Expressen

pg 47; March 11, 1998

On the way to breakthrough. Swedish Johanna Torell acted with Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski in "One night stand". After that she got an ever bigger role in the director Mike Figgis new movie. Johanna is on the way to her big breakthrough. Photo: Thomas Engström.

Swedish Johanna in new Hollywood film

After one night stand she is acting in Mike Figgis' new drama

By Gunnar Nordström

Los Angeles. She had a part in Mike Figgis's One Night Stand.

Johanna Torell, 27, is also in his new movie, which is tentatively titled "Short Stories".

After three years in Hollywood Johanna is on the way to the big breakthrough.

-- I can thank Figgis for it. These roles have really helped me.

She came to Los Angeles in 1994 to attend three months at Lee Strasberg's theatre school.

It became two years.

-- It felt so right, suddenly everything fell into place for me.

The part was created for her

Johanna Torell is a Stockholm girl and had worked at an upper level compulsory/lower secondary school teacher for two years before she packed her bag for the USA.

-- Sure I had played some amatuer theatre as a child, but in Sweden I didn't think about being an actor. Now, afterwards, I realized that this is what I want to do.

She got the part of the doctor in "One night stand" after having auditioned for another part.

-- Then I heard nothing for two months, and when the call came Figgis had created the part of the doctor for me.

"One night stand", which was recently released in Sweden, has a strong cast with Wesley Snipes, Nastassja Kinski, Robert Downey, Jr., Kyle MacLachlen, Ming-Na Wen and Julian Sands.

-- I had seen "Leaving Las Vegas" of course -- but I hurried to rent Figgis's other films when I got the part.

-- Nastassja Kinski was very kind and encouraging when she had seen the day's dailies, and Robert Downey Jr also supported me enormously during the shooting.

Got the script one year earlier

In the book, with the script -- which is now out in the US -- there are three pictures of Johanna.

In October last year she traveled to England, where Mike Figgis shot part of his new film in Newcastle for two weeks.

-- He gave me the script a year earlier, asked me to read it and wanted to know what I thought.

The working title of the film then was "Death and the loss of sexual innocence".

Unconventional stories

-- Julian Sands has the leading part and I play his wife. It is a modern "Adam and Eve story", with Saffron Burrows co-starring.

Johanna likes Mike Figgis' way of making film.

-- He concentrates on human fates and makes unconventional stories. And in England we were a small team who worked intensively together.

Now Johanna reads a lot of scripts and auditions for new roles.

-- It would be fun to do something in Sweden too. I don't know how long I will stay in Los Angeles. I take one year at a time.