Interview by Paul Salfen, Text by Christine Thompson for AMFM Magazine
In the late 1970s, on a private Mediterranean island, Greek shipping tycoon Marcos Timoleon throws an extravagant birthday party for his daughter and sole heiress, Sofia. Guests arrive carrying their own agendas. Marcos, long accustomed to controlling every person and outcome around him, is quietly preparing a decisive move regarding her future. Sofia, however, has arrived with life-altering news of her own. Over roughly 36 hours, the celebration grows more decadent while father and daughter hurtle toward a heartbreaking collision.
Danish actress Vic Carmen Sonne (The Girl with the Needle, Bullshit) plays Sofia opposite Willem Dafoe’s formidable Marcos. In this exclusive conversation with AMFM Magazine’s Paul Salfen, Sonne reveals she was already attached to the project a full year before Dafoe joined — a detail that filled her with both pride and nerves.
“I knew immediately that I wanted to do this movie,” she says. “Of course, willing to go toe to toe with one of our finest actors in the world. That might make you nervous, right? It sure made me nervous. But to be honest, I was actually attached to the project about a year before Willem. So I was also a little bit proud that he wanted to attach to a project that I had already signed on to. He is one of my favorite actors and he has been since I was very little. It was a great honor.”
She adds that Dafoe is “so nice” and “such a great actor” — and, crucially, “he is not an asshole in between the takes.”
The decision to join was almost instinctive. Sonne received a brief introduction to the project and a one-page outline of the essence that director Miguel Ángel Jiménez and producer-writer Yoko were exploring. “It just caught my interest immediately. It was a very intuitive, easy decision.”
What followed was a strong collaborative process. Several major plot points evolved through later conversations with the creative team. Once filming began, the challenge became staying honest to characters who do not know one another’s true agendas. “Even though it’s such a compact time frame — the film takes place over, I think, 36 hours, basically one birthday party — the challenge and the fun part was also to try to always be real time with the characters and what was disclosed at that point in the story.”
Sonne’s path into acting began far from the industry. As a teenager she worked in a video rental store, where the quiet hours allowed her to watch film after film. She discovered a particular director’s work, then, on a bus ride to school, spotted a free-newspaper advertisement for an open audition by that same filmmaker. She showed up, received callbacks, and something shifted.
“I think that was the moment when I read the scenes and I started to suddenly work… that was when I knew that this was something I couldn’t live without.”
Her advice to anyone drawn to the craft is practical and encouraging. “I don’t come from a creative family background. I would just encourage anybody who has a slight interest in acting, film, television, or theater to really do it. Find like-minded people, grab scenes from your favorite show, reenact them, and just keep doing it. Nothing is really stopping you. You only grow from experience. One thing is a gift or a talent, but then you just have to repeat and do it and keep doing it. Trust me, I have done so many random improv things with friends and little film things that never saw the light of day. And I’m so grateful that I just kept refining what I love.”
What sustains her through the uncertainties of the industry is the people around her. “I have really good people around me. I have a beautiful team. Find people that inspire you and that you trust. You can feel a little bit like a satellite in this industry, and it doesn’t need to be so that you’re doing things alone. Stay curious. Sometimes if I feel that I get scared and start to overthink… just take a deep breath, see what comes your way, hold on to the good people, and have fun and create stuff.”
Asked what she hopes audiences carry away from The Birthday Party, Sonne points beneath the surface of wealth and excess. “I hope that people will find some sort of compassion for the complexities of these characters’ lives, even though they have endless resources and a lot of abundance when it comes to money and material things. There is a story about finding some sense of self and autonomy. It talks about a very existential loneliness… It’s kind of like compassion at the end of the day.”
Sonne has already completed two more films this year: The Temple, shot earlier in 2026, and The Red Mask with Charlie Palanca. “I’m very excited about both of those projects.”
For now, her layered, quietly powerful performance as Sofia Timoleon stands as the emotional center of The Birthday Party — a sun-drenched, pressure-cooker drama about power, secrecy, and the costly pursuit of autonomy.
