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WHY IS BERNIE WOLFE SO PRETTY???????

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SEVERANCE 2x01 / 2x08

You ready to man the vat for ten hours?

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As promised, I'm gonna make them a thing @ktlsyrtis ;)

DI Jill Raymond/Professor Helen Lynley AU

Two sharp knocks on Helen's door jolts her slightly out of concentration, as Jill Raymond's blonde head peeks over the threshold of her office. The imposing detective strides in without preamble, in her crisp white shirt and fitted trousers, and sits on the edge of Helen's desk with little regard for the papers strewn about. Holds up the coffee in her hand as a peace offering.

"Got a minute, Lady Helen?" Jill asks, beckoning the brunette's attention, giving way to a privately held joke between them.

Helen rolls her eyes derisively at the posh title. Frankly, she's glad to be rid of it and Tommy⁠ — surviving a near-fatal gunshot wound does wonders for sorting out one's priorities, she thought.

The scar at the centre of her breastbone is a stark reminder of the life she's left behind.

And although it didn't need saying or counting, she owes Jill an enormous favour after her divorce and an endless string of kindness for refusing to leave her side as she recuperated from surgery. So Helen lets the title go, lets it mean something different between them, knowing her dearest friend loved to get a rise out of her.

"Jillian," Helen greets with a saccharine smile, a name reserved only for herself and Jill's mum, it sticks like toffee on her tongue. She wraps her fingers around the steaming cup of coffee, and welcomes the interruption, especially when it's Jill's handsome face. "What do I owe the pleasure?" Helen hums gratefully as she takes a sip. "Have you finally come to sit in on my lecture?"

"Not today, I'm afraid. I thought I might borrow your expertise though?" Jill dangles a case file in her hand and pretends to look sorry for dropping by unannounced, but Helen sees a hint of that wolfish grin. Jill doesn't care a jot about her office hours, and if she did the woman would pick up her damn mobile phone.

Helen lets the request hang in the air, and buys herself several agonizing seconds by sorting through the mountain of grading on her desk, before coming back around to Jill's expectant face inching closer towards her. "So, you did come to learn something new, Detective," Helen teases.

Jill crowds her and a flicker of desire glazes over the detective's eyes as they trail towards soft inviting lips. It's the only evidence of Helen's effect on her, and it's gone in an instant as she leans forward to bop Helen on the head with the file.

"Get a shift on, Professor," Jill says impatiently, and the brunette gawps at her for the cheek. "I've got a murder to solve."

Helen pouts. She was rather hoping to be plied with kisses for her keen intellect, but she knows Jill is dreadfully restrained during her working hours. There was no wearing her down, she's tried.

She swaps the coffee for the folder in Jill's hand and opens it on her lap. Jill offers her reading glasses with practiced ease and takes a large gulp from the same cup as Helen scans the suspect list.

She was starting to think she worked for the Greater London Police at how frequently Jill sought out her professional opinion. It's Jill who takes a certain delight in picking Helen's brain, involving her in small, quiet ways in the investigation — as long as she's never actually on scene (lesson learned), and Jill is quite firm on that matter.

Secretly, she enjoys it too — cracking a case, bringing justice to the surface, becoming Jill's unwitting partner in crime (solving) as they've done since they were girls in uni fighting their way up the ladder. Although they had wound up choosing different career paths, they had never forgotten to pull each other up.

Jill screws her face into an imperceptible smirk to save her blushes before rising to circle Helen's chair. She tugs at her waistcoat to smooth out her appearance and school her features as she flips open a packet of mints from her coat pocket.

"I will require dinner, for the consult," Helen says nonchalantly, raising an eyebrow to hint at the double meaning with a wicked sparkle in her eyes.

Jill coughs and splutters at the suggestion, and Helen's pleased to see the nearly unflappable detective fidget in her seat.

She doesn't waste the opportunity to turn dinner into breakfast, slipping Jill's glasses off her face to hang them at the crux of the blonde's waistcoat, a familiar intimacy that pushes and pulls at the seams of their friendship.

There's a moment where they're idle, waiting for the other to have the last word. Jill is helpless to the gravity between them, she turns Helen around in her seat to lean forward on the armrest, framing the other woman between her arms. Helen's breath hitches as their noses brush, barely a whisper between them, and a flush works its way up Helen's delicious neck.

