00:04
Marie Brock
I chose a painting by Matisse called The Red Studio, which is a painting Matisse did of his own studio. I saw the exhibition at SMK, I believe it was '22.

00:17
Marie Brock
It's pretty dramatic that he created this whole work and then suddenly he takes a left turn and then slaps this red paint all over it and it's become one of his most famous paintings.

00:31
Marie Brock
I don't know what he was thinking at the moment. Maybe he was frustrated. He was like, I'm just gonna put some dramatic red paint on it. But that's also a color of passion.

00:40
Marie Brock
As a creative, it blew the lid off my head a little bit, that thing of knowing sometimes the inner critic comes in too fast, but you also gotta have that inner critic that sometimes comes in and helps you.

00:51
Marie Brock
I feel inspired. It's so interesting also when you read a script, sometimes it's alive. You already feel a vibration on a cellular level. And I feel that painting gives insight into how sometimes that bold choice makes that art that we just don't forget.

01:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today, our guest is Marie Brock, a Danish actress, voiceover artist, and writer. Welcome, Marie.

01:39
Marie Brock
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

01:41
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's wonderful having you here. We are currently in my home in Glendale, which is pretty close to Griffith Park, a great place to hike in LA and it is also famous as the location of the Hollywood sign. Which part of Los Angeles do you call home? How would you describe the area that you live in and why did you pick this location? How does it fit your personality and what you need?

02:05
Marie Brock
I live in West Hollywood, which is pretty much in the center of LA, a little bit of the center where everything is happening, which is a two-edged sword at times. I was living out in the mountains in Malibu and I had a home there, a little cabin, that almost burned down and that was actually why I decided to sell and move closer into LA.

02:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Was that the first place you lived in Los Angeles?

02:32
Marie Brock
No, I started in Studio City, which is not far from here, where I found an apartment. And when I moved here, that was hard, because I didn't have credit.

02:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
But you came from New York, didn't you?

02:45
Marie Brock
I came from London.

02:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You came from London? I thought you came from New York.

02:48
Marie Brock
No, I spent ten years in London before I moved here. I started in Studio City and then I found this place and moved out into the mountains on the Chumash trail, which is a very spiritual place for Native Americans. So it was a very cool place to discover. And it was very quiet, peaceful mountains, and animals.

03:12
Marie Brock
And then I decided I needed a little bit more action. I sold my place and then I moved straight into West Hollywood. It's a completely different world. But all my friends were super close and I closed the sale of my home two weeks before lockdown, during COVID. So it was very nice, actually, that I had so many people around me.

03:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What made you decide to move to Los Angeles in the first place?

03:43
Marie Brock
That was solely for a career as an actor. I went to acting school in New York. And then I moved to London and worked for ten years, but I always wanted to come back to the States, actually. And LA was always in the back of my mind. And when I worked and lived in London, I always took a trip every year to LA and studied with great acting teachers.

04:08
Marie Brock
There is a tradition here where you can take classes every week. In London, not really the same thing. And I would say also at that time in Denmark, ongoing acting classes weren't really a thing. You graduate school and that's it. So I found it very exciting that you just could keep educating yourself, keep exercising the muscle.

04:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Was it a different environment from what you were used to in London?

04:37
Marie Brock
Yeah.

04:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How so?

04:40
Marie Brock
I just felt in terms of casting, there was always, in London, maybe a little bit of confusion, the way I looked, the way I sound — you can do fluent American, or you can do British, but you look Irish, but maybe you should just be cast Russian. I mean, things have changed, evolved over time. But at that time, it felt very restrictive and it felt I was put in a box a little bit.

05:04
Marie Brock
And every time I came out here, it was a completely different perspective. It was like, oh my God, you can do British, you can do American, you look Irish, but you're Danish. There was an excitement around the perspective of opportunity. So I think that was the main difference for me.

05:24
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How would you characterize the city of Los Angeles to somebody who's never been in the city before? What do you personally love about Los Angeles?

05:33
Marie Brock
When people who have come to visit me, who've never been here, who might be a little bit on the judgy side, they have a lot of preconceived ideas, their mind explodes because they're like, oh my God, you can go hiking, you can go in nature half an hour away. You have the ocean, you can surf, and then you have Big Bear, where you can go skiing and what is that, an hour, two hours away?

