Liv Ullmann
Changing Places, a memoir Liv Ullmann published as an autobiographer, stands as a central document of her life and work — though the facts at hand do not supply its publication year, leaving the precise date unanchored.
Born on 16 December 1938 in Tokyo, Ullmann holds Norwegian and Swedish citizenship and has worked across Norwegian, English, and Swedish languages throughout her career. Her professional life has encompassed acting in film, television, and on stage, as well as directing for film and television, and writing as a screenwriter and author. This range of occupations across multiple national and linguistic contexts reflects the breadth of a career conducted on an international scale.
Her work as an autobiographer places her among performers who have also contributed to literature in their own right. Writing in multiple languages and operating across different national industries, Ullmann produced screen and stage performances alongside directorial work and written texts. The facts available do not detail the specific productions in which she appeared or directed, but they confirm that her practice extended well beyond any single medium or country.
Ullmann received an Academy Honorary Award, a recognition awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to individuals whose bodies of work or contributions to cinema are judged to merit distinction outside the competitive categories. This award stands as a concrete marker in the record of her career. Her citizenships in both Norway and Sweden, combined with her birth in Tokyo and her working fluency across three languages, mark her as a figure whose professional life unfolded across national borders. The Academy Honorary Award remains the most formally documented recognition listed among the available facts concerning her life and work.
Quotes by Liv Ullmann
I was lonely, but that loneliness belonged to me, it was nothing he created. Nobody creates your loneliness. Nobody creates that darkness you have in your tummy. You know, because we all have that. It’s how we deal with it, that’s what makes the difference.
Nothing ever comes to an end. Wherever one has sunk roots that emanate from one’s best or truest self, one will always find a home.
I think of all the choices I never knew. And those I let be made for me – to please, from fear, for love. Where did they disappear to, those choices that I never made? They are all part of who I am. They are the legacy I leave behind, they are the finished portrait of myself I cannot change.
You let go. And that’s a good lesson to learn in life. Let go. Don’t grow into a bitter and ‘What if?’ and ‘What if I’d done this?’ Never, never. Let go.
The void Papa’s death left in me became a kind of cavity, into which later experiences were to be laid.
I do not want to arrive at the end of life and then be asked what I made of it and have to answer: ‘I acted.’ I want to be able to say: ‘I loved and I was mystified. It was a joy sometimes, and I knew grief. And I would like to do it all again.’
Soon I will be an old, white-haired lady, into whose lap someone places a baby, saying, “Smile, Grandma!” – I, who myself so recently was photographed on my grandmother’s lap.
I just think that sometimes it is less hard to wake up feeling lonely when you are alone than to wake up feeling lonely when you are with someone else. Some people would be better off alone, but they feel they’ve got to get hold of someone to prove they’re worthwhile.
It’s better to wake up alone knowing that you’re alone, than waking up with someone and still be lonely.
One of the things I like about my profession, and that I find healthy, is that one constantly has to break oneself to pieces.