In 2020, Alma Pöysti landed her first main part in a movie, the biographical drama Tove, as the eponymous bisexual Finnish author. The film received excellent reviews, was selected by Finland as the country’s official Oscar submission, and played the festival circuit around the world, beginning with a splashy Toronto premiere. So you’d think she’d be used to the machinery of a global campaign by the time her next big vehicle, Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, bowed at Cannes last May. But you’d be wrong—due to COVID, Pöysti didn’t travel with Tove at all, with her experience of the film’s life entirely limited to the virtual realm.

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That’s made the charmed ride of Fallen Leaves feel all the sweeter. The spare, tender, superbly rendered romantic comedy from the legendary Kaurismäki will be Pöysti’s introduction to many, and there are worse ways to make your mark: The actor is fragile, affecting, and a deadpan revelation as Ansa, a supermarket shelf stocker who falls hard for a lonely alcoholic named Holappa (Jussi Vatanen). Kaurismäki teases tremendous hope and beauty out of their budding connection, filled as it is with clumsy exchanges and awkward dialogue. Since winning a Jury Prize at Cannes, the film has been nominated for best picture at the European Film Awards, made the international-shortlist cut at the Oscars, and brought a wave of attention Pöysti’s way.

Most notably, Pöysti is now a Golden Globe nominee in a field dominated by the likes of Barbie’s Margot Robbie, Poor Things’ Emma Stone, and May December’s Natalie Portman. For an awards show known for recognizing big names in its comedy categories—Cruella’s Stone and Music’s Kate Hudson among recent nominees—Pöysti’s presence in this year’s field feels especially remarkable, and a reminder, as we discuss on this week’s Little Gold Men (read or listen below), that things aren’t slowing down for her anytime soon.

Vanity Fair: I would imagine you were not expecting this nomination. It doesn’t happen too often for Finnish films.

Alma Pöysti: I didn’t even understand what was happening, because I just heard someone say, “Oh, the film is on the list for the Golden Globes,” but I didn’t realize that I was on a list too! That was really crazy. Then we realized later on—the whole of Finland went nuts—that this hasn’t happened since the ’50s, that a Finnish actor or actress has been nominated. And it’s the first time for a Finnish film, actually. So that’s historic.

It’s pretty exciting to see your name next to Margot Robbie, Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman. In the best way, you stand out there.

Oh, my God, I am so honored. I love this genre, also: You can have Barbie and Fallen Leaves in the same category. That says a lot about where humor can go.

I’d love to ask you a little bit about that. This is a very particular kind of comedy. But how have you found talking about the movie in that regard, and being a part of a movie that is actually very droll, very dry, but very funny?

Aki Kaurismäki said that we were going to make a romantic comedy with this deadpan humor. He also said that there’s going to be one kiss on the cheek, one handshake, and one kiss on the forehead—so it will be full of passion. [Laughs]

True to Kaurismäki form.

Yes, true to Kaurismäki. And he has this unique humor that no one can copy. It’s like a grounding force of life. The humor in his films is really what is getting the characters through their day because they’re living quite rough lives, but then they have this warmth, and heart, and humanity around them.

With a director like that, when you’re playing the comedy. Is it something that comes through naturally? Is it something where you’re trying things out?

Aki has a very particular method. He doesn’t want us to rehearse, for one, and then he does want to do the movie in one take—all the scenes in one take. You need to get it right from the start. The whole thing is done in one take, actually, and so it’s a very high level of concentration. There’s really no room for improvisation. There’s definitely room for life, but it’s a very minimalistic life. You just have to trust that it’s there and it’s between the lines and not act it out, because then you probably will destroy the thing. That wouldn’t be funny.

Trust in the audience—he does that a lot. The movie is quite silent. The Finns are known to be a shy bunch of people, and we do enjoy our silences, and there are a lot of things happening in those silences. There’s a lot of dialogue without words.

You mentioned Kaurismäki’s approach to romance—one kiss, etc.—but the movie is quite romantic in his way. How did you find developing that connection with Jussi Vatanen?

We really didn’t have to work on the chemistry, as you say, because it was already there, and we can just somehow enjoy acting and these scenes, all of these awkward moments where everything is at stake for these poor people and everything is so fragile. They fall in love for perhaps the first and the only time in their lives. It’s just wonderful to act and to be and to stretch those awkward moments because these people, they’re not used to dating. Everything is quite clumsy.

