadway as the model, Woody Allen\u2019s film, was named.
\n– I yearn to seduce, Helen Sj\u00f6holm says and laughs.
\n– It\u2019s a role I\u2019ve never played before. I tend to be more down to earth. It will be great fun to do something new.<\/p>\n

And there is nothing in her appearance that points to anything else than that she means what she says. She speaks quietly, a little pensive, with a fervor and a facial expression that makes you want to listen, but without any major gestures. Every now and then, but only in short phrases, her singing voice breaks through her speaking voice.<\/p>\n

It is hard to imagine Helen Sj\u00f6holm as anything else than a celebrated singer and musical artist. Of course, she also started somewhere, but the last 20 years have been so full of her voice and movements on stage to the time before fades. Ever since she reached the spotlight as Kristina fr\u00e5n Duvem\u00e5la, the Bj\u00f6rn and Benny-musical with the same name, the roles she\u2019s played and the concerts she\u2019s done have succeeded one another, at venues from Malm\u00f6 Music Theatre and Globen to Alls\u00e5ng p\u00e5 Skansen, China and the United States. Not bad for anyone, not either for a now 46-year-old woman from Sundsvall.<\/p>\n

To say that she\u2019s got where she\u2019s ended up in her career by chance would be to reduce her ambitions as younger. When she got the role which meant everything to her future career – a word she likes to defend herself against – she\u2019d had small roles, or rather roles in small productions, in musicals like The Wizard of Oz and Elvira Madigan. She had trimmed and trained her voice with singing teachers and at Kulturama\u2019s jazz and pop song program, but she didn\u2019t get into drama school.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s about where she was in the early 1990s.
\n– I had just read ethnology at the Humanities program and I didn\u2019t really know what I wanted with my singing, in which direction I wanted to go.
\nWhen Bj\u00f6rn and Benny searched a Kristina for their musical she decided to apply. This despite the fact that she and many others thought the role was held for Josefin Nilsson or someone else the two men from ABBA had collaborated with before. Some celebrity. But maybe it was precisely Helen Sj\u00f6holm\u2019s lack of fame that gave her the role.
\n– I guess they searched for someone who was blank, someone the audience could embrace as Kristina. It was not just a voice they searched for, it was a character. It was probably a combination of my voice and that I could deliver a line that gave me the part.
\n– In any case it was brave of them.<\/p>\n

The role was undeniably her “sliding door”, the term comes from a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow in the main role, where the story follows two different tracks, one depending on whether the main character catches a train in the subway and another where the doors slam right in front of her. The two tracks in the film then develop in two completely different directions.
\n– Yes, God yes. That\u2019s safe to say. Without that role I probably would not have worked with what I do today. I had not. It was fortunate in many ways.<\/p>\n

Kristina was an amazing success with nearly 500 performances. At the same time also a springboard to a life in the limelight for Helen Sj\u00f6holm. With her own tours and concerts with BAO, Benny Andersson Orchestra, with several musicals, with interpretations of other people\u2019s songs and collaborations with the cream of Swedish singers and musicians. In addition, concerts with Kristina- and Abba material in Minnesota, USA and China and a long list of awards and honors as a receipt. But oddly enough, despite all success, Helen Sj\u00f6holm sees herself as an amateur.
\n– I have learned the job from the inside because I don\u2019t have any education, thus I feel like an amateur. It\u2019s probably my driving force. I always think that I probably should do something else. I guess I\u2019m just that kind of person, I pretend it\u2019s not for real, not deadly serious. I just become tense and nervous if I take myself as an artist too seriously.
\n– But don\u2019t misunderstand me. It is deadly serious when I stand on stage and of course I take my job seriously.<\/p>\n

The fact that you choose to see yourself as an amateur, is that related to confidence?<\/em><\/strong>
\n– Nah. I have pretty good confidence, but at the same time it\u2019s varying. I probably get it when I get on stage, then I just do it. But I can be quite worried as a person and think a lot about what others will think. And think, maybe you should do this or that, and what do others do? But on stage that disappears and that characteristic is so liberating. On stage I become brave, I am not otherwise.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the stage, do you have a dream role?<\/em><\/strong>
\n– More people I\u2019d like to work with. Actors like Rabaeus, he\u2019s a little bit crazy, and the whole gang in Bullets Over Broadway. Tommy K\u00f6rberg I\u2019ve listened to a lot, I\u2019m so fond of his voice. And Jan Malmsj\u00f6, Marianne Morck… I would love to be a Meryl Streep of musicals who get to do many different roles.
\n– There is a show called Next to Normal that I would like to do, but nothing else concrete.<\/p>\n

