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hoghtastic · 4 months

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Translation of Johanne Milland's interview for Femina.dk

( Note: Translation of the available excerpt online. If the rest of the interview is released in the future, the respective translation will be added. )

JOHANNE MILLAND BURNED HER CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS

❝ I've gotten better at being ordinary ❞

Johanne Milland has burned too much, loved too much and not known her limits. Four years ago, it culminated in early burnout, stress and anxiety — a tough period that taught her something about balance.

When Johanne Milland stepped out of her front door this morning, there was a man lying on the ground in front of her. At first she thought it was a homeless person who had gone to sleep, because people just walked past him. Until he looked at her and asked, "Can you help me?" — I started to get him on his feet and looked appealingly at the people who passed by, as in: "Would you like to lend a hand here?" No one responded. Not even if the man was bleeding from the face - he had clearly fallen. This kind of thing just makes me so furious! says Johanne and clenches her hands tightly on the table. The man said he belonged to a care center in Sundby, so Johanne called them and asked if they could do something. They knew him, yes, but said she could call the sociolance (social ambulance) or a taxi, there was no help to be had there. The man would prefer a taxi, so Johanne got him into it and sent him home. She talks about the episode in response to my question about what can get her out of her chair. — In situations like this, I get a wild inner fire. I get so angry and upset when people are treated unfairly that I have a really hard time controlling myself. It is the inner fire that has made Johanne Milland one of the new great talents on both the film and musical scene in record time, but also the one that burned her up almost four years ago. So today she reins it in, the fire. She doses it. — The "old" Johanne was very melancholic in the way that I often lost myself in pictures of my life that I created myself. My inner emotional life and imagination have always been very strong and I used it as an invisible friend. I have lost that a little because I have become more balanced and less "up and down" in my emotional life. I've gotten better at staying… ordinary. Does it make you feel good? To be more ordinary. Hmm, there are some things about the old Johanne that I would have liked to have kept, but you go crazy always driving out there at 180 km per hour. I haven't responded to my limits, and when you don't do it for a long time, your body tells you to listen, otherwise things go haywire. But I've always been quite a pushover, and I've liked it. There was something safe in the fact that something hurt. Why, do you think? Oh, I've spent a lot of thought trying to figure that out! Maybe because there is a sense of security in remaining upset, if you have been [like that]. If you become happy again, you have something to lose. It's just easier… A slightly reversed logic. Yes, but there is also something in this way of living that I think has made me a good actor. Living a lot in a "state". I got burned out early on, but it also gave me a lot because I threw myself headlong into everything and worked really hard in everything I did. It has been both good and my biggest challenge, but that's how I am as a person: I run really fast or I don't run at all. I really love a lot, otherwise I don't love at all. It has cost me something, but these are the blows you take.

A LITTLE ABOUT JOHANNE 28 years old, born and raised in the small Funen town of Frørup outside Nyborg. Graduated from Den Danske Scenekunstskole - Musicalakademiet in 2019, moved to Copenhagen soon after, where she immediately got roles in major musicals, e.g. "The Bald Barber", "She Loves You" and "Atlantis".

In 2022, she played the lead role of Liv in the film "The Venus Effect", and was nominated for both a Bodil and a Robert for her performance. Since then, she has recorded the TV series "Graverne" and "Kald mig far" — the latter with Alex Høgh, with whom she is now a couple.

From March 7, people can see Johanne in the lead role of Ella/Cinderella in the musical interpretation of the old fairy tale in Tivoli Concert hall. Rasmus Seebach provides the music, Line Knutzon has written the script, and designer Søren Le Schmidt is responsible for the show's dresses and costumes.

Control and gaslighting

It is not because Johanne Milland had a traumatic childhood or great sorrows that she had to run away from. On the contrary, she was rounded off by a safe upbringing in the small village of Frørup outside Nyborg, with a mother who stood in the kitchen and baked buns, and a father sitting on the sofa watching football. — I was "the red-haired child", the sprightly, temperamental one, where my sister was more shy, I was the outgoing one, the one with gunpowder in her ass. I've always had a show gene, I wanted to show off, be looked at, have recognition. I also wanted to be the one to decide, and because I was this rider of justice, I was also busy telling people how to behave. Johanne pestered her parents for years about joining Nyborg Voldspil, and at the age of 15 she finally got ➤

