Set against the sun-drenched decadence of a private Mediterranean island in the late 1970s, The Birthday Party unfolds as a tense, emotionally charged family drama where power, secrets, and hidden agendas collide during one lavish 25th birthday celebration. Danish actress Vic Carmen Sonne, in a career-defining turn as Sofia Timoleon, the sole heiress to an Aristotle Onassis-like tycoon’s empire, brings raw vulnerability and fierce autonomy to the screen opposite the formidable Willem Dafoe. In this exclusive AMFM Magazine conversation with Paul Salfen, the Bodil and Robert Award-winning European Shooting Star opens up about her early commitment to the film, the thrill of collaborating with one of her childhood idols, and the profound human truths she hopes audiences will carry away from this gripping tale of excess and self-discovery.
Interview by Paul Salfen , Text by Christine Thompson| AMFM Magazine – The Voice of the Artist
In the late 1970s, on a private Mediterranean island that could belong to a modern-day Aristotle Onassis, tycoon Marcos Timoleon is throwing the ultimate birthday party for his daughter and sole heiress, Sofia. What begins as a lavish, extravagant celebration quickly becomes a pressure cooker of agendas, secrets, and a devastating father-daughter reckoning. Directed by Miguel Ángel Jiménez and adapted from Panos Karnezis’s novel, The Birthday Party (which premiered at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival and is now heading to North American audiences via Quiver Distribution) delivers a compact, real-time explosion of family dysfunction, wealth, and the hunger for autonomy.
At the center of the storm stands Vic Carmen Sonne as Sofia, a performance already earning praise for its emotional precision and quiet defiance. In an intimate conversation with AMFM Magazine’s Paul Salfen, the acclaimed Danish actress reflects on the project that captured her immediately, the honor (and nerves) of going toe-to-toe with Willem Dafoe, and the deeper themes of loneliness, selfhood, and compassion that linger long after the last guest departs.
“I was actually attached to the project about a year before Willem.” Sonne’s attachment to The Birthday Party was swift and intuitive. “I got sort of like an introduction to the project and kind of like a one-page about the essence of what Miguel, the director, and Yoko, one of the writers and the producer, they were interested in. And it just caught my interest immediately. It was a very intuitive, easy decision.”
She admits the presence of Dafoe, one of her favorite actors since childhood, raised the stakes. “I sure made me nervous. But to be honest, I was actually attached to the project… and I was also like a little bit proud that he wanted to attach to a project that I had already signed on to.” Off-camera, she found him “so nice… so cool.” On-camera, the intensity of his character made every scene electric. “That character is intense,” Salfen notes. Sonne agrees, but emphasizes the collaborative safety: “He is not an asshole in between the takes… he’s such a great actor.”
Real-time storytelling over 36 hours The entire film unfolds across roughly one birthday party — a tight 36-hour window. “The challenge and the fun part was also to kind of like try to always be like real time with the characters,” Sonne explains. “Even though it’s such a compact time frame… the characters, they don’t know the agenda of their family members or the people around them, and they don’t know what’s going to happen.”
That uncertainty mirrors the audience experience. Major plot turns evolved organically through collaboration, keeping the performances grounded and unpredictable. “We were all kind of eager to tell the story, but also to remember that the characters… don’t know what’s going to happen.”
From video-store dreamer to European Shooting Star Sonne’s path to acting feels almost cinematic. Obsessed with movies from a young age, she worked in a video rental store with plenty of downtime. “I watched a lot of films and I went off the cover.” One filmmaker’s work especially moved her. Then fate intervened: a free newspaper on the bus carried an audition notice for that same director. “I recognized the name… and I was like, hey, okay.”
What began as a long line of hopefuls turned into callbacks and a life-changing realization. “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, I guess.”
Her advice to aspiring actors is refreshingly grounded: “I don’t come from a creative family background… I would just encourage anybody who has a slight interest in acting, film, television, theater to really do it.” Find like-minded people, grab scenes from favorite shows and reenact them, keep refining through experience — even the small, unseen projects matter. “You only grow from experience… I’m so grateful that I just kept refining what I love.”
Success, team, and staying curious What keeps Sonne on this upward trajectory? “I have really good people around me. I have a beautiful team… to me that is really encouraging.” She advises others to “find people that inspire you and that you trust… good people find good people and stick together and stay curious.” When fear or overthinking creeps in, her remedy is simple: “Take a deep breath and see what kind of comes your way and hold on to the good people and have fun and create stuff.”
Hoping for compassion amid abundance and loneliness Sonne hopes audiences leave The Birthday Party with “some sort of compassion for the complexities of these characters’ lives, even though they have kind of endless resources and a lot of abundance when it comes to money and material things.” Beneath the decadence lies “a very existential loneliness” and a story about “finding some sense of self and autonomy.” “It’s kind of like compassion at the end of the day,” she says quietly.
What’s next Sonne has already wrapped two films this year. She screened The Temple earlier in 2026 and is attached to another exciting project – a film connected to Charlie Palanca’s The [Red Mask] story – both of which she’s “very excited about.”
For now, audiences can experience her magnetic, layered performance as Sofia in The Birthday Party, a film that proves even the most gilded cages can’t contain a woman determined to claim her own story.
The Birthday Party is currently making its way to theaters and streaming platforms. Watch the trailer, then read (or re-read) the interview. Vic Carmen Sonne’s journey from video-store dreamer to one of Europe’s most compelling actors is as inspiring as the performances she delivers.
AMFM Magazine — Curating with a Conscience. Interview conducted by Paul Salfen, Managing Editor. Feature written for AMFMMagazine.com and AMFM Studios by Christine Thompson