Did you find the awkwardness and the clumsiness enhanced by the fact that you were going into takes pretty cold? You’re figuring it out with him on the fly, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But it’s wonderful when you have great people you can really trust. Aki has been doing this for 40 years, so he really knows what he’s doing when he throws us in there. And he appreciates actors in the way that we bring our own handwriting to the scene and our own life. So that was very welcomed, even though everything else was extremely exact and clearly envisioned. So the rhythm was very clear. Before the take, we went through a very what you could say—a minimalistic rehearsal—and you just say “Okay, then you look there, then you walk there and in this pace.” But that was it. And then you go.

I’ve seen you talk about being a Finnish actor and growing up in Finland under the shadow of Kaurismäki for pretty much your whole life. So what is it like to have that in your mind and then step onto a set of his?

It’s just such a surreal honor to even be asked to be part of his cinematic universe. We’ve been under his influence for a long time. As an actor, you know what’s expected in terms of his aesthetics and the acting. I rewatched all his movies and tried to tune into that universe and the tone, not to copy what the actors had done before. I thought that maybe Ansa could be somehow a distant cousin to some other character in another movie, to be aware that you’re part of a link through all these films—it’s 20 films by now, so you have to have a connection to the rest of the work. That was a way of preparing, I guess, and not a sneaky way. [Laughs]

You made this movie in like three weeks, right?

Yeah, a little more than 20 days. That’s how you do it when you get one take, I guess. [Laughs] And Aki says he cuts before he shoots, so he doesn’t get any extra material.

The sign of a great movie is when you make it for three weeks and then you spend six months talking about it, which you guys have been doing. I was thinking about it in the context of your last film that I’d seen, which premiered in 2020. Tove premiered in the height of COVID, and that was a breakout role for you, right?

Yeah, I’ve been talking more about [Fallen Leaves] that I’d been actually shooting it! It’s a privilege to get to travel with it and talk to people and meet all audiences from different parts of the world and see how it really corresponds with people. They really seem to take it to heart, and they thank us for giving them a warmer and safer place for 81 minutes.

Tove was my first main part in the feature. It also really did really well, and people found it, and it traveled to lots of countries—but we didn’t. We sat at home on Zoom doing interviews. These are the things that COVID taught us, also to be very grateful for when you actually can travel, when you can’t get together, you can go to the movies or to the theater and experience things together. For me to be able to travel with this movie, it’s something I’m extremely grateful for. It’s also meeting the audiences. As an actress, I miss that connection a lot when I’m filming.

Since this is the first time you’ve done a campaign like this, how do you feel as an actor coming out of it?

It’s opening some doors, for sure. I’m getting wonderful offers for work, and it’s exciting—more international adventures are opening. I’m very excited about that. And then you realize also when you meet your stars or your heroes that, “Oh, yeah, they’re also just humans.”

Is there a particular takeaway of this movie that has resonated with you? Especially in the way it ends, there’s this feeling of hope that feels very earned.

For me, one thing that stands out is how Aki is proposing caring and compassion in a very concrete way, as a counterforce for cynicism and exploitation. He shows that in so many concrete ways in this movie: as long as you have a solidarity and a loyalty towards each other, then you have some power in your life, even if you are otherwise having a rough time. That’s quite beautiful. It can be friendship, it can be love, it can be towards a dog. It comes in many forms, but this way of caring is really what I’m taking with me.

What about in terms of your work? Is there a scene that you just feel particularly proud of, knowing that you had one take, that you just felt like you got right?

When Ansa and Holappa meet for the first time, and their eyes lock during “Serenade” by Schubert at a karaoke bar—I did not know you could drag out a gaze like that the way Kaurismäki does. It was really enjoyable to do, and somehow world-altering for these two characters, when destiny somehow crashes into their lives and gives them this huge opportunity for love and something shivers in them both.

That gaze is so memorable.

I’m like, “Wow.” It just goes on and on and it’s everything. Everything was at stake. It’s like a magnet. You just have to look, even though you’re so shy that you rather look away and then you just have to look again. It’s a very human moment.

I’m starting to understand the power of this one-take method, because all of these human moments that you’re describing—you walk in and even if it’s just looking at someone, it’s very raw.

Yeah, it is very raw. And as soon as you have to repeat it, there comes this element of fake, a little. You have to pretend that it didn’t happen before, and then you have to act it out more. That was one thing he said: Don’t act. That was the only advice he gave us.

This interview has been edited and condensed.