06:02
Marie Brock
Depending on what type of skiing, you have to drive a little bit further for maybe a little bit better skiing. But LA is so much more than Hollywood, superficial influencers, people who want to get famous. There is actually a lot of culture here, I find, there's a lot of art.

06:21
Marie Brock
There's amazing food, and I feel we're heading more towards local sourcing, local farmers and things like that. So it's farm to table. I just feel LA has so much more to offer. It helps when you know someone who lives here that can take you out of the tourist traps.

06:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And almost any culture is represented here, right? You work here as an actress, as a voiceover artist, and also as a writer. A lot of people think that this must be a glamorous lifestyle that you have, and to some extent it probably is. What is life in LA when you do what you do?

06:58
Marie Brock
I would say it's not glamorous. Of course you can post some nice photos from the red carpet. We've done that!

07:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, we did that together.

07:08
Marie Brock
Of course. But it's hard work and I'm in an industry, I believe you are too, that's self-motivating. You constantly have to get up every day and self-motivate. There's no one who's telling you what to do. There's nobody who tells you what to write. So that part can be challenging.

07:29
Marie Brock
But I also find I have a lot of freedom in the career I chose, and I definitely think you are made of something, not better, not worse, but you're made of something that gives you a drive that keeps you going.

07:46
Marie Brock
It's definitely thrilling, exciting, scary, and frustrating. Any emotion on the scale I experience sometimes daily, and then other times you're hit by a creative streak and you're just flying. So there's a lot of work, I find personally, to stay on track as an artist and still be a sane, healthy person and then still create. It is a wild job.

08:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Is freedom important to you?

08:18
Marie Brock
I have to feel free in my mind and my body in what I do. That's a very important part of my journey, for sure.

08:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have been performing at quite a few theater venues in Los Angeles. What is the theater scene like here?

08:36
Marie Brock
I would say it's very diverse in many ways. I came from a traditional acting school where you were in school from early morning to late at night, because you had to put in rehearsal. You had stage combat, you had singing, you had dance, you had ballet, you had sword fighting, everything. Very old school, traditional, and a lot of voice work.

08:58
Marie Brock
In Los Angeles, a lot of people come here and they take acting classes, which is amazing, it's a weekly workout. But they don't have, for instance, maybe voice classes, how to use your voice. Being on stage, you gotta be able to be truthful in your expression, but project your voice.

09:21
Marie Brock
So I think that was one of the things I thought was interesting. When you're a tv and film actor, the camera is in your face and you're mic'd. And the camera picks up so much more. So you gotta be a little bit more subtle than the largeness of being on a stage. I think that's probably why you don't have as big a theater scene as in New York and London.

09:47
Marie Brock
I mean, Broadway and West End, come on. So beautifully trained, their voices are to die for, you know? It's been some diverse, fun experiences. Definitely. And I love doing theater.

09:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you have a favorite one here in LA?

10:00
Marie Brock
The Geffen, maybe. And that's solid theater there. Amazing.

10:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You've been writing a TV series. What can you tell us about this and when did you decide that you wanted to take up writing too?

10:17
Marie Brock
Writing came up maybe a little bit in a moment of frustration when things were slow and I was like, I'm gonna take the steering wheel and try and create work for myself. And then that just developed into something completely different. And I didn't even know I enjoyed writing like that.

10:35
Marie Brock
I can see now, I was the voice for many years for the Danish channel TV3 where I wrote everything that I said on TV — still work for them, still write copy for that. But writing is so exciting. Also with the TV show, when you get cast in a role, obviously all actors are different in their process.

10:58
Marie Brock
I read the script as many times as I have time for. I read it over and over. It's detective work. But my focus is on my character. And the other characters who I might never see or are not in my world, they're lingering, I don't pay a lot of attention to it.

11:18
Marie Brock
When I started writing my own world, I know everything. I literally know every backstory, everything of every character, every place. And that opened a whole new universe for me, also as an actor, how many extra dimensions you bring to the characters.

