Von Sydow went on to act in more films than theatre, and worked on an international front more than in Sweden. Bergman's dialogue from that time was very stylised, which would have made it difficult for me to recite my lines in a realistic manner. Nowadays, theatre and film actors with theatrical backgrounds use another type of acting technique than the one we used in the 1940s and 1950s. There was also Method Acting from The Actors Studio, which managed to reach Europe from the US. But then television suddenly arrived in Sweden and we were soon accustomed to realism, from news programmes, debate programmes, etc. I have always been bothered by the way I recited my lines in this film. When I watch my old films, for example The Seventh Seal, I notice that I acted very theatrically. In an interview with Aftonbladet, Max von Sydow made the following comment on his roles from this period:

During this time, von Sydow acted in both supporting and lead roles in Bergman's winter stage performances and summer films. They worked there together until 1960, when von Sydow moved to Stockholm and joined the Royal Dramatic Theatre. During his time in Malmö, Bergman often attended performances at the nearby Helsingborg City Theatre, and in 1955 he asked von Sydow to join the Malmö City Theatre acting company.

When von Sydow rang the director and asked if he could play the part, Bergman brushed him aside with a brusque no.Īfter graduation, von Sydow worked on a number of Swedish films and acted at numerous city theatres (including Norrköping-Linköpings City Theatre, where Ingmar Bergman saw von Sydow in Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo), before he was hired in Helsingborg. Von Sydow had already sought out a film role during his first year in Stockholm, upon hearing that Ingmar Bergman was looking for an extra to play the part of a policeman in Prison. Royal Dramatic Theatre director Alf Sjöberg cast von Sydow in his first film role in 1949's Only a Mother. Being inspired by this experience, he started amateur theatre company Scenia with a few of his friends, and they staged plays by August Strindberg, Pär Lagerkvist and Hjalmar Bergman.Īfter completing military service, where he adopted the name Max after a flea in a flea circus, von Sydow attended the Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school from 1948 to 1951, where he studied alongside the likes of Lars Ekborg, Margaretha Krook and Ingrid Thulin. His father was a professor of ethnography at Lund University and his mother was a grammar school teacher.Īt the age of 15, von Sydow attended a performance of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the newly opened Malmö City Theatre. Born Carl Adolf von Sydow on 10 April 1929 in Lund in southern Sweden, he was the only child in father Carl Wilhelm von Sydow's second marriage.

Max von sydow