Livia Maria Millhagen (born 23 May 1973) is a Swedish actress known for her roles on stage and screen. She has received various accolades for her work, including the Thaliapriset from Svenska Dagbladet and the Litteris et Artibus royal medal in recognition of contributions to theatre. The daughter of and , she grew up primarily in Stockholm. After graduating from the Malmö Theatre Academy in 1999, she appeared in productions at Uppsala City Theatre and made her feature film debut in Miffo (2003), for which she received critical praise and was nominated for the Guldbagge Award for Best Actress. She became a member of the Royal Dramatic Theatre's permanent ensemble, and since appeared in numerous productions. Some of her most acclaimed stage performances were playing Lydia Stille in The Serious Game at Stockholm City Theatre (2008) and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Royal Dramatic Theatre (2019). In addition to her stage roles, she has appeared in films such as Road to Italy (2005), (2008), and (2022). She had major television roles in (2013), Veni Vidi Vici (2017), and the first season of Bäckström (2020). Millhagen has also worked as a voice actress, narrating audiobooks and contributing to Swedish-language dubs of Disney/Pixar films.
Early life and education Livia Maria Millhagen was born in Stockholm on 23 May 1973 to and . The family was artistic: her father a sculptor and cartoonist, while her mother was an art critic and writer who also served as director for The House of Culture. She has an older sister and also had an older brother who died shortly after he was born. Growing up largely in the Gamla Stan neighbourhood of Stockholm, she attended for her primary education. When she was a teenager, her family moved to Washington, D.C. for several years after her mother took a posting at the Swedish embassy there. Millhagen credited this period abroad with building her self-esteem and offering her the creative freedom to seriously pursue acting for the first time. After moving back to Sweden, she attended Kungsholmens gymnasium. She had roles in several productions before being admitted to the Malmö Theatre Academy in the autumn of 1995. In May 1996, about a year into her studies, her father died of cancer. During her 1997 internship at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, she appeared in their production of August Strindberg's Fadren, directed by Staffan Valdemar Holm.
Career 1999–2002: career beginnings on stage After completing her education, Millhagen began working at Uppsala City Theatre. There, she appeared in Rebecca Prichard's play Essex Girls, which was adapted into a Swedish setting by with a new title of Ur funktion. With direction by , the play centred on four teenage girls, played by Millhagen, Alexandra Rapaport, Frida Hallgren, and . In preparation for the role, the actresses met with youths from the Uppsala suburb of Gottsunda. It premiered on 24 September 1999. The following year, she was a member of the ensemble for Lage, a musical revue directed by at in Stockholm. Then she returned to the Uppsala City Theatre to play the "enterprising" (driftiga) Loretta in Phyllis Nagy's Las Vegas. The play had again been translated into Swedish by Gredeby and the 2001 production, directed by , marked the first time that Las Vegas had been staged in Sweden. Millhagen's performance was described as "remarkably good" (anmärkningsvärt bra) by Pia Huss in Dagens Nyheter. She had a supporting role in another Englin-directed work: Sophocles' Ancient Greek tragedy Electra, which premiered on International Women's Day. Millhagen and Magdalena Eshaya played the title character's best friends, Cissi and Linda. In addition to showings in Uppsala, the production made a guest appearance at the Royal Dramatic Theatre that autumn. She returned to Uppsala for a production of Född skyldig, an adaptation of Peter Sichrovsky's book of interviews with the descendants of Nazis. There she played Stefanie, the young granddaughter of a dead SS officer who espouses her own antisemitic beliefs. She also played a supporting role in the television film Beck – Annonsmannen, a thriller installment in the Martin Beck saga.
2003–2008: Film breakthrough and critical success She made her feature film debut in Miffo (2003), directed and written by Daniel Lind Lagerlöf and Malin Lagerlöf, respectively. Millhagen played Carola, a wheelchair user living in a run-down flat with her alcoholic mother, who meets and begins a relationship with Tobias, a sheltered and upper-class minister played by Jonas Karlsson. Millhagen's performance garnered critical praise. In a review for Dagens Nyheter, wrote she was "absolutely brilliant in her debut film role" (alldeles utmärkt i sin debutroll på duken). Gunnar Rehlin of Variety agreed, calling her the "real find" of Miffo. Millhagen was nominated for a Guldbagge Award for Best Actress. In an academic analysis of disability in Swedish cinema by Josefine Wälivaara and Karin Ljuslinder, Millhagen's Carola was noted as an exception to the standard depiction of disabled characters, because of her portrayal as a fully realized woman with sexual experience.
In the autumn of 2003, Millhagen returned to the Royal Dramatic Theatre to perform in Anders Paulin's experimental staging of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children on the Målarsalen stage. She played Kattrin, the mute daughter of Stina Ekblad's Mother Courage. The production received a mixed review overall from of Dagens Nyheter; she found the experimental direction unsuccessful but praised the performances of the cast. Waaranperä wrote that Millhagen's portrayal was convincing and emotionally moving. Millhagen played Siri von Essen in 's 2004 staging of the Henning Mankell play Valpen at Strindberg's Intimate Theatre. For Expressen, wrote that the characterisation of Millhagen's Siri as a cold and calculating figure was bordering on caricature.
