TORONTO – Let’s state the obvious here first. Anyone who has seen Ali Abbasi‘s Swedish drama “Border” no doubt realizes that the lead character, Tina, is an actress wearing prosthetic makeup in order to convey a human-passing troll in public. Tina is played by Eva Melander, an actress who is pretty much unrecognizable to non-Swedish audiences. That’s one reason why her transformation is so extraordinary.
READ MORE: Trolls get their due in strange, but touching Swedish drama “Border”
Actors have gone to extremes fluctuating their weight for decades for the right role. Christian Bale has done it so often (and will do so again in the upcoming “Vice”) he’s publicly discussed the potential long-term health repercussions from it. Melander has such a lower profile that she’s still not getting enough credit for not only her fantastic performance but the physical changes she endured for a film that could have easily disappeared after its Cannes Film Festival debut.
Please note: Obvious spoilers below. Sort of.
As for the film itself, Abbasi along with co-screenwriters Isabella Eklöf and John Ajvide Lindqvist have adapted Lindqvist’s book of the same title about a Swedish “woman,” Tina, who is a successful crossing guard thanks to her unique physical gifts. She can smell fear, among other things, and determine if someone is smuggling drugs or more across the border. She is unaware she’s actually a troll but knows she doesn’t feel entirely comfortable in the human world. When she meets Vore (Eero Milonoff), a troll navigating the globe for his own means, it sparks something inside her she’s never experienced before.
Last month Melander sat down during a break from promoting “Border” at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival to talk about her role, the physical toll it took on her body and more.
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The Playlist: When you met Ali for the first time, did he explain what the physical transformation would be for the film?
Eva Melander: No, not really. I had read the short story and I had read some parts of the manuscript that I could get hold of and the scenes they were gonna try. I had really dug into it already. I was really into it, and I was like, who’s gonna make this? Who on earth is gonna direct this? And it depends, you know? It could go so different ways. I was very aware of that. And when I met Ali and I met Eero, the other actor, at the same time. We started to just prep just the scenes, just like normal. We didn’t talk so much about how to look, or how to create the character, like, gaining all this weight, and this prosthetics for four hours every day. I gained 18 kilos, like 40 pounds.
How long did it take you to gain the weight?
The first 10 kilos, like, in eight weeks. That’s too much. You would never ever do that in the United States. In Sweden, we’re not used to do these kind of transformations. And Ali, when I got the part he said, “Well, how do you feel about gaining 10 kilos?” And I was like, “Wow. That’s [a lot] in a short time.” But I got in touch with a physical trainer and dietician and I just digged into it. And actually continued to gain during the time we were shooting it because I was so scared of losing it.
Were you sick of eating?
Yeah, I mean, it’s awful. A lot easier to lose the kilos.
Usually, it’s the opposite. (Laughs.)
Yes, but gaining the weight is like having this food schedule. Every 90 minutes you should eat, and you have these calories. First, you eat this, and this amount of calories. When you can put a check on that list, you feel so happy. The problem is just that you know you’re gonna eat soon again.
Did it make you miserable to gain all that weight or were just like, “Nope, this is the role. I’m gonna do this. It’s the character.”?
No, but I am just so crazy determined in what I’m doing. So, when I’ve agreed to something, I do it. You know? And the dietician, he told me like, “O.K., during this time, you’re not gonna see your friends. You have to do your eating and train,” because I was bodybuilding four times a week. I was building muscles, my waist and up.
Because you weren’t trying to just create fat, you were trying to gain bulk?
Muscles and fat.
You look nothing like the body type for the character now
Because my body was so stiff, you know, with all this muscle that I’ve been overtrained kind of in a short period. And also, sitting like this for four hours doing the prosthetics every morning. Like, starting 2:00 in the morning and then we start shooting 6:30. It’s like, “Oh, good morning.” It’s early morning, and you’re just like, “O.K., let’s just do it.”