Alma Pöysti, by Aki Kaurismäki in Finnish Love

Nominated for a Golden Globe for Dead Leaves, the Finn shines as a politician discovering polyamory in the exciting film by her compatriot Selma Vilhunen. A look back at this year apart in its journey… in French please!

In Finnish love, you play a politician who, discovering her husband’s affair with another woman, offers interested parties a free romantic configuration quickly transforming into a sentimental quartet. What attracted you to reading this script?

Alma Pöysti: The fact that it is a comedy but without ever falling into jokes or mockery. This light way of going deeper into things, in this case the feeling of love. Whereas often, in films, we use polyandry to make people laugh at the expense of those who experience it. There, we’re talking about a high-level politician and a priest who have lived together for 20 years and for whom everything seems to be going well in their relationship. Until the day he falls in love with someone else. A seemingly banal situation, unlike the reaction of his wife and the solution she finds to save their relationship: experimenting with polyamory. Basically doing out in the open what most people in this situation do in hiding. That’s why the more I turned the pages of this scenario, the more I told myself that I hadn’t read anything that even remotely resembled what Selma Vilhulen imagined. His view of his characters is never moralistic but always empathetic. There are no bad guys and good guys in this two-person story that becomes a four-person story.

Did she directly offer you this role?

No, I went through auditions, solo and with other actors considered for the other roles. And I immediately loved Eero Milonoff who plays my husband. The big challenge for both of us, once chosen, was that we believed from the first shot that this man and this woman had 20 years of intimacy behind them. Otherwise it would ruin everything else.

Once chosen, how did you prepare for this character?

By the exchanges with Selma to begin with. I want to share her world as closely as possible to understand this character she imagined. This is the basis of my work. From there, I read a few books on the subject of polyamory, I also visited the Finnish Parliament, I met women and politicians. We also worked a lot with an intimacy coordinator, not just for the sex scenes, but more broadly the way this woman and her husband behave with each other in their daily actions and the way everything this will evolve over the course of what they experience to achieve this credibility that I mentioned above. But once this work is stored, I let the character’s feelings enter to experience the scenes the way Selma wrote them: without judging anything. Fortunately, there are a lot of things you can’t plan for. And Selma has this quality of giving you a lot of freedom. It was a challenge on set because no day was the same. But I learned a lot, both in my profession and in my way of thinking about romantic relationships.

You speak French very well. Where did you learn our language?

In Paris. I came to study French at 19 and I stayed for a year, a sort of sabbatical year to find out what I really wanted to do with my life.

So it was in Paris that you decided to do this job?

Yes ! It’s something that I’ve always had in me because I come from a theater family: my grandparents are actors, my father a director. But it remained a secret dream for a long time because I didn’t see myself finding my place there. So, after high school, I wanted to give myself a year to decide whether I would give it a go or not, to see if I would have the energy and the courage to take the plunge because I had seen up close that this profession was nothing like a long, calm river. And it was in Paris that I had this courage. And when I returned to Finland, I enrolled at the Helsinki Theater Academy where I graduated in 2007

Just before we started this interview, you learned that you were nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy for Dead leaves by Aki Kaurismäki in particular against Jennifer Lawrence (The challenge), Natalie Portman (May December), Emma Stone (Poor creatures) or Margot Robbie (barbie)…

…And I assure you that I still don’t understand what’s happening to me!

Was it also by audition that you were chosen by Kaurismäki?

It’s much crazier than that! One day I received a phone call from Aki who asked to meet me. At the time, I thought it was a joke because I grew up with his films and not for a moment would I have imagined that he would one day ask me to film with him. But I obviously went there. Jussi (Vatanen), my future partner, was there too. And there Aki explained to us the idea for a film that he had in mind and that he would come back to us later, once he had written. With Jussi, we don’t know why he wanted to meet us but we didn’t ask him the question! (laughs) It’s like in love you don’t have to ask why. Otherwise, it’s the start of trouble! (laughs)

And when did he call you back?

One year later. And a few months later, we were filming

What does a Kaurismäki scenario look like?

The text is very short… but incredibly poetic. There is not a word to change, a comma to move. Everything is incredibly clear for us actors. It’s just about playing what’s written. This is also the reason why, I think, he does not want to rehearse and wishes to limit himself to one take per scene. The rules of the game are set from the start.

How were you on the first day of filming?

Very stressed, especially because with just one take, you have no room for error. And then, the days pass, and the stress fades away to give way to the pleasure of experiencing the accidents that this implies, especially with this character where everything or almost everything passed through the body and the face, where words were superfluous. Or the opposite of the character ofLoves Finnish style. It’s exceptional for an actress to have the chance to experience two roles and films that are polar opposites in such a short time.

And where will we find you in 2024?

I just shot a film with Bille August (Pelle the conqueror), Orenda. Once again a monument! A film with just three characters about guilt, forgiveness, beliefs, God and the devil… I’m relishing my chance, I assure you!

Finnish love. By Selma Vilhunen. With Alma Pöysti, Eero Milonoff, Oona Airola… Duration 2h01. Released January 3, 2023