Scandicrush - Sofia Helin

Tough-talking, fearless and sometimes downright shocking, and that’s just the woman who plays her. If The Bridge’s Saga Norén is your idea of a TV heroine, you’ll love Sofia Helin.

- Martha Hayes

‘I’D LIKE TO PLAY A REALLY HORNY 50-YEAR-OLD WOMAN,’ SAYS SOFIA Helin softly – almost whispering; definitely smiling – as I nearly spit out my tea. ‘She. Would. Be. Wild. Her skin would be very loose. That’s a taboo.’ I don’t know why I’m so surprised to hear these words come out of her mouth. If anyone could rise to the challenge, it’s the enigmatic Ms Helin, whose powerful portrayal of the socially awkward, sexually forward Swedish detective, Saga Norén, in BBC4’s The Bridge is as joyfully side-splitting as it is heart-rending.

Perhaps it’s because the 43-year-old woman sitting before me in Sweden’s Malmö Art Museum (where an exhibition of the hit show is currently running and yes, it features the iconic leather trousers) seems so prim and pretty. Dressed in a pale-pink blouse and black trousers, her famous long blonde hair is pinned back in a bun to reveal delicate silver earrings and pink-blushed cheekbones. The facial scar (from falling off her bike on a bridge, of all places, in her twenties) that works with the character brief so well, is barely visible today. In fact, her frequent smile and gentle voice is so disconcerting, I have to ask her to do the ‘Saga’ face. ‘Just a second,’ she replies in clipped tones, composing herself. And there she is.