Portrait of Trine Dyrholm (February 2023)

With piercing eyes that glisten with secrets untold, roles played, wisdom accrued, and a spectacular charm, at times youthful, Trine Dyrholm, a jewel in the crown of Danish cinema, is a woman growing old gracefully. Under the spotlight she has grown up – a past teenage starlet – flourished, evolved into an unstoppable force of nature. She radiated greatness.

While long hair suits her (I imagine it is for her roles), it is only when it is shorn, cropped to end at the nape of her neck that she appears the sublime, most perfect, killer version of herself. She is one of those women whose short blond hair suits and astounds, leaves men and women in her wake as her seemingly tall and slender frame eases through the rooms she is delivered to, the spaces she profoundly alters with her presence. Her elegance augmented, a la Judi Dench, there is a power seldom seen, as if her hands could emit inventive spells. She is the picture of elegance, a modern style icon with a sublime blend of charms. On the screen, she is intoxicating, one of those actors you cannot take your eyes off.

She is feminine, tough, yet absorbing, adorable and fragile, a shapeshifting siren blessing the screen with her depictions of lives and loves encountered. Every gesture, tic, movement is spellbinding, an amalgamation of all the best qualities of the finest of her field – steely, mesmerising, unmissable actors at work.

The years have penetrated her face and skin and the life lived adorns her in exquisite fashion. This is a beauty that trying to fight time – and its many effects – knows not. Her every move exudes a confidence, a grace, an assured quality that most silver screen beings lack. Her charms do not diminish with age, if anything, they ever unfurl into something more than before. She is stylish and slick.

When you were serious, Trine, grave issues tattooed across your face, I would lean in to listen; when you smiled, I lit up and the world seemed safe and full of joy. When you were dark, the clouds would appear sublime, essential. When you could scarcely contain your bliss, the magnitude of that would be contagious.

Your bright blue bulbous eyes pierce. They were more loaded with excitement and passion than people could dream up. Those eyes were an entrancing mix of dangerous beauty and humanity. Trine’s smile grew from her eyes and mouth, setting fire to her entire face, consequently illuminating her surroundings. Whoever she was playing her lips drew you to her words, would render you unable to do anything but believe her, left you thinking one kiss would exchange truths of the world previously undiscovered. Whether in her native Danish or foreign English tongue words seemed precious as they worked their way out of her mouth and into the shell ears of anyone available. She was a gift of seismic proportions.

I was no actor, but I had previously written myself into your arms to feel what it would be like to be there. I had dreamed about and of you, a dream with more life to it than many tangible moments.

I imagine Trine sitting in front of me, a relaxed picture of contemplation, exchanging a gentle dialogue with her author, both revealing and concealing, pushing my buttons, inspiring further intrigue, weaving a web of curiosity for me to get trapped inside. She would be wearing an elegant black trouser suit, her frame making her appear spider-like, and she would stare at me with those juggernaut eyes, discovering as much about me as I would about her, and yet retaining a sweetness that wouldn’t allow me discomfort.

She tested and challenged herself, probing at her own boundaries. She was a temptress of gritty roles, inhabiting each violently, possessing them in a way most actors could not – uncovering a depth to each individual – that brought them to life, sat them beside you on the sofa in all their petrifying and life-affirming glory. She moved like the master chess piece, the Queen, in all directions, sweeping others aside as she went, altering her surroundings, imprinting herself on the memory, burning her presence there for eternity.

I had long thought of her a masterwork, someone who I would like to see more of both on and off the screen, to feast off her charisma, write sentences about her as she filtered into my consciousness as we shared a room, dined, drank a cup of English tea together.

I could never see her from enough angles; her past, present and future selves all calling, jostling for adoration, focus, limelight. She always left the viewer wanting more, questioning the real Trine. What was she like? Which character she had played was closest to her true self, if any? Or did she only step into the bodies of those who she shared nothing in common with, thereby making the ultimate escape from her own reflection, and an unfathomably convincing entrance into someone else’s essence? I had more questions after thinking about her, gazing upon her, contemplating the beauty of her I had witnessed on the screen as well as various photos. I hadn’t answered anything of her in my words, that which was precisely how I knew, ultimately, she was the worthiest of subjects.

I had once had a dream about Trine Dyrholm…

There was quite the throng of bodies, a party swirling around them, the bodies mingling, glorifying in their own presences rather than that of others, as the rich and the modern did and do. They appeared the elite of society, famous people, the wealthy, the supposedly classy, but everyone was a dog, just a dog pretending or imagining themselves to be something, anything else.

One was there, slipping into the brickwork, the voice of reason, as ever she was, aware my electric attraction to the sparkling Danish actress had started my engine of pining, of desiring, of picturing and then embellishing some more. A life in the imagination.

We were at stages seated in ornate and old-fashioned rooms, the moving between these spaces as if a non-stop movie were being played out, bodies floating, gliding effortlessly into the next room, ones decorated with silver platters on elegant wooden tables and with high ceilings halfway to the heavens above the players of the scene, with chairs and food fit for queens and kings. With regal portraits on walls of self-important prigs, of people with enough wealth to ensure they never escaped from their warped perspectives in their mortal existences. She swanned in on her wave of noble authority, uplifting the room in a way nobody could replicate. The author moved the other pawns into their positions, but Trine was moving to her own rhythm.

And the dream was over, she was stolen from me, slipping out of the majestic door and into the next room, the following role, somebody else’s dream.

Connected to this literary portrait is the artwork with number DJS00002 below...

Both works by Dominic J Stevenson (for more details contact me on dominicjstevenson@yahoo.co.uk)