During more than 35 years as Scandinavia's best-known actress, Liv Ullmann said she never seriously thought about directing. But now that she has tried it, she has no further interest in working in front of the camera.
"Acting is something I'm happy to say goodbye to," said Ullmann, who turns 55 next month. "I'd really like to replace it professionally with writing and directing, and since I'm doing my second movie now - the biggest co-production we (in Scandinavia) have ever had - I think I have a very good chance of it."Ullmann's directing debut, "Sofie," opened recently to rave reviews on both coasts after earning considerable acclaim on the festival circuit. The story of a Jewish woman in 19th-century Copenhagen who chooses the safety of family and tradition over a dangerous opportunity for passion first came to Ullmann in the form of a 1932 novel, "Mendel Philipsen & Son," by Henri Nathansen.
"Nordisk Films (co-producers of `Babette's Feast') sent me the novel and asked me if I would write an adaptation for the screen, so it was as a writer that I was contacted," Ullmann said in a recent phone interview.
Although she had written two books, "Changing" and "Choices" - and, in her capacity as UNICEF goodwill ambassador, dozens of articles and speeches about the plight of Third World children - Ullmann had only one script to her credit, a play she wrote for Britain's Granada Television.
Nathansen's novel was a sprawling family saga, but as she began working on the screenplay, Ullmann was increasingly drawn to the character of Sofie.
"At first, I thought, `This is very far from my own life. I'm Christian, she's Jewish. I make my own choices, she follows other people's choices. She's from a century ago, I'm from (the present).'
"But, quickly, I found many more likenesses than differences. Our needs were the same - the need to be recognized by somebody. The fear of being invisible, the love of the child, the parents.
"My father died when I was very young, but I always dreamed of that kind of marriage. I wanted to show this couple who laughed behind the bedroom doors, even in their old age, and the only negative is, they don't see Sofie.
"I never had maiden aunts, but I loved the idea of them . . . And then in the end, Sofie does what I always wanted to do, but I didn't. When my child left home, she saw me crying for sure. But she (Sofie) not only didn't cry, she went a step further and she pushed her son out of the door and said, `Fly!'
"So I put in a lot of myself, and a lot of myself that I would like to be."
The producers at Nordisk were delighted with Ullmann's vision and asked her to direct the film even before she completed the screenplay, which took her more than a year. (She shares writing credit with Danish novelist and poet Peter Poulsen, who had never worked on a film.)
"As soon as I went into preproduction, I felt that I had been in school for this 35 years as an actor," Ullmann said. "It incorporated everything I would like to do as an artist. You have so much more freedom of choice than as an actor. As a director (and writer), you have this tremendous opportunity of focusing on thoughts and those visual images that you find important."
Ullmann was asked whether she'd be interested in playing the role of Sofie's mother, but she had no interest whatsoever in directing herself.
"I don't understand directors who want to act," she said. "How can you sit there and be a comfort for the actors if you are going to think of yourself in that framework?"
Her biggest fear, in fact, was that she would try to elicit from leading lady Karen-Lise Mynster the kind of performance she, herself, would have given in the role as a younger woman. "It never happened . . . There was no ambition that she should do it my way, just relief that I didn't have to dig up all those feelings."
In retrospect, she said, she's surprised she came to directing so late in life.
"I hadn't thought of it, I think, because I was always doing so much. I was acting, or writing, or traveling for the U.N., so I never had any free time to contemplate. I felt I'd been given more than enough opportunities for creative outlets."
Ullmann is now working on a screenplay for "Kristin," a love story set in her native Norway during the middle ages and written by Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset.
"They used to say that `Gone With the Wind' was kind of inspired by this book," Ullmann said. With a budget of $5 million, "Kristin" is shaping up as the most costly Norwegian-Danish-Swedish co-production ever.
In this country, Ullmann is still closely identified with Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, who directed her in 10 films, including "Persona," "The Passion of Anna," "Cries and Whispers" and "Autumn Sonata," and who is the father of her 27-year-old daughter.
But the personal relationship ended some time ago - Ullmann has been married for nine years to Donald Saunders of Boston. And while she did show Bergman the film before she trimmed it from three hours to its current two hours, 25 minutes ("He told me not to cut it"), she clearly is weary of questions about his influence on her as a filmmaker.