Amalia Holm – Last Days of Summer

By starrymag | October 23, 2020

By: Lisa Steinberg

 

 

 

Q) You are a part of this gorgeous photoshoot by Brolov Photo that has been informally called “Last Days of Summer.” The composition of these photos is so dreamlike.  This really gives off so much classic glamour evoking such stylish legends like Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.  What was the idea behind the aesthetic you were trying to capture in the composition? Was this a collaborative concept?

 

A) We got together earlier this Spring for the first time ever and we were all mind blown by how well we worked together and how we didn’t have to finish our sentences until the other person had understood what one meant. We were eager to see where we could take that. Then I think it came from the photographer (Olov Karlsson) who had been scouting the location before to think of the idea.  He and the stylist (Calle Wahlin) I think are the two people who came up with it.

Also, this photographer, he will throw himself on the floor like no matter how dirty it is to try and elevate the looks and the light.  Jennie Jonsson, the hair – and makeup artist, she would be on point off the top. She would layer up so she and I could move seamlessly and she didn’t have to do touch ups all of the time, which was a very strategic move. We were all playing around so much. Everyone was open for any suggestion. Just trusting each other to play around in these last days of summer basically.

 

Q) Being that you are someone who is creative on many deeper levels, what was it like checking a lot of those cerebral boxes off being a part of this photo shoot?

 

A) Creatively, I felt like with this shoot we really had to work with where we are coming from. Having grown up in Sweden, you could easily take the Swedish nature and the space there is there and the woods and summer fields for granted. I felt like this was a very appreciative shoot in that sense. I like thinking that if we know where we come from then we can share that with other people and be more open to sharing their perspective in a rewarding exchange. That is sort of the global world that I want to live in where we appreciate where we come from without being closed off to finding new perspective and beauty in other stuff.

I like the thought of playing with what you have got and expanding that and sharing it with the world. Maybe that can help in forming a clearer picture of where you are going.  Sometimes I think in this day and age we don’t know what we want, and we just want it all. I think particularly where you are coming from can sometimes help you be clearer in what you actually want to gain and strive for in creating a world together.

 

Q) It’s so true. We think about this isolation for you in these pictures, but we also think about the larger isolation that a lot of us have been dealing with in a whole other sense.  This really kind of stops us and forces us to recognize that we need to slow down or make certain things a priority and check in with yourself as well.

 

A) Yeah. Very much so. Yeah.

 

Q) The lighting juxtaposed with the angles in these pictures just shows off such a beautiful range. There are these softer photos that are so ethereal with you in white, and then there are these edgier cutting photos with the aviators and suit where you are leaning down and the glare plays against the grass so exquisitely.

 

A) That was a lot of fun. The whole shoot was in the same field. It was just so much fun to see the entire team working their creative knuckles with this.

 

Q) Speaking of digging in creative knuckles, you re currently back in Vancouver for season two of “Motherland: Fort Salem” getting to flex that as well. And of course, over the summer you finished school.  Congratulations!!  And then Delete Me is coming out soon.

 

A) Yes! Thank you! It’s weird. Most of the world has been on some kind of lockdown and in Sweden the situation is a little different. With social distancing and masks in place we were able to shoot Delete Me in Norway this spring.

With school, it was online teaching which helped a lot.  I could do my final exams from Norway while shooting.  So, for me, that was in my personal benefit.

I am very happy to be back in Vancouver.  It is a little scary because I have never taken a character to a second season and Scylla is so, so important to me.  What I find hard, but also so rewarding is to have my own interpretation of her from the script in season one, and then in talks with Eliot [Laurence], the creator, and then also watching the final product. What’s somewhat changed my perspective on Scylla is of course how the fans view her and everything that I have seen in terms of fan creations and art and literature. I feel the stakes are higher this time. Last time I did Scylla nobody knew about her and she was all in my head, mine and Eliot’s, and we just played around.

Once it is shown, it’s not in our hands anymore.  It’s for the viewers and the supporters to love her or hate or do whatever they want with her. I was overwhelmed and surprised to see how well she has been received.  I feel like she is just as much the fan’s character now.

 

Q) It’s so incredible, you really do have this rich character that you bring these fantastic nuances and amazing layers to, yet there is still so much mystery to her. As much as there are these little details and breadcrumbs with her past, there is so much shrouded still with Scylla and I love that aspect.  We have such a bounty of new things to learn that we didn’t get all in season one.  That’s what pulls me in so much with her as well.

 

A) Yeah. Same. It’s a gift to be playing her because she is so nuanced and with the background she comes from and with the path she wants to walk, and everything that happens in between. Then she gets completely thrown off of her path with this very deep love and how that changes things. I think even after this season we are still going to feel like there is a lot of mystery to her.  That doesn’t really go away. I guess maybe that’s why so many people have felt connected with her because you feel like if someone is mysterious it’s probably because they are ashamed of something or they are not trustful enough to share with you their inner sense.

 

Q) I mean a lot of fans definitely gravitate towards certain characters that they can relate to in whatever way that may be because of the little cracks these characters carry in their inner walls.

 

A) Yeah. I think that’s a good thing because I think that means we are practicing empathy. We are trying to figure out why someone does what they do and how they ended up in that situation.  If we are practicing that, then we will probably have some chance to do some good in the world and help people to do the right thing.

