Iben Hjejle is Denmark’s greatest female export success—American audiences might remember her from John Cusack’s film “High Fidelity” in 2000—but her favorite country is Sweden!

"We spent summers in Sweden when I was a child,” she says. “At a place outside of Linköping. And then later, when I studied at the drama school in Denmark, we made a study trip to Stockholm to see theater, and I remember thinking I just had to learn Swedish and go to Sweden and work. It was my greatest dream.”

Hjejle has now made good on that dream several times. She played Queen Sofia Magdalena (Danish Queen consort of Sweden as the spouse of Gustav III of Sweden) in the successful televised drama “Gustav III:s äktenskap” (The Marriage of Gustav III) by SVT (Sweden’s Television). And she’s now acting with Mikael Persbrandt in the film drama “Stockholm Östra,” directed by Simon Kaijser da Silva.

“To me the Swedish language is so special,” Hjejle says. “You know how musicians and singers like English, and feel that’s the best language for lyrics and texts? Well, I have the same relation to Swedish. It is to me a more dramatic and friendly language than Danish. Even though I of course love my own language, too.”