Harriet Andersson (born 14 January 1932 in Stockholm) is a Swedish actress, best known for being one of Ingmar Bergman's regular actresses.
She often played impulsive working class characters and quickly established a reputation on screen for her youthful, unpretentious, full-lipped sensuality. She disdains the use of makeup.
Andersson met Bergman at Malmö stadsteater in the early 1950s, when she was working as an elevator attendant. They had a romantic relationship and it was during this time he helped launch her film career.
Her breakthrough role in Summer with Monika (1952), had been specifically written for her by Bergman. The film was particularly notable for Andersson's nude scene, one of the first in postwar European cinema. It was inspired by Hedy Lamarr's notorious skinny-dipping scene in Ecstasy, twenty years earlier. Filmed in Sweden, the motion picture features a musical score by Les Baxter.
Although the romantic relationship with Bergman was short-lived, they continued to work together. Andersson appeared in several of his best known films, including Smiles of a Summer Night, Through a Glass Darkly, Cries and Whispers, and Fanny and Alexander.
Through A Glass Darkly, in which Andersson performed with Max Von Sydow and Gunnar Björnstrand, Andersson portrays a latent schizophrenic. The movie title is taken from a verse in First Corinthians (13:12) in which Paul of Tarsus says, "For now we see through a glass darkly: But then face to face; Now I know in part; But then I shall know even as I am also known." The plot deals with the actions of four persons during a twenty-four hour period in an old house a far distance out on the Swedish Archipelago. Some audiences were shocked by Andersson's vivid portrayal of the presence of God as represented in the dark world of a schizophrenic.
Like a number of other Bergman regulars, she also had a brief international career. She made her English-language debut in Sidney Lumet's The Deadly Affair (1966) and most recently appeared in Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003).
Andersson has won several awards for her acting, including the Swedish Guldbagge Award, the Norwegian Amanda and best actress awards on the Venice Film Festival (1964) and the Moscow International Film Festival (1975).
In a 1962 interview in Los Angeles, California, Andersson commented on the unfairness of America's perception of the prevalence of alcoholism in Sweden. She exclaimed, "I have never seen so many people in my life who begin with a dry martini in the morning here."
She declined to be questioned about sex or politics, claiming that she was not interested in either topic. She said she owned neither a mink coat or a car. Instead, Andersson either rode with friends who had cars or called a taxi.
Harriet Andersson was married to the Finnish director Jörn Donner, and she appeared in Donner's 1961 film, To Love. She gave birth to a daughter in 1960, naming her Petra after her character in Smiles of a Summer Night.
