Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve is suddenly everywhere

Last week there was another example of success. Cristian Mungiun Vuono won Cannes Palme d’Or, the main award of the festival. Reinsve and Sebastian Stan.

The film’s Finnish co-producer was also celebrating the win in Cannes Jussi Rantamäki and costume designer Cherry Gum. For Gum, the evening was big and personal at the same time.

“It was amazing, it was amazing,” he repeats the mood on the phone.

Norwegian actress the whole story contains more than limelight. He grew up in the Norwegian countryside and often felt that he was on the sidelines of the world and people. Both physically and mentally.

In interviews, he describes his home area as a road in the middle of the forest, along which there were some houses. He didn’t feel comfortable in groups and didn’t do well in situations where he should have adapted.

School was cut short, life fell apart.

Acting was, however, an exception in a difficult world. When he was chosen to play a fox in the school play, something clicked. While the other kids ran around the stage and had fun, he took his task seriously, almost obsessively.

“I wondered what this fox has eaten today. Where has it been?” he tells Ellen in the interview.

In the youth theater, an eccentric young man interested in existentialism and Pink Floyd discovered that being human can be practiced. The roles brought order to the chaotic world after the departure passes had come from both school and scout.

“I’ve been asked to leave almost everywhere. Acting is the only place I really belong.”

The school after that he spent time abroad, worked in Edinburgh and returned to Norway to build his career in theatre. Years passed, the work was intense, but there were few film roles.

Little by little, he started to consider another profession, even if it was something to do with his hands. For someone who grew up in a family hardware store, the carpentry profession seemed clearer than an uncertain acting career.

Then came the phone call. Supervisor Joachim Trier had written him the lead role in his film. The movie was Worst person in the worldwhich had its Cannes premiere in 2021. Reinsve was awarded the best actress award.

Their second hit movie Sentimental Value (2025), on the other hand, received a 19-minute applause and the second most prestigious award of the festival, the Grand Prix. The film was later awarded the Oscar for best international film.

Even at the Cannes premiere, the actor’s experience was contradictory. The film was well received, but in my own mind the uncertainty did not disappear.

“This movie is great, but I’m miserable,” Reinsve said he thought during the screening.

Success however, it rained, the publicity was overwhelming. At the same time, there was a need to control how strongly it is allowed to influence. Reinsve did not build a new identity based on success. Rather, he tried to keep his distance.

“You can’t take criticism too personally, and you can’t take praise too personally,” says Reinsve.

The same accuracy was visible later when Reinsve worked with Kirsi Gum The fjord on set. Making the film took the team to the mountainous landscape of Norway, and the whole team lived in the same buildings in the middle of nowhere.

Outside of filming, we got to know each other more casually. Reinsve and Gum climbed and saunaed together, and according to the costume designer, the Norwegian actress was great company even when the cameras were off.

“He’s an insanely nice, funny and relaxed guy,” says Gum.

“He is great at work, but he also knows how to detach himself from it easily. He knows how to take the moments when he finds his own peace. When the need arises, he returns to that mental state extremely nicely.”

Gum says he is satisfied that he was able to use all the skills he learned in difficult conditions. Of the descriptions, I remembered the incredible mountains of Norway, with their streams and landscapes.

“We all fell in love with those mountains,” says Gum. “Even in Cannes, they were missed together.”

In a certain way, Reinsve has carried throughout his career the question of what happens to a person who is used to looking at himself a little from the outside.

Both in the Norwegian countryside and in Cannes.

“When I was young, I never thought I’d get this deep. I’m still pinching myself,” he says in an interview with Elle.