In the latest Dan Brown book-to-movie adaptation, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) runs through Europe, racing against time and various other players to try to find a virus that has the potential to wipe out a portion of the world’s population.
One of these players is the World Health Organization, led by Elizabeth Sinskey. Portraying Sinskey is Sidse Babett Knudsen, a Danish actress known best for her portrayal of the Danish prime minister in the binge-worthy show “Borgen.” Only recently has the 47-year-old actress begun her journey from European television and cinema to Hollywood blockbusters (you can also catch her on HBO’s “Westworld”), with “Inferno” marking only her third English-language film.
How did you reconcile the differences between book Elizabeth and film Elizabeth?
I read the script and then I read the book because there was so much stuff I wanted to understand a little bit more. When I met with [director] Ron Howard, he said he was going to change some of the characters, and definitely my character. So I chose not to think about the book when we started working. He changed the feel of her—she has a more intimate and personal feel—but she’s still very much inspired by the character in the book and her function.
Your character is initially cool and enigmatic but slowly becomes more fleshed out. How did this factor into how you portrayed her?
I think the whole film is kind of from Robert Langdon’s point of view. He doesn’t know everything early on, but then it follows his development from being completely confused from the loss of memory and the space that is psychologically vulnerable, and then he gradually becomes more himself and more conscious, and his memory returns. The way I see it, my character becomes more real [once she’s] a person that he would recognize. When I was filming, I tried to follow that progression in the story.
“Inferno” is your biggest production to date. How did it differ from past projects?
There was some vastness of the production and of the locations. You have these beautiful locations in Italy, and it’s kind of [a] privilege to have the Palazzo Vecchio and Boboli Gardens to yourself, or even when we shot scenes in Budapest with all of these extras. That felt very privileged. But the work itself is not that different; you still have the director and the story to tell. And Ron Howard is very, very good at communicating, and he’s the one telling the story. It’s work I’ve done before on a larger scale. And Tom is just so precise. … I was very starstruck in the beginning, and he very quickly made me at ease because he’s just so good at what he does.
How do you prep for roles where you’re portraying a woman in a position of power?
There absolutely is a difference [in preparing]. When I was developing the character as the prime minister [in “Borgen”], that I had to control myself and not research too much because then I got distracted from the story on the paper. At the beginning, I got really into it and did a lot of research, but then it created a conflict sometimes with the script. So I did research because I wanted to get the part [of Elizabeth] right and understand her profession, but then you have to stop when it goes beyond the story that is told in the script.
Overpopulation is a large theme of the film. Did you do any research into the real-world debate over how to handle the crisis?
I had to do a little bit because it was a bit depressing. But I did it just for myself, not really for the character, to find some hope within myself. … It’s interesting, I think many of these characters are definitely on the high level of intellect, and I like that you have to think a little bit about [the overpopulation crisis debate] when you’re watching the film.
@shelbielbostedt | sbostedt@redeyechicago.com
