The death of Amrita Acharia’s character
appalled fans of the cult TV series. Now the
actress is getting back to her Norwegian roots
W
hen Norwegian actress
Amrita Acharia’s character,
Irri, was killed off in the
second season of
Game of
Thrones
last year, the
show’s famously obsessive fans were not
happy. “Amrita made Irri real and that’s
why we freaking care,” wrote one on fan
site WinterIsComing.net. Another raged, “I
actually gasped ‘Nooooo’ when she died.
Stupid, just stupid!”
Irri’s death scene was cut – in the
show she’s found dead on the floor – but
when the scene of her getting strangled
was uploaded on YouTube, almost two
million people watched it. The geeks
were doubly dismayed because Irri’s
character survives longer in George RR
Martin’s books, going on to have a lesbian
affair. “I couldn’t believe that so many
people cared,” says Acharia. “I still get
letters from fans requesting an autograph
with [Irri’s famous saying] ‘It is known’. It
is kind of cool to have my own tagline.”
Acharia’s reputation has come a
long way. She spent most of her teens
in Tromsø, having grown up in England,
Nepal and Ukraine (her father is
Nepalese, her mother Ukrainian), before
heading off to study acting at London’s
Academy of Live and Recorded Arts.
She’d had a bit-part in 2011’s
The Devil’s
Double
, about Saddam Hussein’s son
Uday, when she got a call about some
CORBIS
Is there life beyond
Game of Thrones
?
fantasy TV show based on a book series.
“I had no idea it would be anything like
as massive as it turned out to be… It was
hard to take in sometimes.”
Acharia – who speaks four languages
– can’t be fanboy catnip forever, though,
even if she appeared in AskMen.com’s
2013 list of the world’s most desirable
women. This month she stars in
Jeg er din
(
I Am Yours
), a harrowing Norwegian film
about Mina, a Norwegian-Pakistani single
mum in Oslo who has been estranged
from her family. She falls for Swedish
filmmaker Jesper (
Skyfall
’s Ola Rapace)
and moves to his home country with her
son. When it becomes clear Jesper is not
ready for a family, Mina’s life spirals into
self-destruction.
“The film explores the consequences
of this alienation, but deals with universal
challenges I’m sure many people can
relate to,” says Acharia. “It peels back a
lot of taboos surrounding being a single
mother, sexual promiscuity, unstable
careers and what we feel is perhaps
expected of us from the communities
around us.”
Acharia’s experience in Norway,
though, was very different to Mina’s.
“We were brought up liberally with lots
of support and integration was a given
for us – we knew where we were from,
but when we moved we were keen to
learn the language and adapt.
Jeg er din
is about what can happen when this isn’t
the case and when immigrants get split
between two worlds.”
Were she not so used to moving,
Acharia might feel split between many
worlds. She still calls Norway home (“It’s
one of the only places I can really relax,”
she says), but spends most of her time
between London and LA, where she’s
recently been filming
Camouflage
, in which
she plays a Middle Eastern FBI agent.
After
Camouflage
, she’ll join another
US-based Norwegian, director Tommy
Wirkola, for zombie comedy
Dead Snow
2
. It’s a far cry from immigrant single
mothers and complex FBI agents, but
Acharia admits, “I don’t have a concrete
career plan. I’ll ride this wave as long as it
will hold me up and hope to do projects
that leave a mark.” Whether she gets to
have another tagline, only time will tell.
Jeg er din
is released in Norway on
16 August
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