11:41
Marie Brock
So to me, that's thrilling, it's very exciting. And then the fact that I have this movie in my head constantly with the show, it's the totality, and obviously open for expansion because it's not done yet.

11:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What's it about?

12:00
Marie Brock
It's Nordic noir crime drama taking place —

12:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I will love that.

12:05
Marie Brock
Great, I have one viewer! — taking place in Copenhagen and surroundings. And it's very much a co-production, Denmark and America. Because one thing I was taught when I started writing, write what you know. And those are the two worlds.

12:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So there are going to be some American characters.

12:24
Marie Brock
Yeah.

12:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Is it the Copenhagen that you know, or are you exploring new parts of the city?

12:30
Marie Brock
That's a very interesting question. I would say it's a part of it I know, and some I'm discovering. Because I actually originally placed the show in a different country and then I had a complete writer's block and then I flipped it on its head and then I was like, duh, obviously. That was the creative process, which I can see now in retrospect. I might have been a little frustrated at the time, but now, looking back, the journey is really cool.

13:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You've been in the US for a long time now, and before that, the UK. Which language do you prefer to write in?

13:13
Marie Brock
Probably English. I think because we are so spoiled with the English language, that there are these single words that say ten words in Danish. There's just some of these words where you just write this one word and then it says it all, whereas in Danish you would have to do a whole sentence. And then obviously, I've been speaking this since I was 19. The show is also in Danish, so I am writing Danish as well.

13:51
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is your process when you write? Do you have a routine, and are you the kind of writer who can sit at Starbucks, full of people, and concentrate on what you're doing? Or do you need a peaceful room? LA is full of people who are writing scripts in coffee shops, I've noticed.

14:06
Marie Brock
This is so funny because yesterday I was actually like, I'm gonna go to a coffee shop and write, and I did actually write quite a bit. The thing for me at home, sometimes that can be very distracting. Oh, I can just do laundry. Oh, I can just, I don't know, cook chickpeas. That's an hour.

14:23
Marie Brock
And I need to sit down, settle in, and then write. I can't just be, oh, I have half an hour, let me just write into this world. That to me is still something I have a really hard time with. But there's something about sitting in a coffee shop and I just have headphones on and I can sit and have thinking moments.

14:43
Marie Brock
But then I'm just looking at people and then they might do something, or I see some people talking and then that inspires me. Not necessarily what they're doing, but it opens up something. So a coffee shop to me can be very quiet and peaceful in its busyness. Does that make sense?

15:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It does.

15:05
Marie Brock
That it almost forces me to concentrate even more. Maybe that's what it is. Whereas at home it's just quiet.

15:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And the washing machine is close by.

15:15
Marie Brock
Yeah. Or for instance, then I have to go pee ten times. I don't have to do that in a coffee shop. So there's something about the distraction at home, I think.

15:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You do a lot of voice work, and you have a long list as the promo voice. What does this mean and what kind of work did you do here?

15:35
Marie Brock
The promo voice is just literally the promotional material for trailers.

15:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How would you describe what you do? You've got the job. What do you need to do then?

15:46
Marie Brock
You get a script and then you have the trailer that you watch and then it's timed and then you speak to that timing. So there'll be clips from the show and then you come in with the line in between.

16:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How does one become a voiceover artist?

16:07
Marie Brock
This is where it's really unfair because it's a very, very hard industry to break into. And I literally, in London, met a Danish girl in dance class. And we got talking and she was the voice of TV3. And then she got her break as sports presenter at the time. And then she said, would you like to audition for it?

16:34
Marie Brock
And I actually initially said no. I was like, I'm an actor. Voice, what is this? I was so in the whole acting world. I slept on it and then I called her the next day. I was like, yeah, let's go. And that's actually Ulla Essendrop, who is a host on the main news in Denmark now, a dear friend of mine.

16:54
Marie Brock
But she opened the door for me and I'm very grateful. She coached me and I did the voice test, and then I actually became the voice of the second largest commercial channel in Denmark as my first job. And that's why that's unfair because it's — It's not unfair, but it wasn't that particular area that I worked hard and set my eyes on.

17:19
Marie Brock
It literally fell into my lap, and I'm forever grateful. Because it turned out I was good at it. It opened tons of doors for me. I have done anything under the sun when it comes to voice.

17:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Pretty cool. I've been to an event where you demonstrated that you switch easily to different accents and languages. I was impressed. Can you give us a quick taste of your American Southern accent and a British accent just for the heck of it? Putting you on the spot, Marie.

17:58
Marie Brock
Oh Tina… Well, the southern drawl, it depends where you are. This is more like down deep south, right? And then you have the Texas, which is the more the R, they're a little bit more hard. And when it comes to the British, I kind of have to get into it a little bit. But they are, I'm a little bit doing the RP now, which is the more posh upper class. So there you have it.

18:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you so much. You also switched into Norwegian and other languages, so, but I won't put you in that position right now.

18:33
Marie Brock
Thank you. I appreciate it.

18:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have an agent. Actually, you have several agents. Which function does an agent have for an actor? And how important is it for you to pick the right one?

18:46
Marie Brock
Agents. That is also a journey for an actor, I think. It's very challenging to cold submit and just send your stuff to an agent, because they get so many requests. All my agents that I have been very happy with have been through referral. And I would say to get an agent, that is the way to go about it.

19:15
Marie Brock
My voiceover agent here in America was through a dear friend of mine who's a British, very, very accomplished voiceover artist. And the other agents, again, through referral. I would say my agents in London, which I have for voiceover, that was me actually calling them. And I'm not solely with one in the UK. I'm signed with a couple.

19:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have to make sure that people are aware of who you are and what you do. How significant is social media for your job?

19:50
Marie Brock
It's probably more significant than I make it. I am not the biggest social media person. I try. Maybe we are back to that feeling free, when it's something you have to do. I only want to use social media authentically, and that's hard, because a lot of people are very good at posting and they have a humongous following and stuff like that. So the short answer is, it is important in today's industry.

20:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
But not super fun.

20:21
Marie Brock
I'm just not good at it. I'm still learning about that.

20:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It says on your X account, "proud to have blue blood from the Tsar family running through my veins." So you are more than just Danish. Who were your ancestors? What are you talking about?

20:42
Marie Brock
My dad's dad, my grandfather, escaped during the Russian Revolution. And they had to escape also because to my knowledge, they were related to the Russian Tsar family way back.

20:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What an interesting history. What have you learned about the escape?

21:02
Marie Brock
Not a lot, other than in our family home, we had this massive chest, which was what they filled up when they escaped. That is one thing that's still on my list. I really want to dive in. I think it's a very interesting part of history and I have absolutely no relationship with Russia. My grandfather's family is from there. I've no feeling or anything like that. There's just nothing. And I would like to explore that some time.

21:32
Marie Brock
My dad wanted to take, with his dad, the Siberia Express. You can take that train all the way up 'cause they were from Siberia. And I wanted to do that with my dad. He's no longer here, so that's not happening. But I just think that would be interesting. There is some ancestry up there that can add a dimension to my life, I think at some point. It's interesting.

21:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's very interesting.

22:00
Marie Brock
I'm gonna wait a little bit for things to calm down.

22:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I understand that. Did he escape before the revolution in 1917?

22:10
Marie Brock
During.

22:11
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
During. Okay.

22:12
Marie Brock
It was literally overnight to my knowledge.

22:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Wow.

22:16
Marie Brock
Whatever they could fit in that chest. And then just off we go.

22:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Let's go back in time and talk about when you were a child back in a suburb of Copenhagen, I believe, and you were dreaming about your future. Where did you grow up exactly? And what were your dreams back then?

22:37
Marie Brock
I grew up in Fredensborg on a farm until I was six or seven. I wanted to be a designer, a clothing designer. I was sewing my own clothes at that time.

22:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Six or seven years old? Wow.

22:52
Marie Brock
I know. With my mom, it was a thing. Then I started dancing. I danced for a long time and I thought maybe dance was a route, but I am a talker.

23:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh, I didn't realize that.

23:08
Marie Brock
So I was like, I need words in my creative expression. I have so much love and appreciation for dance, but it's very hard on your body. There is an expiration date on that one. I had a brief moment in high school where I was skiing a lot and I was asked if I wanted to come on the Danish team in skiing. And at that time I was also like, there's an expiration date on that. And that's really when I was like, I wanna be an actor.

23:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No actors in the family?

25:44
Marie Brock
No.

25:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What did your parents do?

25:47
Marie Brock
My dad was, by trade, a mechanic. And then he ended up owning a garage. And then in his creative expression, you can say, he became a property developer and was very much into restoration when it came to houses and properties and things like that. He was very creative in that way.

26:09
Marie Brock
And my mom is a nurse, was, she doesn't work anymore. And my mom is very, very creative when it comes to, for instance, sewing, which is where that kind of came in for me.

26:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you still make your own clothes or create your own clothes?

26:24
Marie Brock
Sometimes. I'm like, oh, this dress is too long. I wanna make it short. Let me make this into that, alter and things like that.

26:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Were you a good student at school?

26:39
Marie Brock
I was a very good student. Sometimes I wish I was a little bit more rebellious. I'm very, do what they say you should do in school, maybe not to my fullest, because I already knew that I wasn't going to university. But I still got okay grades.

26:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What were your favorite subjects?

26:59
Marie Brock
History. I mean, there was biology, but I don't know if it was because the teacher was hot. Biology is just so exciting! But history and English. And then obviously I also had drama class and gym class. Those were all very non-intellectual in a way.

25:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Where did the road to become an actor start and when did you decide to move to London and explore the acting career there?

25:31
Marie Brock
By the end of high school. When I graduated high school, I studied a year in France, art history and drama, and then I started to apply for the Danish acting schools. And the first audition was out-of-body. I don't know what I was thinking, I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know what the rules are now, but back then, don't do Shakespeare.

26:00
Marie Brock
And what did I do? I love Katherina and The Taming of the Shrew. That's me. So I'm gonna do that. And the other thing is, don't wear a costume, but it's Shakespeare, so I'm gonna wear a costume. That was such a wild experience. So I didn't get in, but then I studied with an actor for a year, applied again, got amazing feedback, and they were like, we just want you to mature one more year.

26:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How old were you?

26:24
Marie Brock
19. And I was like, but I'm ready. So I got into an acting school in New York for a summer program, Sanford Meisner's School, a very prestigious school in New York, actually.

26:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How did you get in there?

26:38
Marie Brock
I don't know if I called them or wrote them or something. And the summer school was for everybody. That wasn't like major restrictions for that. That was just a summer program. And then after three weeks, my main drama teacher, he pulled me aside. And when I think about high school, when I said I did what I was told, I was wild in acting school, I just went forward and experimented.

27:04
Marie Brock
And so I actually thought, maybe I'd pushed it a little bit too far this time. But then he was like, would you be interested in getting in? This is your audition that you've done now, you have done amazing work. And then I just went, yes. And that started my journey abroad. Because I was so ready.

27:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And London. What happened there?

27:34
Marie Brock
London was challenging, because I had just graduated acting school in New York and then I worked there for a year, and then I moved to London because of visa situations and it was very hard to get a visa to stay. So I moved to London. I knew a couple of Danish people who made it to London, worked in finance and whatever it is, but not in my world at all.

28:00
Marie Brock
So I had to start again, make a network. And there weren't really acting classes that you could just join and then create a network like that. It was — I can say that now, I'm not gonna get arrested. I made a fake resume and said that I had been a dresser in New York. And I knocked at every stage door in the West End. I had dressed once in a production in my acting school. So I had technically dressed once.

28:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You exaggerated.

28:32
Marie Brock
Yeah. One theater became many.

28:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I once pretended to be half British.

28:36
Marie Brock
Great. So I knocked on every stage door, and Phantom of the Opera took the bait. So I got a job there as a stagehand with metal boots moving set at eight shows a week.

28:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It must have been exciting.

28:59
Marie Brock
It was very exciting.

29:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And one of the biggest shows in London.

29:02
Marie Brock
Absolutely. And what it did for me, it demystified these big theaters because when you walk through the theaters in front, it's very different. It can be very intimidating. You see the final production, which is another thing as an actor. Even today, I see an amazing performance, and then I have to go back and be like, yes, because of the process.

