Sandra Yi Sencindiver: «It’s not all rosy for actors in Denmark»

THEno Foundationtrilogy of novels science fiction written by Isaac Asimov starting in the 1950s, Hari Seldon, a psychohistoriographer, accurately calculates how much is missing at the end of the world, of the galaxy in which his incredible characters live. When at Sandra Yi Sencindiver that, in the television version of that universe in transformation, moves as Enjoiner RueQueen Sareth’s wise adviser (non-existent in the books), proposed the role, he must have thought that even the complicated world in which artists straddling borders like her gravitate, would have deserved a re-foundation.

«The paintings that I have on the walls in my house are more beautiful than those in the hotel» Sandra tells us, via zoom from London, where she is, on the second day of work on a new tv series, Geek Girlfor Netflix. «Foundation it was the biggest project I’ve ever done, 10 months of shooting, great camera, incredible attention to detail».

Yet until recently, this actress who brings together three mother tongues and three cultureshe had concluded that his professional life would gravitate towards Danish independent theatre. «I had introjected that there was no room for a black woman over 40 in large productions. And that the only place for me was the underground. But David S. Goyer, the creator of the series Foundation, has been able to create a context that welcomes the diversity of our present. He wasn’t taken for granted.”

A sign of change underway?
We are all witnesses of the differences that exist in the world, ethnically, culturally, aesthetically, and we should take advantage of them instead of ignoring them. It no longer makes sense to make situations that are not homogeneous or binary. I’ve often come on set and be the only black actress. During the filming of Foundation I met people who came from all over the world and I think this will play out in the entertainment world more and more.

She has been an active part of the change. In Copenhagen you created the campaign “Et større billede”, i.e. “A bigger picture”: you “remade” the posters of three popular Danish productions (The Kingdom-Exodus by Lars von Trier, Families Like Ours by Thomas Vinterberg e Fædre & mødre (Fathers and Mothers) by Paprika Steen) replacing the actors with others.
LDenmark is a fantastic place, there is a lot of cinema and quality series are also produced, but the representation of the world that comes out of it is exclusively white, and not because the country is. Politics, on the other hand, is, and so is the way in which television and cinematographic culture has been conceived. So together with other artists of color like me, non-binary people and other minority categories, we decided to solicit the conversation. Three major projects had been launched with large homogeneous casts: 42 white actors! A big frustration…

An alternate cast for The kingdom by Lars von Trier

One of them was the third season of the Kingdomthe Lars von Trier series.
The kingdom is set in the gigantic Copenhagen hospital, arguably the most diverse workplace in the world. Whites there I think are a minority! Yet Lars von Trier did not take this into account. So looking at those three posters we said to ourselves: «How fun it would be to have an alternative cast». To show what they were missing. We acted in secrecy – honestly we were afraid that we would never find a job in Denmark again.

But the campaign worked.
AND went viral. And the production companies, the Danish Film Institute, the ministry of culture have contacted us: «We are listening to you, the art that is made in this country is paid for by taxpayers, it must reflect the society in which we live. It is a difficult discussion, but we are in the midst of a great change, there is no modern society that will be able to escape».

No one like her embodies diversity, there are at least three places in the world where she feels at home.
I knowI’ve always been good at mixing. I enter a room, in a new society, I look, observe and immediately decode what the rules are. I don’t feel at home in three countries, I feel at home everywhere! Ethnically I am one hundred percent Korean, born in Korea to Korean parents. Then I was adopted by a white American and a Korean woman who brought my twin sister and me to the United States. When my father worked in Greenland in the 1980s, he fell in love with a Danish woman, so my sister and I moved with him, first to Greenland and then to Denmark. Now he is with another Danish woman (laughs)… In short, I lived in different places. And together with my sister, when we were about 25, we also found our Korean biological family. We are still in contact with them.

An incredible story… Which actually reminds of a movie…
Return to Seoul. They told me about it, I’ll see it. But there is also a series, Pachinko, which speaks of the pain of a generation, of Japanese oppression, of the diaspora of which I too am a daughter. I love working abroad, but I feel very Danish. You don’t necessarily have to be one thing or the other, you can be several things together. My childhood and adolescence gave me job opportunities, but above all I think they gave me a talent for understanding what goes on in other people’s lives.

When was the desire to be an actress born?
hor studied acting, but I’m a screenwriter, I write and direct plays. In Denmark the school system is fantastic. Children with little financial means have free access. It’s when you leave school that the trouble starts: after four years of training, it was shocking for me. I was only offered sex worker, prostitute or cleaning lady parts. They asked me to do the “Asian accent” which does not exist! My life changed when I started receiving proposals from abroad for ambitious projects. But I want to keep fighting to change the Danish industry, looking to the new generations. If there are many of us, they can no longer tell us: “You don’t work because it’s you who’s not good, it’s you who doesn’t fit the bill”.

Has Lars von Trier given up on the campaign?
I have to thank Lars for his cheeky response because it is thanks to him that the campaign went viral. He told us: «Go fuck yourself, I only work in absolute creative freedom. Any censorship is fascism.” My colleague Laura Allen Müller pointedly replied: “Let’s always remember to take the good with the bad, we still love Lars von Trier.” A quote from the first season of The kingdom.

Portraits © Ian Lim.

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