filmmaker Joachim Trier, fresh from the film’s triumph at the European Film Awards, told Deadline that a “European coalition of the willing” had ensured the picture got made.

The Norwegian director said that he was “very proud to see also a lot of local European support for the film.” Echoing themes similar to those reported over the weekend from Germany by Melanie Goodfellow, my Deadline colleague, Trier realized when he was at the awards ceremony that “this is a Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, French, German, British co-production. Who would have thought Europe united in the movies?” 

Following the film’s wild reception at the Cannes Film Festival last May, where it received a 19-minute ovation, I remember queuing up for the after-party with Eva Yates, director of BBC Film, who seemed thrilled that she and her team had backed the film.

“They were very supportive,” Trier said of BBC Film’s involvement. “Very, very smart people when it comes to script and editing and creative input, and really also very generous and respectful. So I found that collaboration very valuable and it made it possible for us to have more money and work more with the actors and have more on the screen.”

Trier said that Sentimental Value has done tremendously well “beyond what we had dreamt of and we’re so grateful for that,” marking a lot of that down to “local distribution, that each country has someone that says, ‘We’ll fight for this one.’”

He continued: “Yesterday, I felt this embrace from a community outside of Norway. And my joke is that Norway is the suburbs of Europe. So for me, I’ve learned from this.”

We were chatting at London’s Soho Hotel following an awards Q&A session attended by Trier and Stellan Skarsgård, moderated by Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, who described himself as the “fan of fans” of Trier’s sublime film.

Trier and Skarsgård had been in Berlin, where Sentimental Value won European Film Awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenwriter for Trier and Eskil Vogt, Best European Actor and Best European Actress for Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve respectively, and Best Score for Hania Rani.

 With aplomb, Cranston cited scenes from the movie and it was clear that he was indeed the “fan of fans” in a big way, and how struck he was by the film’s story about Gustav Borg, a once storied Norwegian filmmaker played by Skarsgård, a proud Swede, who attempts to re engage with his two adult daughters; Nora an actor, payed by Reinsve; and Agnes, an academic historian played by Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, following the death of their mother, from whom he was divorced.

The film delves deep into the generational trauma that troubles the wounded father and his psychologically injured offspring. The family drama is underpinned by the vicissitudes inherent in moviemaking. 

Trier has suggested that perhaps a background of trauma is a requirement for making movies.

Addressing the audience, Cranston likened Sentimental Value to “one of those Russian dolls that you open it up, and there’s another thing inside another. It’s like a film of a film of a film. And there’s so many personal and intimate items to it that I related to being in this business and my father being in this business and my daughter being in this business. So it was multi-generational,” he said. Cranston was referring to his late father, actor Joe Cranston and to daughter Taylor Dearden, who plays Dr. Melissa King on The Pitt.

Cranston was eager to know how Trier and Vogt had come up with the storyline.

Trier told Cranston that he’d had an idea about two grown-up sisters negotiating narratives. Trier’s fond of quoting Joan Didion’s famous observation that  “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” He explained: ”I think there’s something fundamental about having a story to try to understand yourself. The sense of identity is a story. It’s a narrative. Who am I because of this and that?

“And it changes and grows and changes again. And now I’ve become a father, I have two daughters that are very young. And so I feel responsible…I’ve been a child in a film family and I know how much it takes out of your parents to make movies. And I’m asking that question, why did I have children quite late in life and my anxiety of kind of being Gustav Borg?

“And then I start by thinking he’s kind of like a difficult asshole, but then I thought I actually also love something. [“He’s a lovable asshole,” Cranston chimed]…And how do I make that work? Then I knew I had one man in the world,” he said pointing to Skarsgård seated on his left. “So I flew to Sweden,” to visit with him.

The’d never met or spoken before, although Trier had seen the actor at a party but was too shy to approach him. Skarsgård said that he’d been waiting a long time for Trier to call him. ”It took some time,” Skarsgård said, mocking at being affronted.

