Lamb: The folk horror set in Iceland is a poignant portrayal of motherhood and loneliness

Lamb director Valdimar Jóhannsson.

Valdimar, you worked on developing Lamb for eight years. At what stage, did you think of collaborating with Noomi Rapace?

Valdimar Jóhannsson: Early on. But we thought it would be difficult to get Noomi. We reached out to her two years before the filming of Lamb started.

Noomi Rapace: I was not hard to get. This kind of material and opportunity comes once in a lifetime. I straightway felt this project was special. Though Valdimar had done only short films before, he had worked in every position of a film crew. He knew cinema and filmmaking. It was like an invitation to his world.

How did the process of developing the character of Maria change once Rapace joined the project?

VJ: We created Maria together. We talked about all the details for nearly a year and a half. She came one day before the shooting began but Maria was there (in her).

Noomi has lived in Iceland for three years. Was that connection important when you considered her for the role?

VJ: It was important because she speaks Icelandic. The fact that she had grown up on a farm was also important. When we reached out to her, we knew no one else could play the role of Maria except her.

NR: I felt that too. It seems I have been practising for this role my whole life (laughs). I knew the film would take me to places where I couldn’t hide or pretend. I tried to be as truthful as possible.

Noomi, how did you re-acclimate yourself to Iceland?

NR: Before we started shooting, we drove around, met farmers. We were also trying to find my husband and checking my chemistry (with a possible co-actor). My main preparation with Maria was internal — to understand her grief and pain. I knew the physical part would come easily. The movie has hardly any dialogues. I had to allow Maria to take over.

It is intriguing how you created the scenes with Ada (the animal-human baby Maria adopts).

VJ: We worked with children, lambs, and puppets. Noomi basically had to work with these elements while filming the scenes with Ada. We used visual effects only in a few scenes. Ada came to life on the sets. We didn’t have green screens.

NR: While shooting a scene in which I am feeding her, we filmed with a lamb. During that time an animal keeper was holding her still. Then, we switched to a human baby who was moving. When both the animal and child were tired, we had the puppet. We tried to tune in and go with whatever they wanted to do.

You shot the film in the North of Iceland in different seasons. How challenging was that?

VJ: Since it’s my first feature, I was super stressed about everything. After a week, I realised I was surrounded by so many nice people. My actors were always helping me. My cinematographer Eli Arensson and I carefully studied the available natural light for the exterior scenes and made the most of it.

NR: Having Maria within me was painful. I had twisted dreams. I couldn’t sleep. The loss of first Ada, I could feel all the time. It was like I was missing a body part. I was away from my son (Lev Rapace) for a long time. However, we had such great energy around us all the time. The difficulties and inner pain that I was struggling with were evened out with the belief that we were creating something that’s truly special.

A still from Lamb.

After being hailed as an “action star”, Noomi seems to have returned to arthouse cinema.

NR: It is like coming back to where I started. I did work in arthouse movies in Scandinavia (such as the 2007 movie Daisy Diamond) and lots of stage work. Theatre demanded pure acting. I was really craving that when I was asked to play Maria. I wanted to go back to that side of filmmaking, which always felt like my original family. The biggest thing, for me, was that my son thinks this is my best performance. He had tears in his eyes after watching Lamb.