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the players
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bibi andersson
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harriet andersson
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g. bj�rnstrand
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ingrid thulin
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liv ullmann
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max von sydow
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The Magic Works of Ingmar Bergman is now located at www.bergmanorama.com. Please update your bookmarks. Thank you for visiting!
 LIV ULLMANN
A luminously beautiful, consummately talented performer, Ullmann is chiefly associated with the work of Ingmar Bergman, by whom she has a daughter, Linn. She was an established Norwegian stage talent before being chosen by Bergman�partly due to her resemblance toBibi Andersson�to co-star in Persona (1966). For the next decade and a half, though frequently in international productions, Ullmann's best work was in Swedish films, where her gift for interpreting emotionally wrought characters was displayed in Bergman films such as Shame (1968), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), Face to Face (1976) and Autumn Sonata (1978), as well as Jan Troell's The Emigrants (1971) and its sequel The New Land (1972). Ullmann reached the peak of her worldwide popularity in the late 1970s, making her Broadway debut in A Doll's House (1975) and publishing her autobiography, Changing, in 1977; she was also the subject of a feature-length documentary, A Look at Liv (1977). Ullmann has since made a successful transition to middle-aged roles and also began directing films in the 1990s.
� Baseline
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| Born: |
Liv Johanne Ullmann, 16 December 1939, in Tokyo, Japan. |
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| Education: |
Attended schools in Trondheim, Norway; studied acting in London for eight months. |
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| Family: |
 Married Gappe Stang, 1960 (divorced 1965).
Daughter, Linn, by Ingmar Bergman, 1966.
Married Donald Saunders, 1985.
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| Career: |
Late 1950s: acted with a repertory company in Stavanger for three years.
1957: film debut in Fjols til Fjells.
1960: acted with the National Theatre and the Norwegian Theatre, both in Oslo.
1966: appeared in Persona, the first of several films with Bergman.
1982: co-directed first film Love.
1992: directed and wrote the film Sofie.
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| BERGMAN FILMS |
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| Liv Ullmann has appeared in the following Bergman-directed films: |
| COMMENTARY |
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"I'm enormously fascinated by her. I find her an immensely suggestive actress. She has a long stage career behind her. I've worked with her in the theatre. I see various roles mirrored in her face. It's a face which can lend itself to an immense number of different roles."
� Ingmar Bergman, Bergman on Bergman (1968)
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"[Bergman] sits very close to the camera. You feel him very much and if he is not close to the camera, you tend to act towards him. He always is very, very close to the camera and he is terribly inspiring. I don't know what he is doing, but it is something that makes you want to give everything you have. You feel that there is somebody who is really there."
� Liv Ullmann, 1972
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"He knows which actor is going to play which part when he writes the script. So he knows something of what he is going to get. He is also very open for suggestions. He hates it if you start to analyze, but he is very open to your own kind of interpretation of the kind of woman that he has written."
� Liv Ullmann, 1972
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"In a way it is very good to be with Ingmar Bergman but you also get a reputation of being neurotic and bad looking and all of that."
� Liv Ullmann, 1972
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"I went to theatre school in England. I am a stage actress primarily. Everyone has read Stanislavsky and I believe that he is a good help for an actor. To be an actor today I think that you have to use your experience in life. You have to use your psychological feelings about people. I wouldn't say that I know what sort of an actress I am or what kind of school I belong to. I try to portray a character the way I see it. I try to be as human as I can. I feel that it is very important that what you do is human. You want people to be able to recognize what you are doing, if not in themselves, then in somebody on the street."
� Liv Ullmann, 1972
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"[Bergman's] repertoire of actresses is unique to movies. Ingrid Thulin, Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann are an austere and solid group, without cajolery or coquettishness, rather like the women who pioneered in the American West. Their perceptions, conversations, and gestures indicate an intelligence with which Hollywood has always been impatient. For introspection, without snappy wit or glibness, leans heavily on our concepts of 'entertainment' and also of femininity. It's an anti-box-office intellect, and these are anti-box-office women. They care nothing for St. Laurent clothes or wood-paneled dishwashers but take themselves and the quality of their lives seriously."
� Marjorie Rosen, Popcorn Venus (1973)
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"I love technical challenge. Stop on a chalk mark in the middle of a difficult emotional scene. Know all the time where the camera is and in which angle I should be in relation to it. Feel inside me a voice directing and at the same time surrender to a situation that has never been mine; although from now on it will be part of my life experience, as if it had happened in reality."
� Liv Ullmann
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"Bergman taught me how little you can do rather than how much. I can now use much smaller means to express what I want to say...Ingmar gave me much more self-confidence than I had before. He listened to me. Living with him enriched me. I matured."
� Liv Ullmann
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"I don't become a character, I show a character...I share a character. I share it not only with the audience but with myself....I hate the idea that you must become the character you're playing because if I did I would feel embarrassed and I easily feel embarrassed. I leave the character immediately after I do it."
� Liv Ullmann
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"I like to be regarded as a star. I like to be at the centre of things...I like the glitter. It's seductive to get roses and cars and to have everything you say become suddenly important."
� Liv Ullmann
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"Hollywood is fun, but I'm a little bit afraid of it, and a bit ashamed sometimes at the way important work in the world is downgraded....You sit in your trailer and be 'special' and that is a lonely and ridiculous thing. In Sweden you're ashamed to drive around the streets in anything else than a Volkswagen, and that is healthier I think, a shame is having too much, than Hollywood, where the shame is in having too little privilege, too small a car."
� Liv Ullmann
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"Fortunately I'm not a person who looks a lot in the mirror. Still, I worry about my looks just like other women. However, I console myself with the thought my best things are all inside me. I've never believed that men liked me for my beauty or my body...just as men seem to be attractive at any age, I like to think women can be too. I mean, I'd hope to be able to attract men even when I'm 70."
� Liv Ullmann
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