Ulla Henningsen

"I felt more connected to the stars than to the people"

That is how actor Ulla Henningsen describes a defining period of her twenties—a feeling of being so alienated from earthly life that the stars seemed to offer more love than any human could. Now 74, she sits down with priest Sørine Godfredsen to trace the arc from that loneliness to a hard-won, still-fragile sense of belonging. The conversation moves through childhood violence, sexual assault, a lifelong struggle with intimacy, and the quiet relief of growing old.

A childhood of protection and violence

Henningsen grew up on Bornholm as the middle of four sisters and one brother. Her father was a lawyer who should have been a gardener or woodcutter, she says—a man embittered by not becoming a judge, and prone to what she calls "mental illness" in his family line. He was sarcastic and humiliating toward her mother, especially around her domestic work.

One day, when Henningsen was home sick from school, she watched her father arrive and immediately mock her mother for hanging laundry. "I simply stabbed him in the face," she says—with a flat hand. She cannot remember his reaction, but she believes he respected her more afterward. She felt she had to protect both her mother and her younger twin brother, who later became schizophrenic and died of drugs a few years ago. That protective role marked her for decades.