Sophia Olsson is a Swedish cinematographer with many credits from Sweden and Denmark with stylistic flourishes that emphasize simplicity and emotion. She most recently lensed When The Light Breaks, which had an enthusiastic debut at Cannes this past May.
Olsson graduated as a Director from Filmhögskolan in Gothenburg and later studied cinematography at The National Film School of Denmark. She has worked for years on commercials, documentaries, music Videos, and features and has won many awards over the years.
Her work on The Crown’s final season is her first TV credit and has been greatly celebrated. The episode Ritz, in particular, which features several flashbacks, highlighting the strong bond between sisters over decades. Olsson was recently nominated for an Emmy for this episode.
[Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.]
How did you first get involved with the show?
Director Alex Gabassi contacted me, he had seen some of my work. We chatted and he was enthusiastic about me coming on. This was my first TV series, I had only done features before. Next, I spoke to the lovely producers and they were just fantastic. They spoke with people I had worked with before and then I got approved. So that’s how I ended up on The Crown.
Were you a fan of the show already?
Yes, definitely. I liked how the camerawork is how they’ve chosen to tell the story visually because it’s dramatic. Locations and production design are fantastic and very royal, obviously. But in the cinematography, they have always kept the realism that I like in the storytelling. It feels truthful to me.
Let’s talk about the look of the episode that you are nominated for. I like the way you handled the flashbacks to 1945, it felt very unique.
It’s always tricky. Should it look the same or should we have a clear contrast that it’s different? Alex and I chose to not change it so much to attack them. 1945 and the late ’90s, we didn’t want it to become too much of a gimmick in the past so we would take both periods… they are just as important because they as a whole tell the close relationship between the two sisters and how important they were to each other. So, that was a choice we made quite early.
It’s about the emotion, not the time period. It feels seamless, the transitions between the years…
In 1945, the war is ending and these teenagers are going out and we’re choosing to have longer lenses where we sense them as a part of the whole mass of people who were out that night celebrating the end of the war. Then when we’re in the present time, we just have so many fewer characters. And also, of the two sisters and their connection, a lot of it is inside and daytime. We were closer in a way, both physically with the camera, because also all the things that they were going through.
The Queen, of course, is terrified of losing one of her closest friends. To have the calmness of being with them, I mean, both in the hospital and also when they’re at home, just playing cards and everything. Then there it is, the cinematography is calmer as well.
So, it follows the whole wave of the script, which is very beautifully written. At the end when you understand that Princess Margaret says goodbye to Queen Elizabeth, which I feel that in the whole film and how it’s been built up, that it works, that you really feel The Queen is actually walking in on her own and now she’s on her own.
The last scene is pretty beautiful. Can you talk a little bit about setting up that shot?
I think for that scene we knew we wanted the light to be feeling like it’s early morning and we didn’t shoot it early morning because it’s a long scene, so we wouldn’t be able to shoot it in that time. So we’re shooting it in the middle of the day, but then being in the shadow, and then we’re just adding some very soft fill but still trying to keep the feeling of early morning.
What we wanted here was that they’re just standing still and the camera is just going to be completely still and we are going to find, so it’s become this calm situation. But it’s the feeling that everything stops in a way from the whole episode with everything that’s been going on. We also chose many times to try to be a little bit closer to the characters, shooting two cameras at the same time. Just to be present and close to them and not stand too far away and have too much of a long lens. We’re not pushing, we’re not on tracks, we’re not on a dolly or doing anything like that. It’s just completely static.
Is there anyone on your team that you would like to mention?
My gaffer Chris Stones was fantastic in so many ways. He had been filming there for many years and he knew all the locations, but for him, he was like, forget about everything, how they’ve done or before, and we’re going to do our thing. And then it is still, I mean, it looks like The Crown. But having him as well as a collaborator was rewarding because he knew all the locations and he also knew what could work and what could not.
I could say I would like us to have some kind of light that is like this, and then you have these huge locations where you need just so much light to be able to get that kind of light coming into the room. He had been there before with all these cranes and everything. So, we had a really good creative collaboration.
The Crown is a hugely successful, awarded show. Now it’s over, how do you reflect on being a part of this legacy?
I think it’s been surprisingly great. It’s been such a good crew and production. I hadn’t been filming there before and many of the others had been here for years. There was such a good working climate around The Crown, they really take care of their crew in many ways. It’s just a lovely place to be at.
I had great people around me. Peter Morgan and the other producers have given us free hands. So I’ve never heard, “No,” or, “We can’t do that.” I’m just talking creatively, not talking financially. So Peter, who is the creator of the show and the main scriptwriter, that’s a big thing that you feel that you’re trusted and that we can go the way we want to go. So surprisingly enough, it reminded me a lot of my other features or jobs that I’ve done, even though those are maybe smaller and sometimes some are bigger. It’s just still standing there in the center of everything.
The Crown Seasons 1-6 are all available to stream on Netflix.
