How was it easier to lose the weight? Was that just your natural metabolism?
Yes, because it’s so hard to put things in your mouth, chew it and swallow when you feel full. Not eating is hard in another way, but when I was doing this gaining, I felt like I was poisoning my body because I was. I was sweating at night. Couldn’t really sleep, getting grumpy. You know?
So that helped with the character in a way then.
Yeah, a little bit. So losing was just like eating only vegetables and going to bed hungry. That was kind of awful, but such a relief to feel like this body’s gonna leave me. This meat and fat and muscles, it’s gonna leave me.
Tina and Vore have these moments where the characters are sort of intimate with each other, are attracted to each other in an unconventional way. Where did that whole aesthetic of having them sort of grunt and sniff and do that come from? Was that in the script? Was that something that you guys just worked out together?
That’s what we worked out together. So, when I was working with the character, I was working as if she was half animal and half human. And when it came to those sexual parts she’s so not aware of who she is. And she’s just pushed all this animal side away, trying to be this human being, but not fitting in. So, when those feelings that he brought into her, like meeting Vore and the feelings she got and this sexuality that she’s not aware of that she contains. So, I just to go very, very kind of more like animal side instinct, because she has never had sex like a human.
When you got the final screenplay after sort of auditioning for the role what was your initial reaction to it?
Number one, when I was reading it there were so many times it was just like I had to take a pause and breathe, and think, “Omigod, how to do this? And what’s gonna happen? If this happens now, what will happen after that?” Those very unexpected turns that the manuscript took. And also, sometimes when I read it for the first time, I had to take this long pause just to because it sort of struck me so hard. There were so many themes about being disconnected to the world. Or the violence in how society [treats] minorities, that violence. And that made me think of things in history, in our own history.
Did you ever surprise any of your friends with the transformation? To see if they would notice it was you?
Well, actually, the first time we put the makeup on we were gonna have a screen test and the producers were gonna come to the studio. And we put this mask on, and it was like, “Ding dong.” You could hear that they were ringing the bell, and I opened the door, and they of course, didn’t recognize me even though they knew that they were gonna come there to see me in the mask.
Oh, they thought you were just someone in the room?
Yes, and someone looking very special. So if you meet somebody and react on how they look, you just feel like you should show it. So they just stood like quiet and awkward outside. And I said, “Yes, so do you want to come in?” And like, yes, thank you. And I was like, “But it’s me.” (Laughs.)
That’s a huge compliment to the makeup artist.
Yes, absolutely. And the next time, me and Ali went out on the street with the makeup on, because we were test shooting just outside in the forest. And while doing it, I was walking through the street and there was a bus coming with this huge crowd of teenagers getting off the bus. And I was just walking through the crowd, and Ali was filming with his mobile camera. And that was also a good compliment to [makeup artist Göran Lundström] because we could tell that it works, because people they just for sure, they just thought it was for real.
“Border” is now playing in New York and Los Angeles.