 

Q) That’s what’s so brilliant about “Motherland: Fort Salem,” we had this one view from the side of the witches, and there was this push with the viewpoint and perspective that the Spree are the ones who are on the wrong side. The season finale really flipped that on all of us when it comes to those gray areas of good/bad and the allegiance behind them.

 

A) Right! I guess I with playing the character of Scylla, I have had to sort of sympathize or understand the dealings of the Spree and their intentions from day one. It’s up to each and every one, but I hope that without relativizing evil and without having it as an excuse to do careless bad to one another, that it shows you should try and see both perspectives of why someone is doing something. I definitely see that Scylla should be punished in one way or the other for these specific actions. But, it also depends on whether or not the other evil is punished and that just trickles down to the headache of having a legal system and who is in charge of what and who judges what is good and what’s not bad enough to be punished and who is to be held accountable and where the power lies.

 

Q) Right. Whose compass are we setting ourselves to?  Whose moral compass are we aligning ourselves with and why?

 

A)Yeah, exactly. And I hope that everyone really does their best to keep their own compasses going and not to ever just submit to anyone else’s completely. That’s what’s happening in the army, for example, in “Motherland: Fort Salem.” You are supposed to obey and it’s kind of for your own safety too because if you don’t trust them, then you are going to put your own self in danger. But, yeah, thinking and reflecting are core values for a good citizen in my opinion.

 

Q) The cinematography and scenery in “Motherland: Fort Salem” in season one constantly felt like a character in itself in season one. In season two, with certain restrictions, will there be a little less of that aspect?

 

A) Production has started and I can say with confidence, the viewers will be happy with the end product even though the shooting might look a little bit different. I am confident in saying that the end result is going to be majestic. I am so excited for us to share season two with everyone.  I think it’s going to be special.

 

Q) In season one, Scylla was a wild card, and she had this mission that she didn’t really complete. The twist at the end of the season with Raelle’s mom, is that a tack in the betrayal side for Scylla and does that chip away at all at her loyalty with the Spree?

 

A) Right. Well, you know, having been sent out on a very dangerous mission to infiltrate the US Army when you are coming from a terror organization that is basically very high-risk mission, and not to have all of the information doesn’t help. The mission is about this girl Raelle (Taylor Hickson) that we are getting, and she seems to be very powerful. I am supposed to extract her, but instead I fall head over heels for her. With how the Spree moves in the first season, with the threats and all, it didn’t seem safe enough and it didn’t seem like they cared about Scylla. In that sense I would definitely say that finding out that there was so much more she could have known and could have made it safer for her to operate…is not a good feeling.

 

Q) From our season one interview, I know that you and Demetria [McKinney] became really close after your auditions together. Then of course getting to see the Scylla/Anacostia dynamic develop at the end of the season was really cool and rewarding. How has it been reuniting with Demetria?

 

A) I am so glad that you felt it was rewarding to watch, because it was so rewarding to do. We had so much fun with that. The fun in that was just working those creative muscles and playing with each other and how can we ground these scenes both doing our parts so genuinely and authentically and still kind of surprise each other and just work off of each other.  I have the most trust in Demetria. I know I can always count on her, and therefore we are so free to play with one another.

Obviously, the friendship came first because we didn’t have that much to do with each other in the beginning of the first season character-wise. But whenever we are supposed to catch up and talk as friends, we always go into talking character stuff. Really, what the collaboration is, is that we are both one hundred percent invested in our own characters without taking our eyes off the other.

 

Q) I am certainly thinking that there is going to be a great cat and mouse game to Anacostia and Scylla coming this season. Anacostia let Scylla go and now they are out of this college domain, will there be any rules that they follow within the wicked games between the two.

 

A) Scylla was convinced that she made Anacostia let her out. The fact that Anacostia followed her is not expected. At all. I think at the end having spent so much time in that cell, Scylla was turned away from the world and has been gazing into the powers. She goes a little crazy in there and has this morbid humor. Everything is at stake and yet nothing is at stake for her because she is being sent to die so she can basically say whatever. Now she is out in the world again, so that just brings a very fun and intriguing start up for her this season. The Anacostia part of it indeed amps up the stakes because it’s not as simple as Scylla thought.

 

Q) There has always been this palpable magnetism that has existed in Scylla and Raelle’s relationship where they are drawn to one another no matter what. As much as there is this lingering regret for the both of them from where they left things, I am looking forward to this palpable tugging void that might exist for a little bit before that polarizing gravity smashes them back together. 

 

A) I think that’s a reasonable hope to have! Sometimes it’s the longing that will make the love feel even stronger. That is the thing that I am personally feeling a lot of now when being kind of isolated from friends and family back home.

Like you said earlier, to get our priorities straight has been forced upon us this year because of everything not being as accessible anymore. That’s definitely also true in the world of “Motherland: Fort Salem” where things are getting more dramatic and political.

 

Q) Sheryl Lee Ralph as the President and then General Alder (Lyne Renée) taking over for her, it’s going to be interesting what kind of power will Sheryl’s character as President still be able to hold and cling to.

 

A) Right. Right. Yeah. I love seeing the two of them play off of each other.  They are just great actresses to watch.  I haven’t gotten to play along with Sheryl Lee Ralph yet, but that was also so much fun in the first season to just watch everyone else’s scenes and all that.  You read the script and there are some cast table reads, but it’s just so much fun to watch it when it’s all in costume and at these locations. In the Motherland universe both the powerful friends and foes are women with intentions, which could be read as agendas, but it’s always going to be intentions.  And, hopefully, they decide to be good.