She made the breakthrough in 1999 in Søren Kragh-Jacobsen’s dogma film “Mifune’s last song”, where she played the whore Liva, who flees to Lolland, where she meets love in newlyweds Kresten, played by Anders W. Berthelsen.
A role that brought in a Bodil Award for Best Actress.
The following year, it was film director Anders Thomas Jensen who bid for her in “Blinkende lygter”, which sold 430,000 cinema tickets.
Even more have followed Iben Hjejle in the TV series. Not least in the lead role as the Aarhus detective “Dichte” on TV2.
The series, which is based on Elsebeth Egholm’s books, premiered in 2013. Two years later, when the third season was to be recorded, things went wrong for the otherwise cool “Dichte”.
Iben Hjejle fell over with stress, and she then decided to change her life.
She was so severely affected that, in her own words, it could have cost her her life.
She had to take a longer work break and, among other things, withdraw from a big show.
But she dreams of a comeback. Like in a musical, she recounted when she participated in “Wild with Dance” in 2017 and reached the finals.
– I really want to try to be part of a musical. Dance is a different dramatic form of expression than I am used to, and I am beginning to feel that it is a new facet to what I can.
Not just the stress diagnosis she has been open about. Several times in the years since, she has told in both an honest and humorous way about the difficulties in life.
Like when she with TV host Signe Lindkvist in small video clips introduces the rest of us to what it is like to lose her mother at a young age.
– Every day there is some point where I think “Shut up, how is it tacky that she is not here anymore”.
Together they have written the book “Is there an adult present”, which was published in 2020. The hope is, among other things, to do away with the culture of perfection and tell especially young people that it is okay to choke.
– We hope that those who read our book will think that if the two finches there dare to go ahead and choke in front of everyone else and be embarrassed and peeked, well, then they might even dare themselves.
Iben Hjejle is the mother of 23-year-old William, whom she has from her first marriage. Since then, she formed a couple of years with the comedian Casper Christensen, whom she got to know when they played girlfriends in “Far from Las Vegas”.
Source: The Nordic Page