Pernilla and Alba August on living your career and growing up in acting

Vitemölla, a small fishing village on the eastern coast in the south of Sweden, is quiet this time of year. Quaint houses dot the windswept shoreline. Along the water, colourful wooden boats sit patiently in their dry docks, waiting for the ice to thaw in the spring. While many flock here in the summer, the permanent population is about 80.

“The first time I came to this part of Skåne, I was 19 or 20,” actress Pernilla August says. At the time, she was renting a house with her then husband-to-be, Swedish novelist Klas Östergren. “We went on to buy a house here, then things happened, we got divorced. But I kept coming back. This has always been the place I've returned to.” She gestures behind her. “This stretch of beach has had to endure my thoughts and crises for the last 40 years.”

We're chatting over a video call. Pernilla shifts the camera back and forth, trying to fit both herself and her daughter, Alba August, into the frame. The high-energy repositioning ends with a resigned, “Alba, why don't you do it. You're much better at it.” The duo both sport tousled hair, pulled back from the face. Both wear layers of knitwear and dainty jewellery.

Once satisfied with the framing, Pernilla continues. “It's a refuge for all of us, including my other daughters,” she says, referring to Alba's two older sisters, Agnes and Asta. It is fair to say that film is a family business, considering all four August girls are working in the industry - Agnes as a set designer and Asta as an actress.

Spending time in a summer house is quintessentially Swedish. Whether on the archipelago or in the depths of an inland forest, the extended family gathers in cottages across the country like clockwork. “It's invaluable to have a place like this,” Pernilla explains. “Something makes your body remember that this is a place where you're allowed to relax.” Alba agrees: “You socialise differently in a summer house,” she says. “There's something unique and special about having days and days to hang out.”

For years, this house has served as an escape, for Pernilla especially; a respite from a chaotic life, balancing a thriving film career and raising her three girls. Pernilla spent most of her youth in Stockholm. Growing up, she lived on Södermalm, attending school in Gamla Stan – Old Town – walking over cobblestones and through narrow alleyways. These days, when she’s in the city, she finds herself “both restless and apathetic.”

Pernilla's long career started in 1968, at the age of 10, when she joined Vår Teater at Medborgarplatsen, a children's theatre school on Södermalm. First founded in 1941 as an extension to Ingmar Bergman's amateur theatre group Medborgarteatern, today the school is an integral part of Swedish theatre. At 16, she was given her first movie role in Roy Anderson's film Giliap. “That's when I first experienced movie magic,” she says. She later went on to study at the Swedish National Academy of Mime and Acting in Stockholm, however before she could finish her studies, she attracted the attention of Bergman. The director cast her in his 1982 film Fanny and Alexander, in which she played the nanny in a romanticised portrait of his childhood.

The role marked the beginning of a two-decade-long collaboration between Pernilla and Sweden’s most iconic auteur, including the television series The Best Intentions (1991), where she met her second husband and father of her two youngest children, Danish director Bille August. Internationally, she is best known as Anakin Skywalker's mother, Shmi Skywalker, in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

Despite her impressive credits list, Pernilla is quick to point out that she never set out to do movies. “It's always just been about acting for me. I was employed by the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm for 20 years,” she says. During this time, she performed some of theatre's most acclaimed roles, from William Shakespeare's Ophelia to Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.

Alba followed her mother's path every step of the way, first attending Vår Teater and later acting at Den Danske Scenekunstskole in Copenhagen. “I never thought about that, but we've really mirrored each other. We've gone to almost the same schools,” Alba says. “Luckily, you studied acting in Copenhagen and not Stockholm,” Pernilla points out.

Performing was an integral part of Alba's childhood. “I remember going with Mum on a shoot in Budapest and, during that trip, my sole focus was to put on a show for the crew,” Alba explains. “We bought set pieces, costumes, learnt choreography. So putting on a show has always been a big part of my life. When we were here in Skåne as kids, it was all we did.” Pernilla chuckles, adding, "I remember your Spice Girls era.”

“When I did Star Wars, Agnes was with me, but Asta and Alba were too small,” Pernilla says. She has always tried to bring her daughters along when going away to film, but sometimes it was impossible. It was a challenging experience for Alba, who points out that there wasn’t really another parent to rely on. “I think if we'd grown up with a dad in the same country and who was more present, things might've been different. Then it wouldn't have been an issue, really,” she says. “When Mum would go away, I'd experience it as a bit scary or unsafe in a way. I wish that wasn't the case, but you did work a lot.” As she says this, she turns to her mother.

