Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve reuniting for Fjord was not a given

Says the actor, “He was scared that people would have that movie in their heads watching Fjord. But the characters look so different, they are so different, the acting style is completely different. Once Christian took me in, and we went through the script, and I really connected to that character of Lisbet, I think we all got a sense that this will be something completely different.” Still, “it was really nice to have that trust in the base of starting working together, because it was a really different way of working that I’ve ever worked before, and I think also for Sebastian.” 

As Reinsve points out, the dark, off-beat comedy of A Different Man is certainly quite different from the stiller tone of Fjord. “A Different Man is very theatrical,” reflects Reinsve. “You know how to navigate or push the scene in a way, as an actor, with your emotions, to get to a point of view, or to lead the movie to somewhere. Or you want the audience to feel a certain way, you want the person’s audience to love the couple, and to really believe they fall in love, and things like that.” On the other hand, in Fjord, Mungiu’s “ideology is really to remove as much manipulation as he can,” she says. “He doesn’t use music to be your emotion. He doesn’t use the actor’s emotions to lead your emotion as an audience. He really strips it away. And I’ve never played a character that was so quiet, so still, and so contained as Lisbet, but was going through so much. It was really difficult, not wanting to push her in any direction but being really open and to not judge her, and judge her intentions in any scene.”