If you're not yet familiar with Renate Reinsve, then chances are you're about to be. The Norwegian actress had her international breakout in 2021, when she played the magnetic lead in Joachim Trier's The Worst Person In The World. Complex, raw, funny and devastating, it won her Best Actress at Cannes in 2021 and vaulted her from the Norwegian stage to global cinema.
Now, the duo are reuniting, this time with Sentimental Value – a film that once again places Reinsve at the heart of a story about relationships, identity and complicated family dynamics. She plays Nora, an actress reconnecting with her estranged father (played by Stellan Skarsgård) after her mother’s death. When he writes a film inspired by their past and casts a young American actress (Elle Fanning) in the lead role, old tensions surface.
Sentimental Value made its debut at Cannes, and is already generating significant Oscar buzz. So, who is the woman behind the fanfare? Get to know Renate Reinsve, below.
She was planning to quit acting before she landed The Worst Person In the World
No, really. The day before Reinsve landed the role that changed the course of her career, she was actually ready to give it all up. Speaking to The Guardian, she explained, “After acting school, I did some really great theatre. But somehow I ended up in film and TV doing a lot of roles that were mostly one-dimensional functions of the plot. So I had actually decided to quit. I had this big moment where I made that decision to do something else. And the very next day, Joachim called me. It was the weirdest coincidence,” she says.
As for her back-up plan? “I wanted to be a carpenter, because I really enjoy it," she said. "I’m not good at it, but I just wanted to do something completely different and something calm. But I also had a big vision of making a group for women to learn to fix things and build stuff together.”
She's originally from Solbergelva, Norway
Growing up in Norway, Reinsve was a competitive swimmer. But at 17, she realised it wasn't fulfilling her, so she took a flight to Edinburgh in an attempt to find herself.
It was here that she got involved with the Edinburgh fringe and, two years later, moved to Oslo to pursue acting more seriously.
She's making waves in the international film scene, too
After The Worst Person in the World, Reinsve shared the screen with Sebastian Stan in A Different Man, and the sci-fi drama Another End from Italian director Piero Messina. Outside of film, she also starred opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Apple TV's Presumed Innocent.
And she's an ambassador for Louis Vuitton
It was only a matter of time before Reinsve was snapped up by a major fashion House, and her partnership with Louis Vuitton makes perfect sense. The actress regularly dons looks by Nicolas Ghesquière on the red carpet – our favourites, below.
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