When I first began compiling my list of potential Treasures, this established star of Danish stage and screen was considered briefly then discarded. After all she’d been in only two shows that I’d watched. However in 2020 she has cropped up in at least two more quality productions, raising a celebratory cheer in our house. If that doesn’t make her a bit special, then what does?
It all started just a decade ago. Mum began extolling the qualities of BBC4’s new Danish drama serial, The Killing. My interest piqued, I then began noticing the media buzz about its star Sofie Grabol and her natty line in chunky jumpers. She and her knitwear even merited a cameo in Absolutely Fabulous!
But I didn’t watch. After all, there’s no point joining a thriller serial halfway through its run. Furthermore, a Saturday night twenty-parter demands commitment I was reluctant to give, and then there’s the issue of subtitles. I was notorious for multi-tasking while viewing telly, behaviour totally unsuited to a foreign language programme which requires you to use your eyes constantly and cast aside any distractions. Broadcast on BBC4 there weren’t any adverts offering a loo or drink break. No pause options in those days.
And so it was several years before I spotted DVDs of the first two series, As Angie and I shared an enthusiasm for crime drama, we decided to make time to watch in some quiet evenings at our place in Saundersfoot – and we became hooked. By this time, the Americans – unable to trust most of the population to engage with actors from Europeland - had made their own version, so I ensured we were watching the original, entitled Forbrydelsen. We swiftly became hooked on the plot, following Copenhagen detective Sarah Lund investigating a murder which leads her into the murky world of Danish politics. Risking any unseemly spoilers, she returned in two (shorter!) sequels which were almost as good. Apparently Grabol had a different role in the US remake, just to confuse matters.
BBC4 had helped cultivate the new TV subgenre, Scandinoir. Again at Mum’s urging I had enjoyed the even bleaker Swedish Wallander, millions of English-language readers lapped up Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy and the stream of excellent thrillers has continued to flow across the North Sea. I still have The Bridge to catch on iPlayer, The Tunnel on DVD and Iceland’s Valhalla Murders to finish on BBC4 while Denmark’s Under the Surface and recent DNA have introduced the secondary pastime of spotting former cast members of The Killing . There’s always at least one.
As for Sofie Grabol, apparently she was known in her home nation for her emotional character roles, in sharp contrast to her more earnest Sarah Lund. However, her popular acclaim for Forbrydelsen inevitably led to similar parts in UK, US or multinational productions. Unbeknown to me at the time, she was at first unable to capitalise thanks to a cancer diagnosis requiring surgery and chemo but thankfully she pulled through and has subsequently worked on numerous projects around the globe.
Like all Danes I know, she has the advantage of speaking near accentless English, which also comes in handy in series like Forbrydelsen. Any dialogue involving different nationalities is always spoken in English. In the next series in which I saw her, Sofie played a Norwegian governor in the bleak fictional Arctic Circle fishing town of Fortitude which also played host to Russian seamen, British scientists and assorted others. Without a special New Year deal on Sky Atlantic, we’d never have watched it but dark winter nights in Pembrokeshire were ideal for binge-viewing this bewildering psycho-horror saga of prehistoric wasps, mad polar bears and even madder humans. It became increasingly daft but Grabol’s was apparently the sole sane character in the whole shebang. From Dennis Quaid and Ken Stott to Michael Gambon and especially Richard Dormer, most seemed to have at least one screw loose, and the body count grew steadily. Sofie Grabol was great in it.
In the second half of 2020, she also shone in supporting parts. In the much-hyped HBO whodunit The Undoing, she played a distant second or third fiddle to stars Hugh Grant, Nicole Kidman and Donald Sutherland but her prosecution lawyer Catherine Stamper nonetheless was a crucial character in the defining final episode courtroom scene. I’m not sure if she was supposed to have an American accent. If so, it was unconvincing, but I for one was egging her on as she grilled the main protagonists in the witness stand.
But my favourite Sofie Grabol performance comes not as a cop, mayor or lawyer but an intelligent divorcee in BBC1’s delightful series Us. It was a poignant drama, with Tom Hollander prompting both laughter and waterworks trying to save his marriage and find his runaway son on a once-in-a-lifetime tour across Europe. When he meets the likeminded Freja in Venice, she seemed his perfect companion but it was surely destined not to be: right place, wrong time. She wore no furry anoraks, cosy jumpers or sharp suits. Nevertheless, I felt her beautiful acting capped an already captivating adaptation, and I’m sure she’ll continue to work such magic.
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