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Been smiling a lot. :)

May 10th, 2012
In Greece. Monastery Bay.

In Greece. Monastery Bay.

I just finished a great 10 day vacation with my family in Greece. Along with my parents and my brother and his family, we rented a sailboat (with a captain) and sailed to 5 Greek Islands. I forgot all about my life in LA – literally. I didn’t have internet. My phone didn’t work. I was totally not in touch with anything back in Hollywood. I was laughing a ton! It was so much fun. After I got back home – it took me a second to re-introduce myself to my house and my car etc. It was all so weird!! Talk about having totally unattached myself from my “real life”! Now of course I am planning my next get-away. :)

Getting Inspired

April 26th, 2012

I had the honor of presenting an award to one of the winners at The Writers and Illustrators of the Future Awards here in Los Angeles at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. The entire event was so inspiring. Hearing all the winners speak after receiving their awards was so uplifting because they were so grateful and most of them couldn’t believe they won. Just makes me smile!! Congrats to all the winners!!

Anna with Gold Award Winner Hunter Bonyun.

Anna with Gold Award Winner Hunter Bonyun.

A Farm Girl From Finland

March 30th, 2012

Recently I asked on twitter and facebook what you’d like to know about me. This was asked by Bruce O’Handley – thanks Bruce! The question was: “What was life like growing up as a farm girl in Finland?” Well… I literally grew up pretty much middle of nowhere, we had lots of cows and lots of fields and forest and a lake too. Really a beautiful and peaceful setting when I look at it now. However, when I was little and that’s the only setting I knew – I didn’t appreciate it the same way I do now. I thought all the happening things would be in a city and I was often bored with my numerous barbies and watched a lot of American TV. :) It didn’t help that I wasn’t a winter person and I hated cold + the Finnish winters are quite long and very cold. But I did receive a good education and my parents were home all the time, so it was a good place to grow up. And certainly I wouldn’t be the person I am today, had I grown up somewhere else. And I learned to ski and ice skate really well. :)

Anna in Finland as kid.

Anna in Finland as a kid.

Hollywood Sign

March 15th, 2012

Last weekend I hiked up to the Hollywood sign. It is such a touristy, fun thing to do. It takes a semi-good hiker though. The trip is over 2 hours on foot. I guess you could try to bike it, but it’s a lot of uphill to get there. Very rewarding once you get there: You see all of LA in front of you and all of the Valley in the back of you. Pretty sweet. Totally would recommend it! :)

Anna at the Hollywood Sign

Anna at the Hollywood Sign

I swear I’ll be better!

March 1st, 2012

Oh oh! I have been a terrible blogger… I haven’t blogged anything for way over a year. But that’s about to change right now! I have been pretty good about posting on my facebook page and on twitter. So I give myself a pat on the back for that. And now I have my fingers crossed that the next post after this one will be next week as opposed to next year. LOL. We’ll see. I’m trying to be good about this from now on. Time will tell. :)

Here I am with some Oscars last week:

Anna Easteden Oscars 2012

Anna Easteden Oscars 2012

Women’s Forum in Deauville, France

November 7th, 2010

I had a pleasure of being a member of the “Scandinavian Delegation” for “The Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society”, which took place for the 6th time in Deauville, France last month (October).

At the Women's Forum

At the Women's Forum

My trip started in Paris, where I attended a session headed by Marie-Jo Zimmermann, a member of the parliament, at the French National Assembly. I also got a tour of the Assembly, which was very impressive, had lunch at the Swedish Ambassador’s residence and a cocktail hour at the Baccarat House Paris. :)

Ceiling inside the French Parliament

Ceiling inside the French Parliament

In Deauville I was throughly impressed by some of the speakers at the Forum: Christine Lagarde (Minister of Economic Affairs in France), Rula Jebreal, Zainab Salbi, Marie Staunton and Mu Sochua (Member of Parliament from Cambodia) were all especially great and touching speakers.

I enjoyed making some new friends as well, among them: Steinunn Sigurdardottir, a great writer from Iceland.

Steinunn Sigurdardottir with Anna Easteden

Steinunn Sigurdardottir with Anna Easteden

The last evening before I left back to Los Angeles, I had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful home of Aude de Thuin, the founder of the Forum. Thank you Aude for creating such a wonderful event!

