Another fantastic interview with Noomi’s in yesterday’s i Newspaper: For a few years when she was growing up in Iceland, Noomi Rapace lived on a farm, but she was too young to get involved with any of the day-to-day labour. So when, on her first day on the set of her new film, Lamb, she had to drive a tractor and deliver a lamb, it was something of a baptism of fire. “I knew I could not f**k up,” she tells me over coffee in a London hotel. “But I didn’t have a lot of adrenaline. There was a strange calmness.” Still, her foray into midwifery left its mark. “The weirdest thing was the very specific smell. It just wouldn’t wash off. It stayed for a week or something.” The Icelandic film, directed by first-timer Valdimar Jóhannsson, was the break-out hit at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Rapace, 41, plays a woman caught between two brothers, who loosely resemble Cain and Abel: she’s married to one and had previously been involved with the other. It is not the only biblical element to the tale; her character is called Maria, after all. When the childless couple discover a newborn in their barn, they are so excited that they fail to notice there is something odd about it – namely that it is half-lamb, half-human. The complete interview can be read over at i News – here’s Noomi’s quote on the recently wrapped “Django”, which will span over ten episodes:

I wanted to take a break. I had a Skype call with the director and writers who wanted to create a role. Then Nicholas Pinnock texted me for a coffee and I took him to work out with me in a climbing class. As we were leaving, he tells another friend: ‘I’m off to Romania tomorrow and Noomi’s going to play my sister’. And I thought: ‘I haven’t said yes yet’. The character is the most beautiful, brutal villain. I dream about her. I told the writers this, and some of my dreams have become part of the script. I have accepted imperfections and allowed myself to feel sadness, vulnerability and weakness. That’s not weakness. I was raised in a way never to cry, never show weakness. So I became very tough. I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to accept that way of living, and carrying myself, to bleed into my son’s life. I want him to be a human that has access to all emotions, where everything is allowed.

November 2nd, 2017

First Look: Noomi Rapace as Elite Bodyguard in “Close”

September 15th, 2023

“Django” Blu-Ray episode 10 screencaptures, plus episode guides

May 29th, 2022

75th Cannes Film Festival wraps: “Triangle of Sadness” wins Palme d’Or