You’re very well known as a performer, but quite unknown as a person. Is that something you have chosen? Do you have high integrity?<\/em><\/strong>
\n– Yes, I have. And there is probably a mutual disinterest in my personal life. I have not been reticent, but I have no interest to show it. At the same time I\u2019m quite unexciting. I had a good upbringing, am married and have three children. What is special about me is when I enter the stage.
\n– I think it\u2019s easier to sit like this and talk about what I do. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s very fun to talk about myself. It doesn\u2019t feel suitable to be in “S\u00e5 mycket b\u00e4ttre”. It\u2019s a great program and I really like to meet and get to know colleagues, but then you should also feel comfortable talking about yourself.<\/p>\n

But you must have some skeletons in your closet?<\/em><\/strong>
\n– Ha, ha, no, I have a little time-is-running-away-anxiety, but nothing else to show.<\/p>\n

What is your relationship with your songs, such as “Du \u00e4r min man” with BAO, that was on the Swedish charts for an eternity?<\/em><\/strong>
\n– Some songs have become big, but I see it like I play different roles. The songs become different parts of my career. For example, I see myself as a chorus singer in BAO, where there are 16 people in the band and we bring a whole dance floor when we are out. It\u2019s great, but BAO is not me. “Du \u00e4r min man” is not the song I\u2019ve loved the most, but with BAO it\u2019s such fun to do it.<\/p>\n

– What\u2019s complicated is that I don\u2019t write my own material. I would love to have the ability to write my own songs and I can get a little jealous of those who have their own material, but I have tried. The interpretations will be what comes from me.
\nShe of course means interpretations of songs, but the task she now faces is also an interpretation, the one as Helen Sinclair in Bullets Over Broadway – the amazing story of 1920s New York where a screenwriter gets jack from a gangster to set up a show where a woman without talent should have a role, where a bodyguard is a genius, and where the producer gets problems neverendingly. But it\u2019s also the story in which Helen Sj\u00f6holm is going to become a diva, a role she has never had before. From a layman\u2019s point of view it will probably be a challenge. Because from a layman\u2019s view, she is in real life more like her previous roles \u2013 grounded. As far from a tipsy diva as you can get.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SELF-PORTRAIT<\/strong>
\nAnd now I want you to draw a self-portrait?<\/em><\/strong>
\n– Oh, that\u2019s the worst. Jeez, my God! You don\u2019t understand how bad I am at drawing.
\nOh, go ahead with something simple.<\/em><\/strong>
\n– It\u2019ll probably be a stick man for me. You don\u2019t need to take this so seriously, do you? It\u2019s art, it should be fun!
\nAfter 10 seconds:<\/em>
\nWell, this beginning looks really good. Is that an oyster?<\/em><\/strong>
\n– Ha ha, it feels like a nude portrait. This is the wee-wee, you see, ha ha. This gets so ugly you can\u2019t fathom it.
\nAfter two minutes:<\/em>
\nAnd that, is it flags?<\/em><\/strong>
\n– No, no, it\u2019s small tunes. Say it with tunes, that\u2019s me.
\n– No, now I give up, it will be like that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3x <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1 …saw a movie at the cinema:<\/em><\/strong> “Ha ha, when do you see a whole movie on the couch? We saw Karate Kid with (son) Ruben a few days ago and he liked it a lot. But the cinema? Yes, it was Zootopia. It was not bad at all, among the better of the genre.<\/em><\/p>\n

2 …got furious:<\/em><\/strong> “I can be pissed at intolerance and what the world looks like. And with three children at home, the chances of a temperature rise in temper increases, but fortunately it is not lasting long.<\/em><\/p>\n

3 …did anything illegal:<\/em><\/strong> ”A few days ago, we got us a toothbrush from ICA, but we remedied. Yes, me and a friend went from Rival without paying the other night. We were so taken by Lisa Nilsson’s singing that we just left. But afterwards, I called and confessed.”<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FACTS
\nName:<\/em><\/strong> Helen Sj\u00f6holm.
\nAge:<\/strong> 46 years.
\nOccupation:<\/strong> Singer, actress and musical artist.
\nFamily:<\/strong> Married to sound engineer David Granditsky. Three children; twins Samuel and Johanna, 4, and son Ruben, 9.
\nLives:<\/strong> in Stockholm.
\nCurrent:<\/strong> Plays the role of Helen Sinclair in Bullets Over Broadway, the musical based on Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning movie by the same name. The show will premiere at G\u00f6ta Lejon in Stockholm on Saturday, September 10.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FINALLY JOHAN THINKS<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m still a bit puzzled. When I said I thought she looked a lot like Lena Olin Helen Sj\u00f6holm replied: “Now I blush, that was the most flattering I\u2019ve heard in years”, but also that “you are terribly funny”. What does that mean? Did she believe me or not? In any case she didn\u2019t seem to agree with me, but added that “when I was young and beautiful I looked like Jennifer Aniston. But that was then, now I just look like my mother”.<\/p>\n

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Afonbladet S\u00f6ndag 160904 By: JOHAN GUNNARSSON It\u2019s said that a butterfly\u2019s wings across the globe can basically affect and change the life of a human. Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":6457,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6685","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6685\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}