Anna Easteden with Women's Forum Founder Aude de Thuin

Anna Easteden with Women's Forum Founder Aude de Thuin

Best Supporting Actress -nomination

May 16th, 2010
Anna Easteden at the Method Fest with Navid Negahban and Ron Gilbert

Anna Easteden at the Method Fest with Navid Negahban and Ron Gilbert

After Cinequest I went to the Cleveland International Film Festival where I got to hang out with some awesome filmmakers like Jesper Ganslandt from Sweden (his films “The Ape” and “Falkenberg Farewell” both played at the festival)  and documentary filmmaker Brian Kimmel (whose film “Ingredients” I recommend for everyone to see). I had a great time there and I loved it how many people came to the festival, both showings of “The House of Branching Love” were sold out!

The Japanese version of “Sideways” in which I co-star, by dir. Cellin Gluck played in Los Angeles at the Japan Film Festival. It was a big success and people loved it. It was also a lot of fun for me to reconnect with some of the cast and crew who I had not seen since shooting the film a year and a half ago.

And then the biggest news: I got nominated for “Best Supporting Actress” at the Method Fest film festival here in LA for my role as “Nina” in “The House of Branching Love”. How cool is that! One of my co-nominees is this year’s Oscar Nominee Carey Mulligan. I feel very good about being in the same category with her as I loved her in “An Education”. At the same film festival we also got a nomination for “The Best Ensemble Cast”. Yay!! I love it.

At the Method Fest with my good friend Anya Monzikova, producer Christopher Hempstead and director Hilbert Hakim.

At the Method Fest with my good friend Anya Monzikova, producer Christopher Hempstead and director Hilbert Hakim.

Cinequest opening night!

February 24th, 2010
Anna being interviewed at the Cinequest Opening event

Anna being interviewed at the Cinequest Opening event

I had such a great time in San Jose, CA last night at the opening party of Cinequest Film Festival. I was honored that Cinequest spotlighted me along with a few fellow actors/filmmakers before the opening night film “The Good Heart”. We were introduced to the audience of 1100 people on stage  at the historic California Theater and received a standing ovation. Made me feel so good!   :)  Thank you to everyone there in the audience and especially those people who made it happen: Michael Rabehl, Halfdan Hussey, Kathleen Powell and many others (Stephanie, Ben etc). I loved every minute of it!

Next week come and see me at the Cinequest screenings of “The House of Branching Love” on March 3rd at 7pm and March 6th at 1:30pm (both at California Theater). I look forward to seeing you there!

Pajamagram Commercial

February 10th, 2010
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Screen image of Anna from the Pajamagram commercial.

Guess how I know Valentine’s Day is approaching? … Well, I start getting bunch of messages from people asking if I am the red head in the Pajamagram commercial. It has happened now few years in a row. So, YES, it is me!!

Here it is for some of you who may have no idea what I am talking about (click below):

Anna Easteden – Pajamagram commercial

My very first post

January 23rd, 2010

Happy New Year 2010 to everyone!

Last night I watched the movie: Julie & Julia – so how fitting that I will start my blog the very next day. Both Meryl Street and Amy Adams are wonderful in it. That movie made me want to cook more than anything else. However, did not make me want to bone a chicken nor cook live seafood but that was expected as I am a vegetarian in the first place. :)

I just took a look back at 2009 and realized what a great year I had! I got to go to quite a few film festivals, where my films were playing and do Q and A’s in front of full theater audiences. Some of the most memorable were the Toronto International Film Festival, The Wine Country Film Festival (in Napa Valley with Oscar Nominee Rinko Kikuchi) and the AFI’s European Union Film Showcase in Washington, DC. Of course I loved the premiere of “The House of Branching Love” in Helsinki too. The movie did really well there. I think it was #2 overall for the whole year in the box office. Oh, and my co-stars: Hannu-Pekka Björkman and Elina Knihtilä just got nominated for the Jussi-awards in Finland. I am SO happy for them and wish them good luck!!

AnnaandRinko2

Anna Easteden and Rinko Kikuchi at the Wine Country Film Festival

I’d like to thank 2 fabulous directors without whom I would not have gotten to have these wonderful experiences: Mika Kaurismäki (dir. of “The House of Branching Love”) and Cellin Gluck (dir. of “Sideways”). You guys are great and I love you!

Hannu-Pekka Björkman, Mika Kaurismäki and Anna Easteden at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Hannu-Pekka Björkman, Mika Kaurismäki and Anna Easteden at the Toronto International Film Festival.