| Pernilla August | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mia Pernilla Hertzman-Ericson 13 February 1958 Stockholm, Sweden |
| Occupation | Actress, film director |
| Years active | 1975–present |
| Spouse | Klas Östergren (1982–1989) (divorced) 1 child Bille August (1991–1997) (divorced) 2 children |
Pernilla August (born Mia Pernilla Hertzman-Ericson 13 February 1958 in Stockholm) is a Swedish actress, director and script-writer. Being one of Sweden's leading actresses and a long time collaborator with director Ingmar Bergman, she won the Best Actress Award at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival for her role in his The Best Intentions. Her international career includes the role of Shmi Skywalker in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
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August started acting during her childhood in theater and at school. Her professional acting career started in 1975 when acclaimed director Roy Andersson cast her in a minor role in the film Giliap the same year, followed from 1979 by films by other internationally renowned directors, Vilgot Sjöman (among them, the film about Alfred Nobel, 1983) and Lasse Hallström. She studied acting at Swedish National Academy of Mime and Acting in Stockholm 1979-82. Before finishing her studies, she even attracted the attention of Ingmar Bergman who cast her in his film Fanny and Alexander (1982), playing the nanny in the director's romanticised portrait of his childhood. That marked the beginning of two decades of collaboration, collecting several international awards, including TV series The Best Intentions (1991), where she portraited Bergman's mother and met her second husband to be, director Bille August, and TV-productions Private Confessions (1996), directed by Liv Ullmann and Bergman's own In the Presence of a Clown (1997).
She also starred in Bo Widerberg's The Serpent's Way (1986) as well as his TV-production of Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck (1989). Among the many Scandinavian and international films are also Bille August's Jerusalem (1996), Richard Hobert's Where the Rainbow Ends (1999) [granted her a Guldbagge Award as Best actress] and The Birthday (2000], I Am Dina (2002), Björn Runge's Om jag vänder mig om/If I Turn Around (2003) [a Silver Bear at Berlin International Film Festival 2004 and more Best actress awards], Per Fly's Manslaughter (2005), Swedish-Taiwanese Miss Kicki (2009) and Jan Troell's Truth and Consequense (2012).
At the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm she has acted in several notable plays, starting 1981, several directed by Ingmar Bergman and touring internationally. These include Ophelia in William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1986) [a part she has also played in another Swedish TV film, 1985], August Strindberg's A Dream Play (1986), Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1989), Hermione in Bergman's special version of A Winter's Tale (1994), the title role in Schiller's Mary Stuart (2000) and Helene Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts (2002). She also worked with renowned Russian director Jurij Ljubimov in Alexander Pushkin's A Feast in the Time of Plague (1996). 1983-84 she worked at Folkteatern i Gävleborg (The Folk Theatre in Gävleborg) with director Peter Oskarson in Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters. 2008 she acted in the stage production of Steel Magnolias in Stockholm.
Many in the English-speaking world know her best as Shmi Skywalker (the mother of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader ) from the Star Wars prequel movies. She also appeared in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. She shared the role as Virgin Mary in Mary, Mother of Jesus (1999) with Melinda Kinnaman. She played a bomber in the Swedish film Sprängaren (2001).
After her directorial debut with the 2005 short film Time Bomb (Blindgångare), she debuted as feature-film director and script-writer 2010 with Beyond, starring Noomi Rapace and Ola Rapace. The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards[1]and was much awarded with Swedish Guldbagge Awards and more; August won for Best Director and Best Script.
Among many international awards and nominations, at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival she won the award for Best Actress, for her role in Bille August's The Best Intentions.[2] 2002 she was honored with the Royal Swedish medal Litteris et Artibus for her artistic work.
August has been married twice and changed her name both times. Her first marriage was to Klas Östergren and her second to Bille August (1991–1997). She has three daughters: Agnes, Asta and Alba.
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