Jill's eyes remain trained on Helen's own growing dark, stirring at the heightened state between them. Hearts pounding in unison, they are two sides of the same coin, immovable and unyielding.

"You do drive a hard bargain."

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Hello, sweetie(s). [x]

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Sidse on Skavlan talkshow 2013

As requested by @weissenights, here’s a translation of the interview with Sidse Babett Knudsen on Skavlan talkshow, aired on Swedish television March 15, 2013

The clip is available HERE for those who haven’t seen it yet, or those of us who just want to enjoy it again. A really excellent talkshow appearance.

——

Fantastic to have you here. …what would you choose, football or tennis? [the host has been talking about tennis and football with the other guests in the studio]

I would really like to be really good at tennis. In total control of the sweat glands, that would be really cool.

Borgen is now distributed to 60-65 countries, it’s been awarded - a British BAFTA, Emmy nomination … it’s been going really fantastic for this series, that is now in its third season. …But it is a Danish series, about Danish politics - why has it become such a success?

I have it the same way, I can’t believe it! It must be a mix of many things, also luck and timing. We are really in debt to Forbrydelsen (The Killing), because we came directly after them unto the international market. I don’t think we would have had a break-through there without Forbrydelsen, if you know what I mean. But this, that it has a life of its own, that’s fascinating.

The entire world has become interested in Danish politics.

In Europe at least, it has happened a lot.

I read an interview with you in an English newspaper, The Guardian, in which you talk about Danish, and you say that it is impossible to seduce anyone in Danish?

Ah yes… I have said that. What I think is… we are used to speak badly of our language. It’s a bit of false modesty, I have to admit. It was an attempt to be charming, I have to say. I am a Dane and I love my language and I love my country and I love to be Danish - I didn’t mean it so seriously. But there’s something… we think that a lot of other languages are more seducing.

Do the Danes get offended?

Yes, and that’s the difference now when I am… what’s it called… No but this particular role. I am a “mother of the nation” now, so I need to think about what I’m saying about my country, because it’s being taken seriously.

Because you represent Denmark…

Yes, in a way I do. I really need to think about what I’m saying because… I am used to that as an actor you are being taken so and so seriously. And then you complain a little about something or dismiss something or go “it’s just little Denmark” etc [and nobody cares]. But now we have to say “Yes, it’s just little Denmark, BUT…”

So just because you play a PM, it’s like you’re on state visit?

EXACTLY. I was in Paris, and had a grand reception at Le Monde, like a state visit. I had four little elegant French women following me around with macarons. It is very fancy in France, with many macarons. And they spoke to me on a certain level, I have to say, as if I knew the story of Le Monde and the entire business. So I had to do nothing but nod and keep a dignified face, and I thought: “this is incredible”.

Does it mean that when you have to talk with journalists, it might be political journalists?

So, I was in Bruxelles last week. And there I suddenly found myself in a talkshow with the traffic minister, a spindoctor and a journalist, in Dutch with direct translation. 

But, a real traffic minister?!

Yeah. And they expected me to have something to bring to the table!

I’m thinking of the authority that makes one take you for a real PM, is that an authority that you play, or one that you have naturally? 

I have that naturally! HAHA! I really don’t know! I don’t know. I had the advantage that, in the beginning of the first season, Birgitte Nyborg learns to be prime minister, and in the same way I, the actor, learned to behave like a prime minister. It was… it was not so much from the inside. It was to play against those walls, against this backdrop and have the office of the PM. And have officials and people to open the doors for you. You become a queen from having people all around bowing down for you. So it was a lot in relations to other, and to the sets.. So you get your authority from how the world treats you?

Yes.

Did you know how to talk like a politician?

No, not at all.

So you had to learn the words and… it sounds really good when you do it.

That what was the sport with it. That’s what was so fun. It’s like with Shakespeare, that’s also not everyday language that you go and say yourself. It is to go into that language and see what comes out of it, to take those words that you only know from the newspapers, and some formulations that are so strange to you, and try to make it sound like something you would really say at the breakfast table! That’s really fun. And in the same way, it was also a sport to have these long tirades, we have really rather long lines to say. In the beginning we spoke really fast too, very West Wing inspired. So it was like a speech marathon. In that way it was really like a sport.

