Pernilla August

Stage-trained Swedish actress Pernilla August (nee Wallgren) is the latest heir to the tradition of radiant actresses (i.e., Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Eva Dahlbeck and Harriet Andersson) immortalized on screen by Ingmar Bergman. Her first association with the master came playing the nursemaid-mistress of a restaurateur in his feature directing swan song, "Fanny and Alexander" (1982). Subsequently, the attractive brunette portrayed Ophelia in "Hamlet" (1986) and Nora in "A Doll's House" (1989) in Bergman-directed stage productions at Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theatre. Despite his official retirement from directing, Bergman continued providing Scandinavian filmmakers with potent screenplays of a personal nature, writing the part of Anna (based on his mother) in "Best Intentions" (1991) expressly for her and entrusting it to Danish helmsman Bille August. In the role, she displayed a Himalayan emotional range, ripening from a spoiled kittenish 18-year-old to a life-hardened, resolute woman, and won the Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award as well as the heart of her director. Divorced from screenwriter Klas Ostergren, she married August during a break in filming in 1991.