80 years old | Ilmari Saarelainen was openly a bourgeois during the war, and there were enough converts: “I don’t want it back for a second”

“Free I wouldn’t sit here, being interviewed. I probably would have gone to cooking school. And I would now be tattooed up to my neck”, Ilmari Saarelainen ponders.

The 80-year-old actress talks about her role as Juhana, Tank full -TV series as one of the central characters. Finnish director-writer Neil Hardwick combined his observations about Finland and Finns with British sitcoms in a late 1970s TV series.

Tenho Saurén performed by Reinikainen and Sylvi Salonen Along with the Emilia Vilen character, Saarelainen’s Juhana remained in life as a character that marked her acting career.

But Saarelainen doesn’t complain. As Ilmari Saarelainen, he is more than happy to follow Juhana, less well-known than his role character.

“I was thrilled that Hardwick chose me for that role. Someone else could have done it better and cheaper, but I was able to do it.”

John when he got the role, Saarelainen was attached to Tampere Työväen Teatteri. It was the 1970s, and the militant movement was strongly represented among the cultural people of Finland.

Saarelainen was openly bourgeois. It caused chafing.

“I was blue and white and as far from the hammer and sickle as could be. There had already been attempts to convert me during the Theater School days. Even one female actor said that if I don’t go along, I’ll never have a job in this country,” Saarelainen recalls.

“It was an ugly time. I don’t want it back for a second.”

“

“It was an ugly time.”

Saarelainen had come to Tampere Työväen Teatteri with pleasure from the Theater Academy.

“I don’t remember myself, but I have often been reminded that I had sent a letter here after the employment contract was concluded. It read: ‘Congratulations on a great choice.’ Damn narcissist!”

Theater school the years in Helsinki were rough for Saarelainen in many ways: he lived at 33 different addresses, and half a year of studies was missed due to a bad car crash.

However, important lessons stuck in my mind.

“Mirjam Polkunen taught microphone technique. He said that if you have a dialect, don’t give it up.”

Before moving to Helsinki, Saarelainen had been enrolled first in Valkeakoski and then in Tampere. However, the intonation had caught on during the summers spent in Uusikaupunki. Saarelainen and his cousins ​​spent their first 20 summers living on an island in Western Finland.

“Mother was from Uusitakaupunki. That’s why we went there. In early summer, the hair was shaved off so that ticks could be found more easily. And there we were like sheep, summer in the outer archipelago.”

From the dialect was useful in doing another famous role. In 1986, Neil Hardwick asked Saarelais for the second lead role in his TV series A sister and her brother. Together with the one from Rauma Tuija Ernamon with the actors’ speech parsi placed the events in Western Finland.

“Hardwick said keep that while listening to us talk. That is your secret language”, says Saarelainen.

“Hardwick taught how a director can help an actor.”

This series was also a hit. As a mild manifestation of popularity, for example, when traveling on a ship, so many drunken travelers wanted to perform their own version of Saarelainen’s most famous roles for him, that he was more comfortable in his cabin than in public spaces. But on the other hand, there were many job offers. The islander was even asked for advertisements.

“You wouldn’t have come to pick them up from the theater stage.”

The actor also praises the work pace of the old days. Where nowadays the material that goes on the screen is shot for half an hour, before it took a minute or two to film.

“There was even time to practice. Rehearse scenes with another actor in advance. It’s important for an actor.”

In retirement years Saarelainen has mostly acted in monologue plays The best before. It premiered at Tampere Työväen Theater back in 2010, and since then Saarelainen has always performed it according to orders. Sometimes there has been a break for years. It has meant reviving the role, learning the text again and again. The same thing happened recently on a trip to Sicily:

“The lady lay in the pool like a cow in the swamp, and I went around Etna and learned the text.”

Saarelainen says that other acting jobs are still interesting.

“However, this has become such that only a giraffe can play a giraffe. When at the end of the day, everything in the theater is bullshit. It’s about acting.”

While waiting for other roles, the monologue rotates. The whisperer is accompanied by my own daughter Nora.

What would you tell your 20-year-old self?

“Don’t change anything. Don’t become a chef.”