She collaborated again with Lagerlöfs for Road to Italy (2005), where she played the lead role of Ylva, a woman who learns about her husband's affair right before taking her choir group on a trip. Her performance was commended by Rehlin in Variety and in Aftonbladet. She played Isabella in Yannis Houvardas's production of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, which was translated into Swedish by . Anna Swärdh, a scholar from Karlstad University, noted a distinctive performance choice she made during the play's notoriously ambiguous ending; rather than conveying opposition to the Duke's marriage proposal, Millhagen's Isabella turned toward the audience to display a "beaming smile". Her performance was negatively received by in Dagens Nyheter. Suggesting she may have been miscast, he argued that her vocal delivery obscured the character's emotional depth.
She had a role in , a two-part miniseries based on 's 1939 mystery novel of the same name, which was broadcast on SVT in January 2006. In , which premiered in November, she co-starred as Sara, the wife of an idealistic young priest whose idea to commission a church ceiling painting upends their rural community. Millhagen also participated in two productions at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 2006. First, she played Gertrud in I skuggan av Hamlet by . Second, she played the title role in Frank Wedekind's Lulu, translated into Swedish by and directed by . Her performance was described in a review for Dagens Nyheter as a "strong, modern" (stark, modern) character interpretation centred on a "longing for a lost self" (längtan efter ett förlorat jag). Waaranperä credited her performance as a core strength of the production, as her character transitioned from an object of sexual fantasy to a victim of violence. In November, she received the Gunn Wållgren Award, an annual scholarship given to dramatic and lyrical performers. The award justification praised her portrayal of varied types of roles.
In 2007, Millhagen appeared in Sam Shepard's Buried Child, known in Swedish as Hem till gården, which premiered at the Elverket stage of the Royal Dramatic Theatre. The production marked her first of many theatre collaborations with director . In 2008, she played Lydia Stille opposite Gustaf Skarsgård's Arvid Stjärnblom in Lagerlöf's stage directing debut of The Serious Game at Stockholm City Theatre. Although the production itself received mixed reviews, Millhagen's performance was praised by critics. of Dagens Nyheter wrote that it was her "accurately portrayed rebellion and vulnerability that cuts through the game and makes it serious". In Expressen, criticised the direction and Skarsgård's performance but felt that Millhagen had excelled in her character interpretation. On screen the same year, she played Li in the SVT drama series , which centred on a women's football team in a small community where accused witches had once been burned at the stake. She then had a supporting role in Maria Blom's black comedy film (2008), as the protagonist's best friend Mio. Hedvig Weibull of Borås Tidning said that Millhagen "[brightened] up the film like a bold red lipstick".
2009–2015: Establishment at the Royal Dramatic Theatre
The Royal Dramatic Theatre added six actors, including Millhagen, to its permanent ensemble in May 2009. Later that year, she and Jonas Karlsson starred as Marianne and Johan in a Larsson-directed production of Ingmar Bergman's 1973 miniseries Scenes from a Marriage. Bergman had simplified the story while adapting it for stage during his time in Munich. This play version had thus not been previously shown in Sweden before the premiere in August 2009. Expressen theatre critic Sörenson praised the performances of both Millhagen and Karlsson. After 60 sold-out showings at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, a touring production was announced, featuring Karlsson and Millhagen, in association with the National Swedish Touring Theatre. Later that year, Millhagen again appeared on the Royal Dramatic Theatre's main stage in a production of Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata. The production, which was directed by Larsson, marked the first time the 1978 film had ever been presented as a play in Sweden. Millhagen played Charlotte's disabled daughter, Helena.
Millhagen returned to the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 2010 to portray Karen in a staging of Tracy Letts's family drama August: Osage County; the production was reported to be Larsson's farewell directorial effort at the venue before taking over at the Aarhus Theatre. The following year, she played Célimène in Molière's The Misanthrope at the Royal Dramatic Theatre. Millhagen was next involved with 's two-part adaptation of Stendhal's The Red and the Black. Lars Ring of Svenska Dagbladet praised the production and singled out Millhagen's performance as the protagonist's first and last lover. She appeared in a stage adaptation of Fanny and Alexander by the Royal Dramatic Theatre. It had an American premiere at the Kennedy Center from 7–9 March 2013, as part of the Nordic Cool Festival. She had a leading role as cardiologist Fanny Molander in (2013). The series focused on the titular family moving from Stockholm to Alingsås. The same year, she was one of several recipients of the , given to artists involved in Swedish theatre. She played one of the lead roles in 's Cupcake, which won Best Short Film at the Warsaw Film Festival in 2014. The same year, Millhagen starred as Rebekka West opposite Jonas Malmsjö in Henrik Ibsen's Rosmersholm at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, directed by Larsson. Theatre critic Maria Edström found the minimalist production initially compelling, but concluded the performances ultimately failed to build effectively toward the play's tragic conclusion. Millhagen was awarded with a Litteris et Artibus royal medal in 2015 by King Carl XVI Gustaf, in recognition of outstanding contributions to theatre.
2016–present: Recent work on stage and screen