Noomi Rapace teased elements of her upcoming project Mother , in which she will play the revered and “complex” Catholic saint. The Swedish star, who is currently serving as a jury member at the Sarajevo Film Festival, has been prepping for the indie project with director Teona Strugar Mitevska ( God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya ) and remarked that in between watching films at the festival, she’s also “reading a lot about” Mother Teresa.
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“I’ve been reading her letters, listening to her and doing research,” Rapace told Deadline. “There’s also a lot of negativity written about her so I’m filling myself with everything I can and trying to find who she is for me and, in conversations with Teona, we’re finding our Mother Teresa.”
Rapace stressed the film, which is the English language debut from Strugar Mitevska, will not be a biopic, but will rather examine seven crucial days during the saint’s life when she decides to leave the Loreto Entally convent in Calcutta to launch her own Missionaries of Charity.
“She was basically waiting for permission from the Vatican to be able to go out on her mission,” said Rapace. “And she wrote letters for seven years to the Vatican trying to convince them to believe in something that has never been done before.”
In between her jury duties in Sarajevo, Rapace has been prepping the project with North Macedonian filmmaker Strugar Mitevska, who was in town for a few days and Rapace said the duo had been doing “makeup testing and having script sessions.”
“I’m finding the connecting tissue between me and [Mother Teresa] now and I’m starting to see where I can relate to her, like me living home when I was 15 and moving into an unknown situation and her leaving home when she was 17 and moving to another country, learning a new language and being a woman in a man’s world,” said Rapace. “All of these things, while just simple facts, I’m very curious about.”
The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo star pointed out that Mother Teresa was a “very complex” character who was “always questioning herself.”
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“She lived through several wars and kept believing and kept fighting for something she believed in, and she talked a lot about forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness. So, as I’m picking those things and kind putting it into my recipe and baking something.”
Mother will begin shooting next month in Belgium before moving to Calcutta – “We’re actually going to be on the streets she was walking.”
In addition to Mother , Rapace has psychological thriller Reckoner lined up as her next project. It’s a welcome change of pace for the actress, who last starred in Apple TV+’s sci-fi series Constellation , where she played Jo, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station when an object collides with it. The series was canceled after one season.
“I loved that character,” she said. “It was a beautiful journey and Peter Harness is a brilliant writer and became a dear friend of mine. I loved working with Apple and the creative team and I was disappointed at first when it was canceled.
“It was a long journey though. I was prepping for three months and shooting for eight months so when you take on something of that level, it’s a big commitment. But I believe things happen for different reasons and I wouldn’t be able to do the films I’m doing now had they called for a second season.”
She added: “I’m very much in love with European arthouse directors at the moment and it feels refreshing and liberating for me to go back a bit to where it all started – small and more rock and roll.”
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