permission. She quickly became part of the large amateur theater community in Funen, and from there things went well with big roles and many tours. — I really got some blows for being such a decisive ass there, so I shut down that part of myself and became a pleaser — I wanted to be part of the community. In continuation of that, I met my first boyfriend at HF (Higher Preparatory Examination) in Odense, where I went, and got into a relationship which was very unhealthy. Although I was really a strong-willed girl, I didn't know my limits when it came to love and I totally lost myself. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how unhealthy it was until it was too late, says Johanne. Only several years later does she discover that she has been under control and gaslighting in the relationship. — We didn't understand how to be lovers and look after each other, as you do in a relationship. I have learned that now. That you are a team in a relationship. He wouldn't be with me or talk to me in public even though we lived together and I was really in love with him so it was very, very difficult. Because I didn't feel okay as just me. He controlled me by, for example, deciding what I should and shouldn't wear, what movies we should watch — little things. The relationship lasted only a year and a half, but it allowed to define who Johanne was for several years afterwards. — I entered the Danske Scenekunstskole in Fredericia and moved to Fredericia, and when I was in my second year, I told him it was over. I just couldn't take it anymore. We both got other partners, but he still haunted my life. He was a drug, I was addicted to him. Addicted to what he didn't give me. And it wasn't because he was a bad person, because he didn't even realize what he was doing. He didn't understand. How did you break free from him? — At that time it had been on and off so much, that I could finally see that it was not healthy for me. And I just wanted to be happy — I was so tired of being sad. Tired of being a victim. Tired of putting myself in that situation time and time again. One of my girl friends told me she couldn't recognize me. That I wasn't myself. You can't see that when you're sitting in it, and since then I've understood that it can actually make things worse when someone close to you says that to you. The mechanism is that if you are told that "you must leave him, he is not good for you, you have changed", then you will want to stay even more. It strengthens the bond with the person who is not necessarily good for you. She continues: — That's what happened to me. And I have learned that if you have to have that conversation with someone who is subjected to control and gaslighting, you have to turn it around and ask if that person is okay, if there is anything you can do. I myself am very careful about how I talk about it if I meet someone in similar situations.

❝ There are some things about the old Johanne that I would like to have kept, but you go crazy always driving out there at 180 km per hour. ❞

❝ Even though I was really a strong-willed girl, I didn't know my limits when it came to love, and I lost myself completely. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how unhealthy it was until it was too late. ❞

The anxiety Johanne had moved to Copenhagen and was sitting on the toilet in her small apartment in Valby when the anxiety attacks started. — I remember that out of the blue I thought a really bad thing about myself. Like: "You can't do anything, you're not good for anything." I had never done that before. Suddenly my whole body froze and I sat like that for a long time, completely in a panic. I had to say to myself, "Now move one foot, travel, go outside. You must get some fresh air. It will probably get better." Johanne had to fight outside in the fresh air, where things went completely wrong. — I called my mother and said that something was very wrong. I immediately made an appointment with a coach because I thought that this just needed to be talked through and it would go away. But it didn't. From there it went downhill with Johanne. Anxiety pounded around her body, and the stress symptoms ➤

appeared as palpitations, sleeping arms and legs, flickering eyes. — I got so bad that I had to move home with my parents, and for at least three months I couldn't go outside the door without holding my mother or father's hand. They were really good at getting me out and at least getting some exercise so we did a lot of bike rides. But I would totally panic if I couldn't see them all the time. And if I walked alone on the road, I was afraid I would walk out in front of a car. I still have obsessive thoughts as a result of it, it's really uncomfortable. What obsessive thoughts are these? It could be anything. That I die from my work. I know none of that is true, so I have to say, "Well, that was the thought" when it comes. I got hold of the book "Your Self Healing Mind" and it and the best psychologist in the world simply saved my life and changed my view of anxiety. What my journey has taught me so far is that when you suffer from stress and anxiety, your brain is your biggest enemy, and the more you fight it, the worse it gets. I'm still practicing not taking the fight, because I can't win. My thoughts always win.

It was during that period that the film "The Venus Effect" — Johannes' first major film role — was filmed. She had agreed with her mother that if she couldn't, then she couldn't, and then it was just too bad. She had to take it one day at a time and see how it went. — I called the caster and told her I had stress and anxiety and she grabbed me right away, it was so amazing. They might as well have said, "Well, we'll find someone else," but they were so top notch and understood what I was going through. They let me stay in Funen when I didn't dare take the train, and they made sure I got some body treatments, which helped a lot. We talked about trying to use that in the film, because at that time I really needed to feel the ground beneath me, the trees and the grass, so I really WAS my role, Liv. In that way, it actually ended up being a huge gift, says Johanne, who noted the big difference between making a film and making a musical: — On a film set there can be long breaks between takes and it is very normal for the players to "zone out" during their breaks. In the same way, there is no time for that in musicals. The rehearsal period is more compressed and we have to achieve a huge amount during the rehearsals. It's also very social, so you're very intense for months at a time. It's enormous fun and demanding in a different way, but I had difficulty finding a breathing space because I didn't use my breaks to relax, even though I needed to, she says.

❝ I have so many wounds from past relationships that I can only process with another human being. And Alex is really good at healing my wounds. ❞

#alex høgh andersen #johanne milland #interviews #translation #femina.dk

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