“It is hard to combine kids with this career,” Pernilla says. “I have felt a lot of guilt, but it was as if that guilt was replaced with resilience. We'd get through it. And then when my daughters entered the profession, I just thought, 'blame yourself’,” she laughs. It’s a catch-22 experienced by mothers, specifically – the impossibility of balancing a demanding career and being ever-present in your children’s lives. Male actors are so rarely asked about the challenge of balancing their work and fatherhood. “It’s interesting when you look at it from a gender perspective,” notes Alba.

Pernilla is best known for portraying motherhood in all its complexity. When I ask about these performances, she responds passionately. “It's so interesting; no one would ever ask a man how he feels about having played so many fathers,” she says. “I think it probably comes from playing Bergman's mother, Skywalker’s mother, and then Mother Mary [in Mary, Mother of Jesus]. Maybe that's why people keep asking me that question.” And then, she poses a question which speaks to yet another gendered reality of the film business: “What else am I supposed to do? Once you hit 40 or 50 as an actress, the roles you're offered tend to be mothers in one way or another.”

Alba and Pernilla agree that, even with the dramatic shift spurred by the Me Too movement, the film industry is moving very slowly towards equality. “Lately, it's almost going in reverse when it comes to ageism. Where are all of those brilliant, older actresses and older female characters?” Pernilla says. “For me, now, I don't know what I'm doing next. I've gotten to do so much through my career, but at 63, things are really quieting down.”

Alba points out that the difference between male and female roles is equally palpable in her generation of actors. “Guys my age, the amount of self-tapes they do for roles abroad in relation to us girls... There are so many roles for them to audition for,” she says, emphasising how privileged she is to have had a steady and thriving career. Currently, Alba stars in Knutby, a television series depicting the true events of a Christian cult that existed in rural Sweden in the early 2000s. Working closely opposite co-star Aliette Opheim has made Alba realise she never worked with a female actor like that before. “It’s a real shame that I hardly ever get to work with women,” she says.

Pernilla can relate to her daughter’s experiences all too well. “This career is so tough. It's so difficult to always have to be picked,” Pernilla says. “We also live in a time that's so focused on looks and age.” Alba nods. “It's happened time and time again that I've read a script and the character descriptions when it comes to the women are all about looks, whereas the men are all described by how they are,” she says.

At the August household, dinner conversations tend to centre around film, specifically the performances. “When we've seen a movie, it is so natural for us to analyse the acting, speaking about every detail,” Alba says. “As an actor, you kind of live your career, so it's only natural,” adds Pernilla. Often Alba will turn to her mother for advice on whether to say yes or no to a part. “And I usually say no,” says Pernilla with a laugh. “I've been there, done that. It's so fun to say yes, but it's important to know your limits.”

Recently, Alba expanded her repertoire with another instinctual career move, debuting as a musician just last year. “It all happened out of pure coincidence,” she says. The idea came about in 2017, during the filming of Becoming Astrid (she played the titular character, Astrid Lindgren). Alba recalls that she was having a drink with one of the film’s composers, and, she explains, “as I always do, I started singing.”

One thing led to another, and they started writing music together. “I started doing it because the process is completely different,” Alba says. Unlike acting for film and television, Alba is involved in every step of the process. “We speak about sound, what it would sound like if we tweaked this or did that,” she says. “It's really just sitting there, in the room, with a pen to paper. I'm involved in every step of the way. As an actress, I'm more of a conductor of someone else's creative vision.”

Alba tells me that her way to process and work creatively is to keep her projects secret – even from family – until she feels ready to share. “The first song I ever got to hear was 'The Rain',” Pernilla says. “It was the first song I released,” Alba adds. “I remember listening to it, and I was just impressed. It's just amazing that you've found a third leg to stand on in your career,” Pernilla says, turning towards her daughter. “It's hard being an actress and always having to be picked. It's why I started directing as well. You're more in control.”

There’s a common side effect of the Augusts’ chosen industry that has gone unmentioned until now. “I know you've always been scared I’d lose myself to celebrity,” Alba says to her mother. Pernilla laughs, adding, “It has me scared to death.” Pernilla is protective of her daughter – even her reaction to Alba’s first single was tentative. According to Alba, when she receives a new role it’s never a “jump up and down from joy kind of moment” for her mother. Instead, it’s a practical focus on what the future will hold. “I know it’s because my mum wants to protect me,” she says.

Today, sat in their little stone house in Vitemölla, the worry seems to have subsided. With an upcoming tour in 2022 and multiple roles on the horizon, Alba remains perfectly grounded. Calm, with a healthy dose of chaos - just like her mother.