You speak really really fast. 

Really really fast!

Impossible to understand without subtitles, for us.

Also for the Danes…

But you are also being dubbed out in the world. There is someone who has as a job to do your voice in France, or Peru…

In Peru haha yes… I haven’t really dared to listen to it yet. Because I think it’s really interesting to make many errors, or some weird staccato, strange energy, dynamics or something! I am a bit nervous to hear *DOES FUNNY SPANISH* …that it’s too good, too impeccable. But I will listen to it one day.

And the person who does it will do all of your future films too.

Yes. I have one in France now.

Do you?

Yes, I have a voice there. I don’t dare to meet her.  *DOES FUNNY FACE* Imagine if there’s one like this and then we sound exactly the same! That would be weird.

What happens with your career now?

*does airplane take off gesture* No, I don’t know. One cannot know that.

It feels like you can choose, you can stick to acting or you can go with politics?Oh, you meant like that. I thought you meant tennis star or.. nah, I will stick with acting.

What will you do? 

It’s not clear yet, there are some projects. But it will be something completely different from Birgitte Nyborg.

Hollywood?

We’ll see, we’ll see…

You Danes, you have come so far. I am very impressed by Danish film and TV.

Yes… it is strange…

Danish TV and Danish film does it really well!

Yes… it’s nice

“Yes?” Congratulations!

Tak!

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Tonight Sidse Babett Knudsen was one of the guests in Scandinavish talkshow “Skavlan” on Swedish television. You can watch the interview over at SVTplay, Sidse’s part starts at 19 minutes in. The clip is available worldwide until Jan 1st 2017. LINK

For our less Scandinavish-fluent friends around the world, @talcal and myself have put together a translation of the interview:

Welcome.

Thank you.

You were here some years ago and we spoke about Borgen, where you play the Prime Minister. And how Borgen has become a global success. And I asked if you had any plans in Hollywood and you were really secretive and refused to answer the question. But now we see there actually were Hollywood plans.You are now playing a title role in the new TV series Westworld and have made your second film together with Tom Hanks. There are many other things happening, but I have to ask you about Tom Hanks… He is a legend. How was your first meeting with Tom Hanks? You have worked a lot in Denmark and now it is time to work with Tom Hanks.

I had a little role in a film called A Hologram for the King, by a German director, whose name is Tom Tykwer and who I think is really wonderful. I was supposed to meet both in a hotel in Casablanca. So there were Tom and Tom. And I was really star struck, but also… It would have been difficult to accept it, if Tom Hanks was not as one imagines Tom Hanks. That is, if he would be arrogant or… It would have broken my heart, really terrible.But he wasn’t that at all. He was wonderful, a really nice lad.It was a little role, where I needed to try and seduce Tom Hanks.

You needed to seduce him?

Yes, sexually and in an aggressive way. Push him to have sex with me.It is a bit outside the boundaries. And of course it was going around in my head while I was saying hello to him. Then I see there are a lot of cushions on the floor. And fortunately Tom Tykwer said we needed to rehearse the physical part, so he can see where the cameraman should be and so on.

That was your first meeting? Yes, first meeting. Dive in the pillows

No warm up?

Yeah. That was very nice.We are not young either…So it was a bit… ok, there is a little thing with the knee… it would be good if I could…excellent…And he was so sweet. I was bright red in the face from embarrassment and he said “we are in it together” as if we were afraid of all the cushions. So there was nothing to do but to dive in. And it was so sweet because  it was as if he took me by the hand and we jumped in together. So we did that and my knee hurt, and I got a cushion to put under it, then we crawled around and it went very well and it was really nice that it was a physical thing that we were doing. Because you could blame it on the pillows. And so was the ice broken. Was it an advantage to have your international breakthrough late in your career?I don’t know. I don’t now how it would have been otherwise, other than what I have experienced. For example - you are saying “breakthrough” and I say “Yes, sure”. I am a grown up lady so I say “yes, sure”. It’s very nice, right?Perhaps if I were young I would have said “Breakthrough, so let’s run with it”. I’ve been… without work, had a lot to do, was popular, was forgotten, sprang out of oblivion…It is like “Now a lot is happening, great. Hurrah!” But I also have an experience I can lean on. I’m not sure I’ve responded to your question. Did I? Bra :)

You are just a little wiser than many who are younger… Who were 14 years old.