29:30
Marie Brock
You don't just make an amazing performance by learning your lines and boom, you're there. So, it's that thing of really understanding the whole process. And these are very well-oiled machines, and a lot of work goes into it. So it made me less intimidated. I'm not a singer, so it wasn't like a show that I wanted to do, but I just wanted to be in a theater. I just wanted to experience, what is this massive theater about? And what happens in here?

30:01
Marie Brock
I also went and was a dresser for two seasons for the Royal Shakespeare Company, which doesn't get more prestigious as a British actor to be in the Royal Shakespeare Company, but that demystified it for me too, the process and how they get to where they're at. All the work that goes into those Shakespeare productions. They actually go to school. Now I can't remember, Upon-Avon, what is it called?

30:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Stratford-upon-Avon.

30:32
Marie Brock
Stratford-upon-Avon, where they start the production. They go to speech lessons, they go to text, they go to — obviously with the director. It's like acting school up there, hence the level of the performances. So that was just how I got a foot in the door to that world. I started meeting people who were actors. I knocked on agents' doors with my resume. You can't do that today 'cause they all work from home pretty much. So it would be creepy, but at that time, to their offices.

31:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Did it open up some doors for you acting wise to be part of that world?

31:14
Marie Brock
It probably did. I don't have an example. Probably. A lot of my acting work has been coincidences. And I don't believe in coincidences, but meeting someone introducing me to someone, that's so much our industry. Could imagine for you getting a great interview with someone is like, hey, you —

31:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, it's a lot of work. You mentioned that you went to LA to take classes during your stay in London. Which one was the most rewarding?

31:52
Marie Brock
I would say I have studied with four great teachers. They have all taught me something different. As a commonality, one thing my acting school didn't focus on as much was script analysis. And I think that's key as an actor, the script analysis, your detective work, how you interpret the character. Because that's where your uniqueness comes in.

32:25
Marie Brock
You just do what it says on the page, which is obviously your job. But then how you interpret the text, I find that's the exciting part. And that was something I really dug into with teachers here.

32:39
Marie Brock
And the guy I study with now, Larry Moss, he's been such a profound person in my life. Some of my other teachers have been very tough in not a very nice way. They taught me a lot, but it came with a price, a lot of ego, maybe a lot of projections from their own life. I'm not studying with them anymore.

33:01
Marie Brock
But Larry Moss, he's 82. He's one of the greatest teachers out there, and I'm so grateful that I have an opportunity to work with him. He has such heart and his insight into humanity and how to bring yourself, how to be a servant of the script.

33:26
Marie Brock
Some actors maybe think, if I just bring me, that's enough, whereas it's really about the writing and he is about the writing. I think there's all these steps in our creative process to make TV or film. And it does start with the writer who wrote it. And then there's all the other departments that bring everything together. Larry has been a great supporter for artists and for actors. He loves actors. I learned a lot from him.

33:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is your advice to young people who would like to follow in your footsteps and create an acting career in the US? What should they be prepared for?

34:03
Marie Brock
I'm gonna give the advice I was given that I didn't follow.

34:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Good, Marie.

34:10
Marie Brock
Get work done in Denmark, create a name, and then come here. I did not follow that advice.

34:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How did you end up getting your visa though?

34:23
Marie Brock
I happened to do Starting From Zero, a little film that did really well on the festival circuit, and got a lot of press. And I do have a very impressive resume when it comes to voice. So that was one thing when my lawyers created my visa, they thought was very exciting because they'd never used voiceover before, because you don't get press in the same way with voiceover.

34:46
Marie Brock
It is more now. But at the time it wasn't talked about in the same way. I had that huge body of work from voiceover and have been on television live for four years and then, all the little projects I've done around that. When you come to LA, it doesn't really matter where you are on the career ladder, you start again.

35:07
Marie Brock
That's really something you have to bear in mind and you have to be up for. And this is the city of opportunity. You can meet someone at every street corner, but you can also not. I have met a lot of young kids and they have a naïveté and maybe that will carry them to some point. But you also have to be realistic.

35:29
Marie Brock
You have to be realistic if you get the O-1 visa. I came here with work, I became the voice of another channel. And I did my voiceover work, which was still within the frame of being an actor, so I could legally work with that. But if you come here on an O-1 Visa, you can only work as an actor.