“Finally, he called,” but the actor said he was a little coy in responding. “’Oh yeah, so what do you want?’ But eventually we sort of … We have two versions of this, but my version is that we were sort of like dogs sniffing each other,“ he said as his nose drifted upwards.

Trier did a double-take and exclaimed, “That’s Stellan’s version!”

Skarsgård revealed that he didn’t have to read Trier’s script in the same way that he would never read a screenplay by Lars von Trier or Martin Scorsese, his reason being that “good directors, they’re really rare…even if the role isn’t that good, I mean, you get a good experience from it.”

Cranston asked Skarsgård if he’d needed to research the role or was it just like slipping on “a pair of comfortable shoes?”

Not necessarily, Skarsgård said. ”I knew things about the [movie] business and stuff, but he could be a painter, he could be a musician. The problem is that he’s an artist and he’s trying to combine art with a private life. It didn’t take much imagination to do him, but the hard thing is always to find the life in him, to find the nuances, and to find the irrational moments that you can’t plan that bring him to life.”

Cranston’s currently starring in a critically acclaimed revival of Arthur Miller’s drama All My Sons at Wyndham’s Theatre with an ensemble that features Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Paapa Essiedu, Tom Glynn-Carney, and Hayley Squires, all on top form.

On the topic of live theater, Cranston had “a bone to pick” with Trier about Gustav Borg’s disdain for the stage. He wanted to know if that was Trier’s “own personal feeling?”

Trier admitted that “I’m a film guy 100%,” but said that he attended theater shows regularly with his wife, who is an architect who sometimes works as a stage production designer. “So I know that world quite well and adore it. I wouldn’t know how to direct anything without a camera being present. So I’m very restricted. Forgive me. But I’m also the person that weeps at the end even of a bad play because I love actors getting on stage,” Trier told Cranston in mitigation.

A bemused Skarsgård said that he “loves” theater but admits that it can “be difficult.” Then he added: “Theater…when it’s good, it’s the best thing in the world. It’s amazing, and it so rarely is. It’s very hard to do.”

During a conversation I had with the actor after the Q&A, he clarified that he’s a supporter of the stage, having spent 18 years early on in his career playing all the classics from “Shakespeare to Strindberg and all the plays in between.”

Back on stage at the Soho Hotel, Cranston asked whether Skarsgård’s own personal life, as the father of eight children, had shaped his performance as Gustav Borg in any way?

Skarsgård said it had no bearing on how he played Borg. In fact, he noted that since 1989, he has cut down the number of months he works in a year to spend time helping to raise his children. “So I’ve been changing diapers and wiping asses,” he said. 

“But the thing is, I also brought my family on locations, if I could, and I took the kids and somebody to teach them school or whatever, put them in school when I was traveling. So they saw a lot of places and missed a lot of school,” Skarsgård added.

Cranston asked Skarsgard for his thoughts about awards season and what it has meant for Sentimental Value and himself.

Skarsgård said: “It has two sides of it. I mean, on one hand you appreciate the love of your peers and of the audiences and everything, and especially when you’re with a film like this, because it gets very warm response and it gets interesting discussions. But on one side, as an actor, you’re a whore. You sell yourself to a director and you go all the way in and you go, ‘Yeah, yeah, exactly. I’m down. I’m that guy.’ But you’re more whore than ever when you’re doing publicity and that is a little painful.”

There was much nodding of agreement onstage and off with at least one of Skarsgård’s sentiments.

The three men on stage then engaged in a conversation about the film’s “beautifully delicate ending,” as Cranston put it, that offers a sense of reconciliation. No spoilers from me because the film’s still out there in theaters – Neon released it in the U.S., while MUBI, who hosted the screening with DDA Global, has the film in UK cinemas.

  Wrapping up the Q&A, Cranston borrowed a line that Elle Fanning’s character, a Hollywood star, utters. “After she saw Gustav’s film she says, ‘Oh, they just don’t make movies like this anymore.’ And the same could be said for Sentimental Value. They don’t make movies like this anymore, but yet they do.”