Elle Fanning reveals the "meta-ness" of filming Sentimental Value as it mirrored real-life

In Joachim Trier's new film Sentimental Value, Elle Fanning stars as Rachel Kemp – a young actress who travels to Norway for the first time to star in a film made by an esteemed Scandinavian director.

Given that, in real life, Fanning is also a young actress who was travelling to Norway for the first time to star in a film made by an esteemed Scandinavian director, it's fair to say there are some clear parallels between character and star.

And so, when RadioTimes.com spoke exclusively to Fanning ahead of the film's release, we asked her how much she drew on her own experiences while playing the role.

"I always feel like with acting... I mean, you are yourself, so you are maybe subconsciously drawing from things you've experienced," she explained.

"Normally, I try to separate, but there were feelings that Rachel felt that I've definitely... I can say I've felt before. Maybe not to the magnitude that she is feeling them when we meet her, but you can't help but kind of see the meta-ness of it all, and the correlations between what is going on with me being an American actress coming to Norway for the first time to work with a Norwegian filmmaker."

She added: "I mean, that was all happening in real time, so you can't help but pick up things and kind of put that into the character. But I still, I think she is quite different from me!"

The director who Fanning's character is working with in the film is the once renowned Gustav Borg, who is played, in an excellent performance, by the Oscar-tipped Stellan Skarsgård.

And Skarsgård has explained that while he did not want to draw too much from any one particular director he's worked with in the past while developing the character, there were certainly aspects of Gustav that he was able to relate to.

"I mean, I'm an actor, I can play what the f**k whoever," he explained. "What wasn't like me at all was [that] he definitely belonged to an older generation than me, even if he has the same age. He's a very 20th century man. But then I could relate to him, because I know them."

He continued: "What I really could relate to is the artist that has the problem with dealing with his personal life and combining his passion for the art with the necessity of living a normal life too. Because as an artist, unlike other professions, it's not a profession. I mean, you have to do it, because if you don't do it, you'll die, in a way. And you won't be the same person. But it's hard to combine sometimes."

One of the key themes of the film is the idea that sometimes it's easier to communicate difficult, personal conversations through art than it is face-to-face, and this was also something which Skarsgård could "absolutely" relate to.

"I believe in that," he said. "But what is fantastic with Joachim is he shows all the unspeakable things, all the things that you can't explain in words, all the difficult things that you can only feel – and he manages to capture that."

Sentimental Value is now showing in UK cinemas.

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