We shall see. There are certainly many 14 year olds here.

You’ve acted in Danish for many years, now you will do it in English and you will even do it in French. Are you less in control when you act in another language? Yes… I don’t have control at all in another language!

You speak very good English… Yeah… But for example with French; with my Danish melody, with my Danish dynamics, it sounds like I am asking questions all the time! So when I speak French, they answer… So if I say “Hi, my name is Sidse”, they say “no, it’s not”… “No, I am called Sidse”… “are you?” - it sounds like I am asking questions all the time. So with the French film I have just done, I had a director who was, luckily, an actress herself who could help me technically, and she almost had to lie down on my lines, saying “DOWN, Sidse, DOWN at the eeend”, because I only want to go up.

[Here the other guest talks about thinking in the language in which one talks, ask Sidse whether she thinks in Danish when she speaks the other languages]

SIDSE, in Swedish: Jag försöker att tänka på det språket jag ska tala. (I try to think in the language I will speak.)

[The other guest answers in Danish but says he still thinks in Swedish. Host asks him whether he ever tried to rap in English and then they talk a bit about that.]

But I think language is so strongly connected to one’s identity. Regarding French - I was in Paris from when I was 18 until I was 23. I was in theatre school, I am educated in Paris, in French. I always wanted to be an actor, and I got accepted at theatre school in Paris, and I was going to a talk with a French director. I was in school so I said “I am learning to be an actor”. She asked “Are you an actor”, and i said “I am in school, I’m learning to be an actor” . “Are you an actor?” “I am in school and I am learning…” She said “ARE YOU AN ACTOR, OR ARE YOU NOT AN ACTOR?” …“…I am an actor” And that was the first time I said it, and it was just extraordinary, suddenly I owned it myself. I could be an unemployed actor, or someone who never had a breakthrough, but here and now I am an actor! And it’s something of that assurance that I still have when acting in French. 

Before you entered I talked with Jason [the other guest] about feeling like a stranger. Have you had that feeling in your life? In which situations? Many times. I identify a lot with being the stranger, actually. In France, I was really the stranger, I was this weird viking, who would physically touch people more easily, who was more concrete,  who had more self distance and irony, compared to the French. And then I got home from France to work in Denmark, and I was still the stranger, who talked about dynamics and warmed up physically, and things. So I was the stranger there too. For me it has brought a lot of freedom, in a way.

Do you intend to work in Norway or Sweden? Yes I do.

You do? You speak good Norwegian too? Det gør jeg.. No, I don’t speak Norwegian, I don’t speak Swedish. I would really love to work there, but no one has asked me yet. I would really love to.

No one has asked you? Tom Hanks has asked, but no one from Norway or Sweden. Sidse, it was fantastic to have you here. Ja, tak!

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Fic: Peace on Earth

Berena Advent: Peace 

The peace garden should be renamed if you asked Serena. There was no peace, not really, in a hospital. It was quieter, sure but she was still surrounded by the business of Holby. Ambulances wailing, the chatter of patients in the smoking shelters, all of it there. She could drown it out though, it was practically silent compared to her office and she often found herself slipping away on her break, picking up a coffee to keep the bite of the winter air at bay. 

Winter had always been a hard time for her, the depression she had managed to hold off always trying to push in with the dark nights. This year her defences were weaker, especially today. She glanced down at the text from Jason. 

Auntie Serena. Our anniversary dinner will be served at 7pm. Please be prompt, or ring if you will not be attending. Love from Jason x

A year had passed, all too slowly yet in a flash. She sat back on the bench, closed her eyes and felt a tear fall. She’d promised herself not to get upset, but being in the garden was an added reminder. Bernie had been there for her in her distress and how she wished she was there now. 

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sat there, the tears tracking down her cheeks. She felt the change in the air as someone entered the space but she didn’t open her eyes, didn’t want to see the pity on their face, or have her bubble burst as a junior requested her presence on the ward. 

Nothing was said but the weight on the bench shifted as another person sat down and a faint scent of cigarettes reached her nose. She inhaled, still unwilling to open her eyes because now she could imagine Bernie next to her, one arm around her, solid, dependable. 

“I thought I might find you here,” 

Serena’s eyes flew open in shock at the voice. 

“Bernie?”