Anita Briem

From RADA to Blockbusters

At sixteen, she landed in London with a determination bordering on recklessness. Anita Briem wasn't looking for the comfort of the National Theatre in Reykjavík. She wanted to get into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and she did in 2001. There, she trained in the discipline of the classics before moving into British television with minor roles in shows like The Bill.

London gives nothing away to foreigners.

In 2006, she appeared in the series The Evidence, and a year earlier she shot the horror film The Nun in Spain. But her real commercial breakthrough came in 2008. That year she co-starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth alongside Brendan Fraser. The production had a budget of 60 million dollars and demanded constant physical effort from the actress in green-screen environments.

That same year, she played Jane Seymour in the second season of The Tudors. Her time on the historical series was brief, as she left the project before filming the third season. The official version cited scheduling conflicts, although her replacement by Joss Stone caused a media buzz that Briem chose to ignore.

In 2010, she starred in Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. The movie underperformed at the box office, grossing just $6 million worldwide. It was a period of uneven Hollywood projects that eventually pushed her back toward her geographic roots.

Returning to Her Nordic Roots

After a decade on the international circuit, she decided to move back to Iceland in 2019. The change wasn't just about where she lived. She began getting involved in screenwriting and executive producing so she could control the kind of stories she wanted to tell.

Then came the mud of Iceland.

In 2020, she premiered the series The Minister, in which she played Steinunn. That role allowed her to move away from the action heroine image Hollywood had assigned her years earlier. Also in 2020, she wrote and starred in the series As If, a personal project that explored the midlife crisis from a raw perspective.

In 2021, she joined the cast of Sisterhood. The psychological thriller was shot entirely on location in Iceland and explored the consequences of a crime committed decades earlier. Nordic cinema offered her a dramatic depth that Los Angeles studios systematically denied her.

Her work in the film Svar við bréfi Helgu in 2022 confirmed this shift toward emotionally powerful period drama. The movie was based on the novel by Bergsveinn Birgisson and was shot in the remote landscapes of the Borgarfjörður fjord.

The production of As If had a crew that was 70% women.