35:48
Marie Brock
You are not allowed to work in a clothing store or a restaurant or a cafe, legally. It's your choice if you do it, but you legally can't. And that can get you expelled from the US forever. You can come with a good chunk of money, solely focusing on your career, you can do that. So my advice sucks —

36:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, it doesn't.

36:14
Marie Brock
But that's just the reality.

36:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
At the same time, a bit of naïveté is also helpful.

36:19
Marie Brock
I had that.

36:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I look back and think, goodness, you were naive. Yeah. But it worked for me.

36:24
Marie Brock
No, but it's true. But that's what I mean, naïveté can carry you and sometimes you don't need to know everything. The other thing, I then would say, I just knew certain things in my heart and I followed it. So you gotta be really honest with your true sense of self. When there's a pull from your heart to do something, it's truly a pull from the heart and not your ego. There's a little difference. So my final advice, follow your heart.

36:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's good advice. Being an actor and a writer is a freelance job. You have to have many jobs to make a living. How have you made this work for you? The plus side is freedom. The other side is that you need to be very structured with your time.

37:13
Marie Brock
I, again, was very fortunate with my voiceover work. So I came here with work, and the moment I got here, I built a sound studio. I still work for TV3. I also sometimes work for Viasat Film. I work for TV3+ sometimes. And then I do commercials.

37:35
Marie Brock
I just did a job for the European Parliament. I've done endless, just anything on the voiceover. So I've been very fortunate with that. And then, unfortunately, my dad passed away and that was a moment where —

37:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm sorry.

37:50
Marie Brock
Thank you — where it was a little challenging. It was a little moment of being lost and the grief was very shocking. My TV show is about grief, so I processed a lot through writing that. And then where I worked out, they asked me, we think you would be great as a barre instructor. So then I got thrown into being an instructor. So I make a little bit of extra money doing that.

38:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
We talked about you leaving the country very early on. You were very young when you left the country. Do you still feel Danish or do you feel American by now? Or are you a citizen of the world?

38:33
Marie Brock
I think I'm gonna go with a little bit more in the most humble way, a citizen of the world, because I don't feel American. I feel very connected to America. I've always loved America. I think there are so many great things, and I think we can learn a lot from Americans. I think there's a lot of annoying things about Americans too, you know?

39:01
Marie Brock
I definitely do feel Danish, and, and you can probably relate to this. When I go home, obviously I slide right in, and there's all the beautiful Danish traditions. I was just home for the summer and the strawberries and the late nights with sunlight and all my friends I still have, which is amazing. But there is that little part of me that feels to the side.

39:29
Marie Brock
I don't know how to explain it because there is somewhat of an expansion that happens, and it is just impressions. I lived in London for ten years, I've been here for 12. It just adds dimensions, I think, in your viewpoint of the world and living in these different cultures. It could have been I lived in Spain and then Brazil. That would've added something different. A recipe, if you add thyme, it's gonna taste a little bit different if you just had basil. I don't know.

40:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And my final question to you. You are a very young woman. What are your dreams for the future? What do you still want to achieve and where do you want to achieve it?

40:17
Marie Brock
Right now I want to get my TV show made. Obviously one of the main characters I wrote for me. I'm very, very passionate about this particular show and I love the idea of merging Denmark with America, and have a show that has a little bit of both. 'Cause those are my worlds. And that's a total goal to have a billboard here with the name of my show on it.

40:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Does it have a name yet?

40:47
Marie Brock
It does.

40:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Can you say it or do you wanna wait?

40:49
Marie Brock
I wanna wait.

40:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Okay.

40:51
Marie Brock
Yes, because the title could potentially change. And then I would like to do a Broadway show.

40:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So we are talking New York now?

41:00
Marie Brock
Yeah.

41:01
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Alright, Marie, on that note, New York Broadway show, thank you so much for being with us on Danish Originals. We appreciate you being here.

41:11
Marie Brock
Thank you so much for having me. It's been fun. Thank you.

41:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's been fun having you.

41:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Marie Brock chose Matisse: The Red Studio exhibition held at the National Gallery of Denmark.